Moscow, december 4th, I get out of my accommodation to go to the city center: I’m going to look what will happen in this election day, here in Russia.
I knew at 2 pm was organized a not-authorized demonstration of the left organization “Levyj Front” (Left Front), the meeting point is on the Red Square. I arrive at the metro station Okhotnyj Rjad and walking in to the underpasses of the station I notice several exits were closed by the police. I find a free exit, get on the surface and all around me I see a big group of people, surrounded by photographers and policemen, who try to show leaflets and banners.
Policemen rip off the leaflets from the demonstrators’ hands and stand in line, walking ahead to push off people far from the Red Square.
Journalists try to interview the demonstrators, they talk to young and elderly people, but it’s impossible to stand, police pushes off all the crowd. In half an hour everyone is “gently” pushed away in another metro station: a policeman repeats at the megaphone “Dear citizens, please, keep the passage free, don’t stop in the middle of the street. Access to the Red Square is denied.” A Left Front activist is being interviewed: “That’s incredible! Red Square is always open, why they closed it just today? It’s only a way to deny us the right to manifest our disagreement!”
Police pushes off me too, and I decide to continue my “trip” on the Tverskaja street, directed to the polling station situated next to the old telegraph. I ask permission to take photos and get in. The polling station is crowded, especially at the information desk, there’s so much confusion that a couple, getting out with difficulty from the crowd, decides that it’s not worth voting.
I finally can reach the center of the polling station and I find the theater of the absurd: polling cabs are not cabs! They are simply shelves, voting on which everyone can see what party people are putting the cross on. An elderly man asks an employee how has he to vote, the employee shows a point on the voting paper and says “So, look: you have to put a cross right here”. A girls votes, then she looks back, shows her vote to her boyfriend, who takes a photo of it with a phone.
Everything it’s strange for me, the polling boxes too: they are the most futuristic polling boxes I ever seen, they are not simple boxes with a hole, but they look like drink dispensers in which instead of the money you have to put the voting paper, opened. Some people come to the boxes with the voting paper closed, and they have to open it, and sometimes is possible to see who, or who not they voted for.
After my visit at the polling station, I continue my walk on the Tverskaja street, directed to Triumfal’naja Square, where at 6 pm should be a demonstration organized by the party Drugaja Rossija “The Other Russia”. 100 meters from the square I can see a colossal presence of the police: on the whole street, on both sides, were put huge police trucks and on the streets walks more policemen than normal people.
Inside one of these trucks I can see some people sit, young, without uniforms. After some hours I heard that police arrested “known people” before they could reach the square.
It’s 4pm, two hours before the programmed start of the demonstration, and the square was already full of barriers and policemen. It’s forbidden to stop, everyone has to walk in the thigh passages created by the barriers. I walk around till 5.45 pm, when suddenly all photographs and journalists run in direction of one of the police trucks: a demonstrator was arrested and is put in the truck. He either could shout a slogan, maybe policemen just recognized him. I stand with other photographers near to the truck, and after 5 minutes, policemen decide we are disturbing other people to walk, and they start to push us away, together with some demonstrators (who kept silence still).
We are pushed so fast, that we are all pushed one on the other and it’s impossible to move ahead. Some girls near to me start to shout “Give us back the choice”. Some policeman jump on the crowd, push, and we all fall on the ground, I fall on a barrier and one of that girls falls on me. A policeman takes her, passes her to another policeman and turns on my direction, I scare he could take me too, but a boy who stand next to me gives me a hand and takes me out.
Police pushes off the demonstrators and agents start to arrest everyone who shout a slogan, but the crowd continues to shout “Shame on you! Shame on you!”, so policemen start to arrest random people from the crowd, the first ones the can catch.
I decide to go far from police and start talking to people. I was talking to a boy, a national-bolshevik while the policemen get closer. I make two steps, turn back and see that police arrested that boy, only because he was not walking as fast as they wanted.
The demonstration so ended: on the square there are only photographers and journalist on one side, policemen on the other side. Demonstrators run out, there’s no one to arrest more. Police let us pass on.
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