MOSCOW, December 5 (Itar-Tass) — The Coordination Council of the opposition, which is planning to hold a march on December 15, has officially rejected a route of the march suggested by the Moscow city administration (from Pushkinskaya metro to Sakharov Prospect).
"We suggest that the Moscow administration should map out a route which should be no shorter than four kilometers and terminate in one of the central city squares – Lubyanka, Manezh, Revolution or Slavyanskaya squares,” member of the Coordination Council of the opposition (KSO) Sergei Udaltsov told Itar-Tass. "The organizers of the march have not specified a starting point of the march in their letter sent to the Mayor's office in reply to the route it proposed. 'We have offered the city officials a possibility of maneuver: let them propose their route," Udaltsov said.
Earlier, the Moscow Mayor's office had turned down the variants the KSO suggested – either from Kaluzhskaya square to Lubyanka square or from Novokuznetskaya metro to Lubyanka square.
Alexei Mayorov – a representative of the Moscow Mayor's office, explained that the reason why the route planned by the opposition was turned down is "a difficult road situation in winter. A march numbering 50,000 will paralyze the city for half a day," he said.
Nevertheless, the KSO has declared that terminating the march near the Solovetsky Stone in Lubyanka square was their main condition because the slogan of the march is "Freedom to political prisoners."
"We are prepared for talks," Udaltsov said.