◼ POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek August 19, 201934
to turn as they pushed me in, so instead of breaking
my nose on the door frame, I just banged my head.”
The protest-arrest cycle, which began in July, has
become a weekly routine in Moscow, even as escalat-
ing crackdowns by police have led to thousands of
detentions. Some are facing five years or more in jail
under “mass unrest” statutes, which are designed
to quell riots, not the peaceful rallies the Kremlin’s
opponents are mounting. In at least one case, police
threatened to strip the parental rights of a couple
who’d brought their toddler to a protest. Authorities
have deployed thousands of riot police and pha-
lanxes of investigators and hastily organized music
and food festivals—including one with the unfortu-
nate name Meat&Beat—to divert potential protesters.
The demonstrations represent the biggest public
challenge to Vladimir Putin’s two-decade rule since▼ Moscow protesters
on Aug. 10● With oil prices falling—and taking living standards with them—the people are finding ways to express their discontentPutin’s Post-Crimea
High Is Wearing Off
Yevgeny Dubinin had never been to a political
protest. But he was so angry authorities had refused
to register opposition candidates in the Moscow
city council election that he couldn’t stay home.
“They’re taking away people’s right to vote, telling
them whom to vote for,” the 44-year-old business
manager said on his way to a late-July demonstra-
tion on the capital’s main street, Tverskaya, that had
been denied a permit by authorities. “If people don’t
stand up for their last remaining right now,” he said,
“they’ll lose everything else.”
Once Dubinin arrived, he managed to hold up
his small homemade sign for only a few moments.
“I heard a scream, and then I saw five or six men in
uniforms and masks running toward me,” he recalls.
“They took me by the arms and legs and dragged me
to a bus with bars on the windows. I just managedEMIN DZHAFAROV/KOMMERSANT/AP PHOTO