Opposition rallies in Russia

[bumblebee 2,528]

As a promising symbol that not everything is cancelled in my flop country, the 12th of June 2017 was marked by the wave of anti-Government protests. Dozens of thousands of people have marched and gathered in all the biggest cities of Russia. They expressed dissatisfaction and disappointment with the work of Russian Prime Minister Mr. Medvedev and demanded his resignation. There were also a lot of anti-Putin messages. The protests were organized by Mr. Navalny, Russia's most successful opposition politician, in the wake of the release of his documentary-investigation that revealed alleged corruption schemes inside the Russian government. 

In those cities where the location of the protest actions was approved by the local authorities, the actions proceeded peacefully and without emergencies. However, in those cities where the locations were not approved by the local authorities, people were detained in massive numbers. Those cities inlcuded, most importantly, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the two largest cities of Russia with population of over 12,000,000 and 5,000,000 people respectively. 

The protests gathered a lot of people in many Russian cities; despite the difference in the location, people were united by the ideas of a free country with the strong rule of law. The most surprising thing was the unexpectedly high turnout of young people of 14-18 years (who got arrested, too ). It is a sign that even though Putin is rather strong at the moment, the younger generation will never buy the bullsh** he or other authoritarian leaders are trying to sell. 

There were also a lot of LGBTQ members in the protests, because this is sadly the only platform left for them where they can openly educate people about all the horrific things that sometimes happen to the LGBTQ members in Russia 

Here are some candids for you: 

 Omsk

 Vladivostok 

Barnaul 

Novosibirsk 

Moscow

Moscow

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

[Morphine Prince 110,031]

 

[Monster34 974]

Your Gezi Protests. 

A message from a fellow Turk, don't be too harsh.  Otherwise, your autocrat Putin can follow the foot steps of Erdogan by mellowing a bit first, then cracking down anything opposing him 

Spoiler

Turkey had the same sort of liberal uprising against Erdogan's regime couple years ago, spirit of the protests themselves were like a communist utopia. Then Erdogan became more of an autocrat fearing united power of people.

 

 

[Bye 3,947]

So many young people, no matter what old Russians and the authorities want, the young ones are the future of the country! Resist!

[bumblebee 2,528]

1 minute ago, Morphine Prince said:

 

About 25% of all the people who got arrested were under 18 years old

 

[SychosSoChic 9,995]

I need to research why Russia has so many periods in its history where dictators or oppressive leaders rise and rule and leave misery in their wake

I still don't feel optimistic about Russia's future as a country of tolerance or equality tbh

[Monster34 974]

5 minutes ago, bumblebee said:

About 25% of all the people who got arrested were under 18 years old

What do cops do to stop people ? Do they use tear gas ? Or just their heavy plastic sticks ? 

[bumblebee 2,528]

4 minutes ago, Monster34 said:

Your Gezi Protests. 

A message from a fellow Turk, don't be too harsh.  Otherwise, your autocrat Putin can follow the foot steps of Erdogan by mellowing a bit first, then cracking down anything opposing him 

  Reveal hidden contents

Turkey had the same sort of liberal uprising against Erdogan's regime couple years ago, protests themselves were organized by educated liberals so it was like an utopia. Then Erdogan became more of an autocrat fearing united power of people. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgY935jXFbQ

 

Thank you so much for the feedback! 

However, I guess that Putin and Erdogan, despite both having some authoritarian origins, are very different. Russia has been through a capital MESS in the 1990s and Putin witnessed that mess. He knows that if he pisses of a lot people, he can easily lose the power and those people who now pretend to be his friends out of fear, will gladly betray him for another ruler. That's why he is acting more cautious. (For example, twitter, youtube, wikipedia and all the major sources of information are allowed in Russia) 

[bumblebee 2,528]

Heavy plastic sticks. No gas or water used to stop the protests. Basically the policemen were just forming the lines and chains and pushing people out of the streets 

[FATCAT 60,983]

4 minutes ago, SychosSoChic said:

I need to research why Russia has so many periods in its history where dictators or oppressive leaders rise and rule and leave misery in their wake

I still don't feel optimistic about Russia's future as a country of tolerance or equality tbh

Well, Putin rose to power after serving as a KGB agent in the UUSR, so it's more so just generational lapses. Bad luck. 

[bumblebee 2,528]

3 minutes ago, SychosSoChic said:

I need to research why Russia has so many periods in its history where dictators or oppressive leaders rise and rule and leave misery in their wake

I still don't feel optimistic about Russia's future as a country of tolerance or equality tbh

I think there can be some simple economic reasons behind this. For example, one of the major reasons of Putin's power and insane ratings is explained by the following. 

So people wanted to switch from the USSR to Russia and they did in 1991-1993. And the majority of them wanted freedom of speech, political competition and free market rules, and the institutions of the civil society of the western world. And they got it, because in the 1990s we had independent branches of power, we had Parliament that used to piss the President off, but the President could do nothing about it because his party was in the opposition, we had TV and radio openly criticizing the government when they felt it was right and so on. 

In order to switch the economy to the model of the free market, Russia initiated some loans from IMF, but despite the fact that the democracy was blossoming in the 1990s, the economy was racing to the bottom faster than you can say Ferrari. Over the period of 1991-1998, Russia lost about 60% of its GDP, and the reforms of IMF did not help and the government announced default in 1998. 

That's when Putin appeared as a young thing on the downtown scene. The majority of people thought, from the country's traumatic 1990s experience, that democracy didn't equal wealth, and agreed to compromise for an authoritarian leader in case he fixed the economy. That's why he was so loved in 2000-2008. 

His problems with protests now are also mostly caused by the fact that with the oil price drop in 2014 and the currency shock that followed the average incomes of Russian household are at a six-year low 

[SychosSoChic 9,995]

2 minutes ago, FATCAT said:

Well, Putin rose to power after serving as a KGB agent in the UUSR, so it's more so just generational lapses. Bad luck. 

But how does a nation go from Catherine, to Lenin, to Stalin, to Putin

I mean this is a nation that nearly took us all to WWIII

How do the people of Russia keep putting these people in power and making the same mistakes

Should really just go back to college and study political history tbh

[Monster34 974]

Just now, bumblebee said:

Thank you so much for the feedback! 

However, I guess that Putin and Erdogan, despite both having some authoritarian origins, are very different. Russia has been through a capital MESS in the 1990s and Putin witnessed that mess. He knows that if he pisses of a lot people, he can easily lose the power and those people who now pretend to be his friends out of fear, will gladly betray him for another ruler. That's why he is acting more cautious. (For example, twitter, youtube, wikipedia and all the major sources of information are allowed in Russia) 

Those major sources are allowed in Turkey too, they have only been banned for various reasons temporarily (twitter after bombings to avoid public traffic of images of deceased); you cannot look at specific details to make up a big picture, there's no law banning expression of gay rights/homosexuality in Turkey unlike Russia. That's just another specific detail that doesn't change the big picture. 

I honestly see no difference between Erdogan and Putin. Erdogan also massively improved Turkish Economy (his capital mess), and also no one can make me believe that there are just elections in Russia, Putin will not easily lose the power, he wins all elections by huge margins. If I had to say anything, I would say Putin has lower chance of losing his power, even second biggest opposition party is loyal to Putin. Plus, even if they obey Putin out of fear, it won't change anytime soon because Putin is capable of causing his opponents to suddenly die (eg. Voronenkov). 

[SychosSoChic 9,995]

1 minute ago, bumblebee said:

I think there can be some simple economic reasons behind this. For example, one of the major reasons of Putin's power and insane ratings is explained by the following. 

So people wanted to switch from the USSR to Russia and they did in 1991-1993. And the majority of them wanted freedom of speech, political competition and free market rules, and the institutions of the civil society of the western world. And they got it, because in the 1990s we had independent branches of power, we had Parliament that used to piss the President off, but the President could do nothing about it because his party was in the opposition, we had TV and radio openly criticizing the government when they felt it was right and so on. 

In order to switch the economy to the model of the free market, Russia initiated some loans from IMF, but despite the fact that the democracy was blossoming in the 1990s, the economy was racing to the bottom faster than you can say Ferrari. Over the period of 1991-1998, Russia lost about 60% of its GDP, and the reforms of IMF did not help and the government announced default in 1998. 

That's when Putin appeared as a young thing on the downtown scene. The majority of people thought, from the country's traumatic 1990s experience, that democracy didn't equal wealth, and agreed to compromise for an authoritarian leader in case he fixed the economy. That's why he was so loved in 2000-2008. 

His problems with protests now are also mostly caused by the fact that with the oil price drop in 2014 and the currency shock that followed the average incomes of Russian household are at a six-year low 

That's actually really interesting and sheds some light on my questions! Thank you!

[Monster34 974]

1 minute ago, SychosSoChic said:

But how does a nation go from Catherine, to Lenin, to Stalin, to Putin

I mean this is a nation that nearly took us all to WWIII

How do the people of Russia keep putting these people in power and making the same mistakes

Should really just go back to college and study political history tbh

Countries have their political traditions. Russia is a militaristic tradition, hence majority of the people would agree with "People for the State for the sake of Greatness of the Country" argument vs a country like Germany where people are wealthy but the state itself isn't powerful by military means. (Germany is an example of diplomatic state tradition coming from times of <Holy Roman Empire> which was actually more like a confederation of German Princely States sticking together via diplomacy).