The Moscow Town Hall on Tuesday refused to coordinate the Opposition's Freedom March along the Opposition-proposed route. The organizers of the action planned to end the march near the building of the Federal Security Service in Lubyanka, but the city government said the place of destination was inappropriate. Instead, they offered the organizing committee the route from Pushkinskaya Square to Sakharov Avenue, where the last two Marches of Millions had been staged. The upcoming march is timed with the anniversary of the protests caused by citizens' discontent with the results of the parliamentary election.
Opposition activists told the Kommersant that they were ready to consider any proposed routes, but only in case Lubyanka Square remained the final point. The Moscow government officials said it was not possible.
"It is of crucial significance for us to end the march in Lubyanka, because the action should differ from the March of Millions somehow, not only by its name," organizing committee member Sergei Davidis stated.
In his opinion, the action will not create any big problems for traffic as the Opposition decided not to stage the concluding rally for the first time.
"The routes proposed by the applicants envision the blocking of too many important roads, which might cause serious traffic problems in the winter. If they wished to coordinate quickly, they would have offered acceptable options, but if they wish to argue, let them do it between themselves," head of Moscow's regional security department Alexei Mayorov told the Kommersant.
The Nezavisimaya Gazeta reminds that the Opposition marks a jubilee today: a year ago, the first meeting in Moscow "For Fair Election" gathered several thousand people and escalated to clashes with police.
The call for coming out in Chistye Prudy on December 5 has been disseminated on Twitter and social networks for several days already. "The action does not require coordination; we're asking you to come without posters and not to stage any rally or single pickets," the group for the action called Point of No Return said on Facebook, "we wish to see again the people who are ready to continue the fight."
By the time the issue went to press, some 2,000 people had been invited. Of those, 200 stated they would turn up or the action for sure. Others were undecided. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted that the December rally a year ago was not expected to be large, and that the invitations to attend had been sent through social networks and blogs as well. But the tough dispersal of the march toward the Central Election Commission, which followed the rally, launched a series of actions For Fair Elections that gathered thousands of people. A year ago, the Russian Opposition charged its face completely as many new persons and various representatives of the Russian society joined it.
Deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies Boris Makarenko, cited by the newspaper, noted that the authorities and the society would mark December 5 with absolutely different agendas: the society has clearly designated new requirement, whereas the authorities have lost the opportunity to meet it halfway. The protest, as some believe, has not exhausted itself; it has gone into the future and become legitimate for a considerable portion of the society." So the six years we are facing will differ fundamentally from the previous existence of Russia. " "Another couple of inept reforms that infringe upon people's interests and the December 5, 2011 events will look like a child's play," he said.