Tens of Thousands Protest in Moscow, Russia
Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters marched on Saturday through a city gripped by bitter, Arctic cold, in a third major effort by Russians opposed to Vladimir V. Putin’s return to the presidency.
A series of similar actions in December shocked the Russian establishment with their size and giddy, infectious mood, as a famously passive part of the electorate coalesced into huge crowds that chanted “Putin, go away” and “We exist.” But the momentum seemed to dissipate during the month of January, as opposition factions squabbled and Mr. Putin’s victory in the March 4 election began to appear imminent and certain.
Then, of course, there was the weather — at noon the sun was a remote white disk above the horizon, and the temperature was measured at 20 degrees below zero Celsius, or —4 Fahrenheit.
Despite that, city authorities said that Saturday’s crowd was larger than either of the December gatherings, offering an estimate of 36,000. Organizers gave an estimate of 120,000.
At the head of the march, people pressed around the anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny, shouting, “Aleksei, we are behind you!” and “We will follow you!” At first, the crowd was so tightly packed that the column could not move forward.
“We’re cold, but we came,” said Mr. Navalny, who has attracted digitally connected young Russians new to political activism. “This is not some fashion for protest. This is a real protest, because people keep coming. People came on their own — we don’t have any buses, we’re not bringing people here. All we do is send out a call. And the people come.”