Moscow April 22, 2013

Soon after actions of demonstrators’ assault began, Luzhkov bridge and the walkway in that direction along the embankment were closed. I left the site of the meeting along the embankment as soon as a walkway was opened again.

I witnessed acts of physical assault applied by the police and OMON in relation to demonstration participants (peaceful citizens). OMON soldiers were trying to pull out of the crowd which they created by pressing people towards bridge railing a young woman in a light coat. At that they kept on beating a young man (probably he was together with that woman) with their batons, as well as whacking other people trying to stand up to violence completely unarmed. A young man dressed in blue jeans and white shirt was dragged to a police car in a rather rude manner. One of the OMON soldiers stroke several blows at man’s bottom parts of a body and legs with his boot. Hundreds of people suffered from violent behavior of law enforcement authorities by being deprived of possibility to move across or leave the place of the failed meeting due to “tamping” people by means of batons into a narrow space across Maly Kamenny bridge and Bolotnaya naberezhnaya.

There was no warning or announcement made by the police forces through load-hailers before conflicts between OMON and demonstrators began. We felt our throats and noses scratching at some moment. Slight panic began. We moved in the direction of the expected stage along Bolotnaya naberezhnaya and faced a close “spacemen” chain. OMON soldiers drove people from Bolshoy Kamenny bridge to our side, thus we got trapped in a “box”. One of the police officers asked over his walkie-talkie for a permit to let people go in the direction of Bolshaya Ordynka. There was complete absence of interaction between separate police subdivisions. OMON soldiers stepped aside and we were able to move to Bolshaya Ordynka some time later.

I reached Bolotnaya naberezhnaya without difficulty, during the process of demonstration break up, several hours later after the first collisions. I didn’t notice any check points, probably there were arches but all empty. I moved across the square up to the stage rather freely too, trying to find any exits. I couldn’t tell whether it was possible to leave the site through the stage; and it was impossible to leave through the bridge since police forces were breaking up the demonstration from that side of the river (there was a danger to be hurt in the heat of the moment). We decided not to take risk while leaving through the square too, since we would have to climb over the fence which could attract policemen attention to us. Our friend who missed the procession arrived from Novokuznetskaya subway station, walked along Maly Bridge to the embankment but hardly had he managed to wave a hand to us as a greeting gesture, when he was pressed back together with other people standing on the bridge by the police. Further on, the chain of policemen crossed the embankment area, including the stage enclosing us at the square from all sides.

Having understood that there were no ways out from the side of Bolshoy Kamenny bridge, and that moving along Maly Bridge could have been rather risky since strikes and conflicts were still taking place there, we made up our mind to “walk” in the square and think about our further actions. At that time OMON cordon arrived from the side of the stage and Maly Bridge, and then another one a bit later, and we realized that probably we wouldn’t manage to leave the square freely and we all would get probably arrested. Conflicts with policemen went on. People said there were tents crushed by policemen, and people barricaded themselves with WC cabins and police barriers. The quantity of policemen obviously increased, the first corner cordon changed significantly, and now both cordons were standing parallel to each other. Many people stood in front of the new cordon, the situation was like the previous one but for people jam. Probably OMON soldiers realized that people just wanted to leave the square, and opened a pass in a cordon chain. Demonstrators started to leave Bolotnaya Naberezhnaya. However, we noticed another big group of policemen and vehicles at the other side of the stage, together with several dozens of people who were going to advance slogans and express their attitude to the police and events of that day. People were talking to each other, exchanging information, trying to restore a scene of the events: what they witnessed, why there was a jam and a riot, and why so many participants and leaders had been arrested. People were filled with indignation and helped each other at the same time, helped with injuries and advised each other.

As I described above, I saw people standing close to the cordon who were grabbed by cops and dragged beyond the cordon without any fair reason (people were not guilty that they were pressed); I saw policemen beating demonstrators and catching those who were unable to evade from knocks, escape or get up; they dragged people over the pavement. Policemen arrested not only people who were throwing some objects (like plastic bottles or branches) or scanned loudly thus attracting attention to themselves, but also people located close to the point of the OMON group assembly. Policemen paid no attention to people requests not to arrest them, or let a girl go for example. Quite on the contrary – they grabbed those people who were trying to persuade them stop the violence.

EWA No. 69

People were never aggressive, quite the opposite, the overall mood was festive, everyone was cheerful including in relation to the police, people celebrated and congratulated each other with holidays. All action participants behaved really decently. Several hooligan guys – I think they belonged to the “Nashi” movement – tried to provoke conflicts with other people but they were asked to leave in a rather polite way (I witnessed it all with my own eyes). Neither force nor threats were applied to those dirty provokers in spite of their behavior, they just were asked to leave persistently, what they eventually did. These provocations failed indeed.

The beginning of the demonstration: kind, lively and cheerful people all around. No one could even imagine that a concerted action might turn into a violent assault.

I was entering the site through metal detection arches in the front line, right after journalists. It was overcrowded, and that was probably the reason why they didn’t check me properly. I had a standard plastic bottle of water in my backpack, but nobody took it away.

I tried to put them to shame, while explaining that they didn’t only breech the law, but were also damaging their own reputation in front of citizens’ eyes by attacking peaceful people whom they were to protect instead. They let a cyclist alone, but caught another guy in about ten meters, threw him on a parked car and began to wring his hands. I asked them why they never introduced themselves and treated people as criminals, and one of the policemen pronounced to me: “That’s enough for me! Now I will show you!” With these words he grabbed me, wringed my left hand and dragged me to a paddy wagon. At that time the other policeman grabbed me by my second hand. I said that it hurt me, but he kept on wringing my hand. I tried to switch my camera on and record the details of arrest, but one of the cops knocked the camera lens and it closed. Thus, I found myself in a paddy wagon.

We managed to move further through Bolotnaya naberezhnaya along the river. Then there were flying fires, than real nonsense started: cops began to fight with people who had already reached the square. I was at a distance from the points of conflict between the OMON and peaceful demonstrators, and luckily I wasn’t attacked. Suddenly there appeared some people wearing black face-masks running among people and shouting: “Why are you standing? Come on! Let’s go!” calling for strikes with the OMON. No one around me understood what was going on and who those people were, we didn’t see them during the march. In some time we found ourselves fenced by the OMON from the both sides. People were removed from the area at the side of the stage (that area was closed from other two sides from the very beginning – by means of a river and a police cordon). OMON soldiers didn’t even let us leave the square in the direction of the stage without providing any sensible grounds for it. We were simply waiting. They let us go over some time, and we left the square. Some of my friends were arrested later, near Novokuznetskaya metro station, for example.

There was enough space and plenty of people with kids and strollers, the overall atmosphere was completely relaxed. Sometimes there were short halts in the course of our march. We stopped at Maly Kamenny bridge with the others and waited for about an hour for the movement to be restored. We didn’t even understand whether a walkway to Bolotnaya Naberezhnay was open at all (it was that narrow). It wasn’t seen and clear to many people standing on the bridge.

Then two OMON soldiers came out of (or even through) the rank, caught hold of my hands and drove me rather fast to the place where their cordons, vehicles and paddy wagons stood. I stood up from the crowd by means of an A4 sheet with the text of article 31 of the Constitution printed on it (I took it out when we stood by a cordon preventing us from moving to the site of a planned meeting, and showed to policemen without saying a word). There were no other reasons for my arrest. Policemen grabbed people from the crowd at random, who simply somehow was different from the rest. I saw neither “disorders” nor cordons breakages (right on the contrary, it was the police who were breaking chains and assaulting demonstrators). There were no fights or club strikes from demonstrators’ side.

EWA No. 77

We stopped in the middle between the turn from Maly Kamenny bridge and Luzhkov bridge, near the embankment parapet. I saw smoke appeared above the crowd near the “Udarnik” cinema-theater, and heard people started to cry when a wedge of OMON soldiers wearing helmets sparkling under the sun, collided into the crowd. From time to time people in torn clothes or injured ran out of the crowd to the embankment. I saw a man with a broken (or probably heavily dislocated) left arm. He couldn’t move it and said that he had been whacked with a baton. I saw the policemen crashing into the crowd and beating people. I saw a man with a bleeding face. A family with a small child (of about 7 years old) stood by him. The kid was crying with fear, his mother with horror. We wanted to leave through Luzhkov bridge, but OMON chain appeared as if from nowhere and cordoned all exits to the bridge and arches. They began to drive people in the direction of the “Udarnik” and we realized that it was a trap. I saw OMON soldiers beating someone and dragging to the stage to the left of me. I came up to the park fencing at Bolotnaya Square and asked policemen to let us go, or at least people with kids, but they wouldn’t permit. At that the crowd at the embankment still grew. We understood that it was because of people driven by the OMON from the “Udarnik”. It was terrifying, since we realized that we would simply crash in a crowd. At some moment we noticed that OMON disappeared to the right of us (near Luzhkov bridge), and we used this opportunity to move to the Luzhkov bridge. While standing on the bridge, we were watching policemen chasing people away from the square. And I must admit that the stipulated meeting time was not over yet. Policemen were colliding into crowd, beating people with batons all around.

I witnessed a lot of arrests, and not only at Bolotnaya naberezhnaya, but even farther on in side-streets on the way to the subway. The OMON moved in chains forcing people to side-streets and yards using their batons, grasping people from the crowd completely indiscriminately and taking or carrying them away to paddy wagons. They detained people rudely, without having introduced themselves, just wringing hands.

EWA No. 78

Acts of violence could be observed from the both sides, but at the same time, as far as demonstrators were concerned, these were acts of self-defense (with rare exception) or attempts to protect others from beating and unlawful arrests. The most crying case of injustice that I observed was an incident when a policeman delivered a blow with his fist in an armored glove to a man in a jacket with a briefcase right at man’s face, simply because that man asked politely to let him go away from the cordon circle. However, several minutes before that I walked there without any difficulty.

The check was surprisingly hasty, unlike checks conducted at previous rallies. They asked to walk through fast, without holding on, and I found the check was not thorough enough.

Anticipating possible consequences of the action, I moved along the embankment towards the stage, but faced two OMON ranks there preventing from going any further. An officer with a derisive smile told us that the only exit is behind of us – right where OMON soldiers kept behaving outrageously. But in some time I heard that he received an order from his bosses, and policemen trotted to Kamenny bridge leaving a free pass to the stage and farther, which we used for heading towards the subway.

When the OMON were pressing us out of the bridge (in a rather speedy manner), they knocked down many people. We fell down right under their feet, thanks God they got enough sense to stop). A young thin man gave his hand and helped me to get up (I’m 52). I turned to thank him, and at that moment he was grabbed, they wringed his hands and dragged behind the OMON rank, where put him onto the pavement (two or three policemen). And they grabbed two more guys, completely at random, at the same moment. I cried: “What are you doing? What for?” We exchanged telephone numbers with that thin guy’s girlfriend (he was kept in the OVD of Michurinsky district till morning). We went to the OVD (it was deep at night already, we even got caught by a thunderstorm) to bring food and water for 26 arrested people. As it turned out later, that guy had got a rib broken…

At the corner of Kadashevskaya naberezhnaya, right by the red water sprinkler, there was OMON chain. People were standing face-to-face with them. I watched it from the bridge (side view). But suddenly there raised a sea of batons and OMON soldiers started to whack all people around, completely indiscriminately! But people had no ways out! I admitted a sinewy Caucasian-type policeman as the most active one (I remember his profile). Such a scum!

As they were driving us along Kadashevskaya naberezhnaya up to the Tretyakovskaya Gallery (moving in a tight rank, with regular stops), about 5–7 soldiers jumped out of the rank from time to time, attacked any person who didn’t manage to evade their attack and dragged him to a paddy wagon moving slowly behind them. We were stepping back, but not in a thick crowd anymore, but dispersed in groups (they approach – we retrieve, they stand – so do we). They filled that prison truck, another arrived... I remember them springing out once again and attacking a slim girl in a brown jacket. She didn’t understand anything, while simply trying to protect her head with hands. We shouted at them not to touch her! They dragged her into a prison truck, bustards!

From the very beginning of the meeting and up to its end I didn’t see a single participant of the march who was swiping policemen with batons or dragging them with their hands and legs to paddy wagons using painful holds!

EWA No. 83

A cop named Kirill runs out of the cordon and cries to OMON soldiers: “Five men come with me!” They are getting an athletic man in a black T-shirt out of the crowd in a minute. Cops are dragging and swiping Melnikov, he is barefoot, with only jeans left on. I’m shooting this with my camera switched on and crying to them: “Don’t beat!”

I was at the corner of the bridge and the embankment where principal events were on. Cops pushed people rudely so that many of them even fell down. People were trying to protect themselves with hands, they were beaten with batons, I got a blow when I covered my face with my hand from an assaulting policeman. I felt pain in my hand for 4 months afterwards.

I did not take part in the march, but came to the square to participate in the meeting. I reached the site of a “sitting strike” and realized that it would take long, so I decided to go back. I saw other people going through the following bridge to Bolotnaya without any difficulty, and joined them. I sat for a while there watching stage being disassembled. I witnessed all other events from the distance of about 100 meters, and couldn’t distinguish the details, but the overall picture was rather clear. When cops started to cut us into “pie pieces” and force out of the square, I was really surprised at people behavior – there was no panic among them! <…> It seemed strange to me that the bridge through which I arrived at the square was blocked by “spacemen” in half an hour after that preventing all people from leaving the square.

I decided not to stand in a queue at Kaluzhskaya square but to find out whether it was possible to speed up the process of passing through. I had to wait for about an hour at least, and I headed along Zhytnaya in the direction of Bolshaya Polyanka. There were practically no people at Polyanka, so when I was moving through the 1^st Khvostov side-street I noticed a group of young people of about 16-19. There were about 15 of them there. They looked like a conditionally aggressive youth, so to say such average semifans wearing hoods and kaffiyehs. I proceeded further to the park, and, when standing at the corner of Yakimanka and Polyanka, I saw police cordons blocking all ways. A police captain was guarding near cordons. I stepped aside to make a call to my friends I was to meet there. I saw young men who had been sitting earlier in Khvostov side-street. They headed directly to that captain who pointed in some direction and explained something to them. The group left and I followed them in several minutes. At the back side of the park, tight behind the trees, I found a path in front of metal fencing leading to Yakimanka. Yakimanka was cordoned, and there stood a water sprinkler right in front of them, at about a 45 degrees’ angle. There was a hole in a cordon, and about three to five junior grade cops were standing by it. I passed through the cordon. Cops paid no attention to me.

The beginning of a conflict could have been distinguished by cries that arose. Then I saw cops began arresting and beating all people around them. I even witnessed cops whacking an elderly women, that’s why I stayed.

I stood near two OMON cops and heard one speaking to the other: “Hey, look, do you see those two niggers?” The second: “Yes”. The first: “Let’s go”. And they went into the crowd depth to arrest someone, i.e. some person who was neither standing by them, nor doing any harm to them. Stones stopped being thrown by that moment already.

EWA No. 91

As soon as I reached Bolotnaya and met two friends of mine there, they told me that OMON had used a tear-gas against people... While tearing the crowd, OMON cops in rigid outfit knocked old people and kids off their feet... One of such OMON chains divided me and my son, and when I tried to get to the other side where my son stayed, I was knocked down by a huge cop with a blow and fell down on the pavement.

We moved forward slowly, as much as we could advance. I had to protect my girlfriend from pressure from all around, which I actually was doing. But it were people with children who experienced biggest difficulties while trying to get to the embankment with them, I helped them several times as much as I could. It was noisy leftward: people were scanning, crying, screaming... OMON threw wedge by wedge, once they appeared to close to people and forced people back with batons, while beating at the same time the most sluggish ones... I personally witnessed a young boy with face drawn blood, and another one, with watering eyes and keeping his mouth with a palm who hardly reached the parapet by the river and began to vomit (people said that he breathed in too much of tear-gas). There were coming several more injured people (with blood and tears). Having struck the right moment in-between OMON “wedge”-actions my friend and I squeezed farther along the river where it was more spacious. There was no crowd near chemical toilets already, people sighed relieved, and cops standing here were more cheerful and calm. We discussed the situation with those policemen, it seemed they didn’t understand what was going on. I saw one fireball or something like that from that place. As far as I have noticed, it was a single fireball for a whole period of time I was there – i.e. about half an hour. We used the chemical WC, my friend took several more snapshots and we moved to a way out through arches near Maly Bridge where we took several more pics.

My wife and I together with our two kids and my groupmate left the Oktyabrskaya metro station and headed off to Bolotnaya Square.

I didn’t see any cases that demonstrators assaulted OMON cops, quite on the contrary – the cops were widely beating participants without any reasons. All OMON attacks on people near the stage or chemical toilets were accompanied by beating demonstrators with rubber batons, at that most blows were targeted at people heads, after which they fell down and were dragged away to paddy wagons. At that no violent measures were taken by meeting participants in return, they were just trying to protect their heads and other parts of a body. I saw a demonstrator fainted after a cop’s blow and people started to shout: “Murderers, murderers!”, since he showed no sign of life. I didn’t manage to reach that site, since there were fights with cops, and I had to accompany a journalist from a Switzerland radio station and I could not allow him being caught and taken to a paddy wagon. Also I saw a cop beating an elderly woman at her head so that she sat down close to faint at the very beginning of the assault, near the turn from Bolshoy Bridge to the square. That’s why I think OMON cops had been treated with some drugs before they had been brought to Bolotnaya. Their dopey look which I noticed while we were going from Oktyabrskaya subway station testified to that fact as well, since they looked really bleary-eyed. I also witnessed OMON cops started to beat guys from the chain who hadn’t managed to escape through two OMON ranks. The guys were hit with batons, then beat with feet after they fell down, and then they were dragged to prison trucks getting blows with batons on their way to vehicles. One of the boys (I didn’t see the faces clearly from the distance) who suffered that assault turned out to be my friend Denis from Zelenograd, and he was sentenced to 24 hours of custody, with a whole body covered with bruises and hematomas. It’s a real fascism!

EWA No. 96

I noticed nothing special while moving along Yakimanka. People looked very peaceful, most of them went there with their children. Many women wore high heels. Most people were dressed in light clothes which wouldn’t have allowed to hide anything underneath and bring to the site.

Yes, I watched demonstrators trying to protect other demonstration participants with own bare hands when cops knocked people off their feet and dragged in the direction of OMON chains. Some cops were taken off their helmets which were thrown into Obvodnoy Canal. I never saw demonstrators using batons they had taken away from cops – they were thrown into water as well. Of course, people didn’t favor cops, but they had no weapons to use but for their hands and legs. However, OMON was extremely tough, and even violent towards demonstrators: they stroke people with batons indiscriminately, including at their heads. About 4–5 cops attacked one individual as a rule, stroke him/her down and whacked with batons and feet. Many demonstrators were bleeding. Guys dressed in black and wearing face masks threw several fires. Cops used tear-gas a number of times. It had practically no impact on me as I’m a smoker, that’s why I didn’t try to escape it and saw gas cylinders that cops used rather distinctly. At the same time, I never noticed any gas cylinders at people’s hands. OMON began to take control over the situation step-be-step. They sliced the crowd and forced people away either to Maly Kamenny bridge, or to Luzhkov bridge which was opened for exit (it was blocked by the police up to that moment).