May Day Celebrations

The 1 May many May Day rallies and demonstrations were held across the Russian Federation. Overall, 1297 different mass actions took place in 83 regions of the Russian Federation and 1.5 million people participated in rallies and demonstrations. This year the holiday was characterized by sharp political tension. Not only communists and labour activists gathered in rallies but there were also representatives of right forces, nationalists, monarchists and the United the Russian Federation members. During May Day holidays a few protest actions against homosexuals were held by nationalists. (05-MAY-06)

Text: HRH/ Moscow, Yanina Savenko. Sources: www.news.ru, www.gazeta.ru, www.rian.ru. Photos: Konstantin Kutsylo,  www.gazeta.ru and www.news.ru

The Communists rally in Moscow was joined by representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, National-Bolsheviks from Eduard Limonov’s party, “Avant-guard of Red Youth”, members of a few Russian nationalistic parties and monarchists. The Communists, meanwhile, marched from Oktyabrskaya Ploshchad to their usual rallying spot opposite the Bolshoi Theater by the statue of Karl Marx. The 10,000-member crowd carried red banners, and some people shouted, “Our homeland is the U.S.S.R”. There were posters with radical slogans such as “Down with the Putin’s Regime!” and also slogans with concrete protests against social programs envisaged by the authorities (“Down the reform of housing and utility services!”).  In St. Petersburg, 15,000 people marched behind an orchestra playing patriotic songs. Participants included Communists, the United the Russian Federation members and labor activists, were carrying portraits of Che Guevara, Lenin, Stalin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka. Some of them denounced the Kremlin in a loud voice.

– Minimum wage in the Russian Federation is a real disgrace
In the most mass rally in Moscow, organized by trade unions opposite the Mayor’s Office, participated 25 thousand persons. In spite of antigovernmental slogans, the United the Russian Federation supporters joined labour activists. Mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov, having taken the floor, severely criticized the government of the Russian Federation and attacked the Minister of finance Andrey Kudrin. “It seems to me that today the government and, first of all, the Ministry of Finance are confused because they don’t know what to do with huge amounts of money! And I’m asking Mister Kudrin – Dear Mister Minister, look, what have you done to the country?” Luzhkov criticized the government for not using multibillion-dollar oil revenues collected in the stabilization fund in order to raise living standards. He said that minimum wage – even with a recent raise to 1,100 rubles ($45) – was far too low. “What is 800 rubles? Now it is 1,100 rubles. It is a disgrace, a real disgrace,” Luzhkov said.

May Day gives an opportunity to state a civil position
The participants of rallies of the “Union of Right Forces” were not so numerous. About 1000 persons gathered in the rally. The main slogan of the rally was “Happy May Day, citizens!” There were also many other slogans: “We don’t need a vertical of authorities”, “Don’t confuse patriotism with nationalism”, “It’s better to have more rich, nice and different people”. The demonstration for members of the “Union of Right Forces” was a statement of their civil position, – the leader of the party Nikita Belyh said. According to Nikita Belyh, there is not enough holydays or events when people can express their opinion, and May Day is one of these days when leaders and participants of the democratic movement can go into the streets with their slogans. As soon as the action was over, participants of the procession took river boats and went along the Moscow River.

Nationalists were allowed to held a procession
Youth activists with the nationalist Movement Against Illegal Immigration participated in the rally, in spite of the fact that the day before human rights activists sent a telegram to Mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov asking him to bar activists of nationalist movements from marching through Moscow on May Day. “Human rights activists believe that participation in mass actions of representatives of nationalist parties, advancing nationalistic slogans, is dangerous”, said the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group Ludmila Alekseeva. Leaders of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration organized the contentious Nazi-march through central Moscow on the 4 November 2005.

Nationalists held protest actions against homosexuals
During May holidays members of the nationalist Movement Against Illegal Immigration (or DPNE) organized a few actions against homosexuals, who had held their festival in Moscow. The 30 April a group of aggressive skinheads and women carrying Orthodox icons and a priest deranged a homosexual party in a bar in Moscow. Next day a photo gallery, which had been mentioned on nationalistic web sites as a place of exhibition of homosexual photos, was burnt down.  In the evening on the 1 May about 150 members of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration and a few women with icons gathered in a protest action near the bar “Tri Obezyany” (“Three monkeys”) in Moscow, where a meeting of homosexuals had been planned. Policemen stood guard near the building, expecting an attack. The opponents of homosexual love waged a fight with policemen and, as a result, many of them were detained. Homosexuals believe that an attack on their rights will be repeated and they are going to unite in a new nongovernmental organization in order to be more protected.