Latest Creative Civil Disobedience on Moscow’s Ring Road Shows That Russian People are Back

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Russian opposition takes protest to Moscow’s ring road

Protest to Moscow’s Ring Road

30 Jan 2012
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Medvedev-(R)-2901.jpg – Medvedev-(R)-2901.jpg
Russia’s President Medvedev (R) and Prime Minister Putin

Thousands of opposition activists took to their cars Sunday to protest Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s bid to return to the presidency, in a rally held on a Moscow ring road. Some 3,000 cars joined the protest, according to organisers: police said they numbered only 300.

With horns blaring, they drove for some three hours, causing major bottlenecks on the 15-kilometre (nine-mile) ring road — known as the Garden Ring — encircling city centre. Some cars were papered over so they were entirely white — the colour of the anti-Putin movement — others were decked with white ribbons and balloons, and some sported snowmen on their roofs in the action dubbed “white ring”.

The operation was organised via social networking Internet sites by the Voters League, set up by journalists, bloggers, writers and artists ahead of the March 4 presidential poll to campaign for democratic elections.