"1-2-3 Putin go away" - B92 at Moscow protest rally

"1-2-3 Putin go away" - B92 at Moscow protest rally

For three dramatic hours the police was trying to push demonstrators from Tverskaya Street in central Moscow. For three hours they did not allow it, until the police lost their patience and arrested one by one.

"One, two, three, Putin, go away! Down with the tsar," read one of the slogans. Some of the young people, and they, the young people, made up the largest group among the protesters, tried to convert the equally young officers.

"You took your oath! That is more important than your orders," could be heard from the crowd.

At it all started peacefully at about 2 o'clock. At first people planned to match, without their leader Navalny, who was arrested as soon as he came out of his apartment building. Navalny's decision to suddenly move the rally from its original to another location, thus make it unauthorized, was commented in different ways.

"It would have been better if it was at Sakharov's Prospect, because then it would have been a real rally. To whom could we say our opinion. I, for example, do not support the government. I would have gone there and said it. Dear government let's eradicate corruption," said one demonstrator.

"I planned to go to the Sakharov Prospect," said another, "but I think it's better that it's in Tverskaya, because it will be more interesting here. There are early historical reenactments." While the crowd waited for the police to allow them to move from the first enclosure into the one that leads to the metal detector, and started to lose patience because it too long, they began chanting "Russia without Putin" and "Russia will be free", that was spread through the crowd like a flame.

It started with the chanting, ended with mass pushing with the police, and arrests in Moscow's central Moscow street, where a festival dubbed Times and Epochs was to be held and feature historical reenactments.