The Economist UK - 07.09.2019

32 Europe The EconomistSeptember 7th 2019

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tents went up in central Moscow, officials

fretted that this might be the start of a Uk-

rainian-style uprising. The siloviki came

rushing in to crush it. They beat up un-

armed protesters, including women, ar-

rested some 1,400 and threatened to take

away children from parents who brought

them to protests. “We wanted to set a small

fire and fry up United Russia [the ruling

party]. But then the Kremlin dumped a can-

ister of petrol into it,” says Mr Navalny.

What started as a protest against elec-

toral shenanigans turned into a broader

movement for human rights. The initial

slogan dopuskai “let [the candidates] in”

changed into otpuskai,“let [political pris-

oners] out”. Kirill Rogov, an analyst, says

that the one thing that independent-mind-

ed Russians can agree on is that they

should be allowed to demonstrate without

being beaten up.

“Society is no longer prepared to put up

with violence,” says Grigory Okhotin of

ovd-Info, a human-rights group that mon-

itors and provides legal help to the victims

of repression. In recent weeks the group

has seen an eight-fold increase in volun-

tary donations and a doubling of the num-

ber of volunteers, most in their mid-20s.

“They are intolerant [of ] repression and

don’t want to wait for Russia to turn into a

normal country. They want to live in a nor-

mal country now,” says Mr Okhotin.

In a poll by the Levada Centre, 41% of

Russians (and half of Muscovites) said they

thought the state’s use of force was exces-

sive and cruel; only 32% deemed it justi-

fied. Many people who once saw the state

as a guarantor of stability and growth now

see it as a threat. Hoping to de-escalate the

crisis, the Kremlin has apparently trans-

ferred control of the Moscow streets back

to civilians. The most recent protest on Au-

gust 31st ended peacefully.

This tactical retreat may be followed by

more repression. But the summer protests

showed that brutality has costs. As Mr Zhu-

kov wrote in his letter from prison, the re-

gime’s fall could be as sudden as his own

arrest, the ring of history’s bell dividing

Russia’s life into before and after. 7

W

ith hordesof distracted tourists

crowding its labyrinthine streets,

Venice offers rich pickings for pick-

pockets, especially during the summer

crush. The police cannot cope. So volun-

teers known as Cittadini non distratti

(cnd), or Undistracted Citizens, help

them out.

Most of cnd’s roughly 60 members

just take pictures of suspects, using

WhatsApp to pass along leads to cops.

Some only grab the thieves they spot in

the shops and bars where they are em-

ployed. Even so, cndis behind a third of

pickpocket arrests in Venice, says Fran-

cesco Livieri, a deputy police commis-

sioner. Collaboration between cndand

the cops is so tight, Mr Livieri jokes, that

he spends more time with the volunteers

than with his wife.

Privately, some volunteers say that

they are behind many more than a third

of pickpocket arrests. Cops are thin on

the ground but “we have eyes every-

where”, says Franco Dei Rossi, an affable

68-year-old street painter who founded

the group nearly three decades ago.

Members must decline any rewards from

victims (including, says Mr Dei Rossi, the

occasional come-on). As he is speaking,

two men who the group says have been

picking pockets for weeks stroll past and,

upon recognising Mr Dei Rossi, smile

wryly. He shouts back: “Get a job!”

Some members accuse city officials of

neglecting pickpockets and pursuing

illegal picnickers instead, who are much

easier to catch and fine. Slow, lenient

courts fuel street crime, says Monica

Poli, a cndmember. A cleaner, she hunts

pickpockets after work near Venice’s

train station, where apprentice thieves

learn their trade by relieving newly

arrived tourists of their wallets. “Here, I

run things,” Ms Poli says. Perhaps, but Ms

Poli was recently beaten twice by packs of

female pickpockets. In Venice, they

outnumber their male colleagues.

The crusade is getting harder. Pick-

pockets circulate photos of cndvolun-

teers, eroding their element of surprise.

Also, it is no longer advisable for volun-

teers to restrain someone with a hand in

a stranger’s purse. The courts now prefer

that volunteers wait until the hand has

emerged clutching valuables. And fe-

male thieves have a dastardly tactic to

thwart their pursuers. When caught, they

routinely scream that they are being

groped or raped. This has made citizens’

arrests dangerous, says a cndmember.

He says he recently grabbed a thief who

promptly ripped her own shirt and

screamed that she was being attacked.

Says Damiano Gizzi, a volunteer: “we risk

a lynching.”

Hands to yourself

Italian crime

VENICE

Nabbing the floating city’s thieves

O

n september 1 st Germany’s ruling

Christian Democratic Union (cdu)

scored its worst result at a state election in

Saxony for three decades—and the party

faithful, crammed into a sweaty restaurant

in Dresden, cheered it to the rafters. For al-

though the party’s 32% share was almost

one-fifth lower than in the last vote, in

2014, it was enough to stop the hard-right

Alternative for Germany (afd) from win-

ning its first state election. A similar story

unfolded in Brandenburg, another eastern

state, where the ruling Social Democrats

(spd) squeaked a victory over the afdwith

just over a quarter of the vote. The spdonce

scored absolute majorities here. But the

afd’s performance in eastern Germany has

dramatically lowered the bar for what other

parties consider success.

Disaster averted, then? The probable

survival of the ruling parties in both states

provides a little breathing-space to Ger-

many’s federal coalition, an unhappy mar-

riage of the cdu(plus its Bavarian sister

party) with the spd. Annegret Kramp-Kar-

renbauer, the cdu’s embattled national

leader, can thank Michael Kretschmer, her

counterpart in Saxony, for leading the party

to victory in a spirited campaign. For the

spd, divided and rudderless, losing Bran-

denburg would have darkened the mood

further as it begins a campaign to choose a

leader to replace the one it kicked out in

June. Several of the candidates still want

the party to leave the federal government, a

decision it must make in December.

In the two states, the ruling parties now

begin the tough work of building co-

alitions. In Saxony Mr Kretschmer’s only

DRESDEN

The parties that form Germany’s ruling

coalition escape electoral disaster

Germany

Meltdown averted