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Action For Fair Election over on Moscow’s Garden Ring

The organizers said nearly 30,000 people made the live circle
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, February 26 (Itar-Tass) —— The action For Fair Election is over on Moscow’s Garden Ring. The live circle lasted for about 20 minutes before the flash mob participants left.

The action continued thousands-strong protest rallies, which started in Moscow after the State Duma election in 2011. The opposition events have changed their rhetoric to anti-Putin.

There was no need to coordinate the flash mob with the city authorities, and in contrast to rallies, marches and pickets its participants carried no slogans or placards and made no speeches.

The organizers said nearly 30,000 people made the live circle. “The circle was closed without impeding the traffic. This means no less than 30,000 people are taking part in the action,” Left Front coordinator Sergei Udaltsov told Itar-Tass. The city police argued that the action had drawn 11,000 participants.

Opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov, Boris Akunin, Sergei Parkhomenko, Yevgenia Chirikova and Alexei Navalny joined the action. “This action has no organizers. It is a pure people’s initiative,” Nemtsov told Itar-Tass.

Drivers moving along the Garden Ring were honking horns to greet the protesters.

Meanwhile, pro-Kremlin youth movements were distributing toy hearts with “Putin Loves All” inscriptions near stations of the Moscow metro circular line. Banners, “For Putin. This is It”, were hanging on some buildings on the Garden Ring.