From a posting published over on the Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center which argues that 10,000 people on the streets of Kaliningrad over the weekend is a notable development:So what is new here? During the transition between Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev there were protests all the time, followed by arrests, followed by NGO statements of disapproval of human rights violations.
For one, the Kaliningrad protest represents the largest demonstration against Moscow to have occurred in the enclave in more than a decade, rivaling the massive marches after the fall of the Soviet Union (many in Kaliningrad believed their geographic position would lead to sovereign status as an independent nation). Remember the outbreak of protests in Vladivostok in 2008 over the automotive trade? This one was six times larger. Blogging on Global Voices, Vadim Isakov translates part of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's popular essay on the events posted to his LiveJournal:
I haven't seen such a grandiose rally for the last ten years. At the protest, people expressed their political demands: the resignation of Putin and governor Boos. The uniqueness of the Kaliningrad phenomenon is participation of all oppositional groups of the region in the protest.
Secondly, the protests this past week collected representatives from across the political spectrum with a coherent series of specific demands ... such a level of organization and specifically defined demands had been lacking in earlier opposition protests throughout the Putin years, to put it lightly. Although the protestors were expressing their outrage over their locally appointed governor Georgy Boos, and shouting the slogan "Partiya YedRo - Pomoinoye Vedro" ("United Russia is a bucket of filth"), they also presented a unanimous declaration published on rugrad.ed demanding that Putin should lower taxes, restore direct gubernatorial elections and fire the regional governor.
Lastly, this demonstration is especially remarkable because the Kremlin is actually responding with desperation. Immediately following the event, Kremlin envoy Ilya Klebanov was flown to Kaliningrad for an emergency meeting with Boos, while United Russia also sent a delegation and hinted at replacing the governor. Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Center in Moscow told told RFE/RL that this protest may have been organized by other political elites in Kaliningrad in order to force the ouster of Moscow's appointee to the region.
