231 MASS PROTESTS IN DECEMBER 2011
Dmitry Gromov ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We Are the People’: New Features of Street Political Activism
From September 2005, I have been researching the street protests carried out by politicised youth groups. At the beginning of 2012, as the regular electoral cycle came to an end, this research was supposed to reach its conclusion. In view of the general drop in political activity, I did not expect to discover anything new or interesting; still fresh in the memory were the events of December 2007, when an opposition protest against the legitimacy of the parlia- mentary elections only managed to gather around 50 people from the whole of Moscow [Traurnyi gimn 2007]. It seemed in all certainty that there could be nothing unforeseen on the political horizon: one need only think back to the political action that took place on 10 De- cember, as a result of which it was initially reported that only 300 people had made their way to the mass protest at Bolotnaya Square – its organisers had not counted on such a large turnout. What happened from then on fundamentally changed our ideas of Russian street political action. Firstly, from the end of the 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s this kind of mass action simply did not exist. Secondly, there was no mass action of any kind with a similar system of parti- cipant mobilisation. Strictly speaking, the action Dmitry Gromov of the Nashi youth movement can be classified State Republic Centre as ‘mass’ in that, according to organisers’ of Russian Folklore, Moscow calculations, up to 70,000 people would gather [email protected] at its meetings, but they were organised thanks No 8 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 232
to a special system of stimulation (not necessarily only financial)1 catering to the desires of young people [Gromov 2009]. The protests at Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Prospect did not have this kind of motivational basis; on the whole they were, to paraphrase the poet, ‘a free protest of freely gathered people’. In my discussion here, I intend to focus precisely on the ways in which the protest demonstrations in Moscow in December 2011 differed from traditional forms of political activism, as well as iden- tifying which traditions were preserved in the new type of social manifestation. A first-timer uprising. Usually street protests are organised by members of political organisations with the involvement of sym- pathisers, who, as a rule, have some experience of street action. However, the protest events in December 2011, beginning with the demonstration at Chistye Prudy (on 5 December), were attended predominantly by novices who did not belong to any kind of organisation. The modest scale of events, carried out independently by different political organisations, went with decidedly small numbers of protesters. As I mentioned earlier, initially the protest on 10 December was reckoned to have amassed only 300 people (the liberal organisation Solidarnost claimed a similar figure), while the nationalist protest on 11 December at Bolotnaya Square gathered 250–300 people [Nationalisty 2011]. In this respect, a figure cited in one of the articles in this collection [Sokolova et al. 2012: 227, fig. 4] seems eminently plausible: only 12 % of those who participated in the protest on 24 December belonged to any kind of political organisation. Other characteristics of the gatherings in question also included the absence of any definite leaders.2 Therefore the events we are examining constitute action taken by novices who had no experience of street protests. As I will show, this fact in many respects conditioned the mood of the December protests. The reaction to the protest on 10 December shown by some ‘pro- fessional’ activists was revealing: the art group Voina3 announced
1 A reference to the accusations made by opposition supporters that the followers of United Russia generally turn out on the streets because they have been paid to do so. [Editor]. 2 Judging by the data from a sociological survey [Levada Centre 2011], the political fi gures who took to the platform did not have any particular authority among those who had gathered, with the exception of Alexey Navalny (36 %) and the liberal Grigory Yavlinsky (27 %), who do not belong to offi cial political organisations. The greatest trust among attendees was enjoyed by cultural fi gures who are at some distance from politics: the TV presenter Leonid Parfyonov (41 %), the writer Boris Akunin (35 %), and the rock musician Yuri Shevchuk (33 %). 3 ‘Voina’ [War] is an avant-garde group well-known for organising scandalous protests, such as a mock- orgy in the zoological museum of Moscow State University, the inscription of an enormous phallus on Liteinei Bridge in St Petersburg pointing directly at the FSB headquarters (‘The Dick Held Captive by the FSB’), etc. [Editor]. 233 MASS PROTESTS IN DECEMBER 2011
that it would not be participating, and Eduard Limonov used the phrase ‘They’ve stolen my revolution’ [Mimimiting 2011] and attended the Bolotnaya Square nor the Sakharov Prospect meetings. Presumably, accustomed to being at the cutting edge, the established oppositional figures felt uncomfortable amongst large crowds of unorganised, inexperienced people who, despite their neophytism, had ‘got the better of’ the professionals thanks to their large numbers. One indication of the adaptation of inexperienced citizens to the role of street activists was the heightened interest in advice literature that was observed over the course of several days prior to the protest at Bolotnaya Square. There were large numbers of online publications with advice on how to behave in cases of shots being fired, gas attacks, clashes with OMON, being arrested and so on. It seems that the
Dmitry Gromov. ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We People’ heightened interest in such material was not only linked to the need to channel anxiety before the demonstration and the tendency to posit an extreme reaction on the part of the authorities, but also to frequently-noted phenomena such as the increased interest in subculture symbolism among new entrants to a subculture [Shche- panskaya 1993: 144]. Since they did not have enough of their ‘own’ signs, the novices compensated for this by emphasised use of external symbolism and demonstrative behaviour; this trend faded as more experience was acquired. It is revealing that protest participants did not retain this interest for long: the novices soon realised ‘how it really is’, and behaved more appropriately from the run-up to the next demonstration. Of course this was also enabled by the conflict-free nature of the protest on 10 December. From greater numbers to increased legitimacy. Many opposition demonstration protests held in Moscow in recent years took place under the watchful eye of the police; sometimes one had the impression that there were more members of the security services than there were protesters. Demonstrations took place in observance of previously agreed conditions, and any deviation from them was perceived by the police as a violation and caused conflicts. Things were somewhat different during these mass protests. The police presence was small, and their behaviour more tactful. During one episode of the protest on 24 December, those in charge even sought police officers out specially, addressing them from the stage. Deviations from the announced protest format were also dealt with calmly: on 10 December the police peacefully allowed movement to take place from Revolution Square to Bolotnaya Square. As far as we are aware, the supportive attitude of the security agencies was not only due to the logistical difficulties of controlling large crowds of people. It was also due to the knowledge that the higher the numbers No 8 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 234
of protesters, the more legitimate the demonstration: the large scale of the protest limited the moral right to suppress it. Number manipulation. It is primarily the number of participants in a street protest that intimates its scale and how representative it is. In view of this, a disparity is continually observed in the evaluation of participant numbers in opposition demonstrations: organisers give overestimated figures while the security agencies understate them. In the case of the protests on 10 and 24 December we have tried to clarify how great the discrepancy is between the estimates of both sides. During the protest at Bolotnaya Square that was calculated to have drawn up to 30,000 people, the leader, referring to the police assessment, gave varying figures of protester numbers that ranged from 70,100 to 150,000 people. As a result the official assessment given by the organisers settled at 100,000 [Protest na Bolotnoi 2011]. In Channel One’s news programme, referring again to police assessment, a figure of 24,000 participants was mentioned. For our assessment we used a photograph of Bolotnaya Square taken from a satellite (an image from Google), and highlighted the zones of protest activity of different density;1 to achieve this we made particular use of aerial images taken from Ridus News Agency’s hexacopter.2 In the space around the stage (around 4,000 m2) the crowd density was at its highest – three people per square metre; other areas had a reduced ratio. Taking into account the rotation of the total number of people we estimated a figure of 30,000 people; remarks made by protest participants tended to elevate this figure, but not significantly. Therefore we were able to establish that police estimates were more precise than those given by the organisers. Attendance estimates also differed immensely in relation to the protest on 24 December. At 15:20 the MVD gave an estimate of 29,000 people [Chislo 2011], while from the stage the organisers announced a figure of 120,000. After counting the number of people passing through metal detectors, journalists from Novaya Gazeta reported the figure as slightly over 102,000 [102,486 chelovek 2011]. In view of the fact that the space available for the protest on this occasion was considerably larger than at Bolotnaya Square and bearing in mind the high mobility of participants, we could not carry out an independent count. However, a sample count was made by RIA Novosti using a similar method, and this allowed an estimation of 55,200 people [Inzhener-geodezist 2011]. Either way, it seems that the organisers of both protests were inclined to overestimate the
1 See:
number of participants, which permitted them to create a more powerful informational message. The police understated these indicators. It was difficult for ordinary protest participants to give an estimate of the number of people, and it tended to be exaggerated.
We also note that given all the imprecision of the information regarding the number of protesters, a comparison of the data about the demonstrations on 5, 10 and 24 December and the projection for the demonstration on 4 February [Opros 2011; RPORC]1 allows us to conclude that the crowds of protesters were gathering according to the ‘snowball’ principle: participants in each preceding demon- stration came out in almost equal numbers at the following one, and more first-timers were added to their number. This trend has con- tinued in a similar way.
Space. At both Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Prospect the protest Dmitry Gromov. ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We People’ space was quite extended, which in many respects conditioned its heterogeneity. At Bolotnaya Square this heterogeneity was also assured by the poor quality of equipment (at some distance from the stage the speakers simply could not be heard), and at Sakharov Prospect this question was decided by the placement of several video screens. On the whole it can be suggested that people gathered near the screen were oriented towards obtaining political information, while those further from the stage were those who just wanted to ‘hang out’. At the very least, members of political organisations attempted to stand near to the stage, which can be judged by the accumulation of flags in that area.
Picture 1 shows an aerial shot of the protest on 24 December from the stage [24 December 2011]. Judging by the accumulation of flags and banners one can determine the location of politicised groups. The ‘imperial’ colours (black, yellow and white) belong to the far right, red represents the Communists, and orange shows the Soli- darnost liberals. A large part of the space has no colour identification, indicating where the people gathered who did not belong to any organisation.
Formally, the main and additional centres of the protest space on 24 December were the stage and screen which was showing a broad- cast. But in reality the concept of the centre being a source of infor- mation about the event was provisional; the centre was atomised because of the active self-presentation of ordinary protest participants. Each person holding a placard was effectively making an installation or arranging a performance and could temporarily draw attention to himself and become the local spatial centre.
1 See also the data in the article: [Sokolova et al. 2012: 227, fi g. 4]. No 8 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 236
The extended nature of the zones in which the demonstration took place were partly compensated for by the movement of participants: those with placards who were seeking to be noticed the most moved towards the stage, especially at the latter phases of the protest when there was more room. Volunteers. The real or imaginary use of financial and administrative resources by political movements is one of the key themes of the informational battle. Organisers of liberal democratic demonstrations are traditionally accused by their opponents of receiving help from the West. In December 2011 these accusations were repeatedly made by Vladimir Putin. A section of the public were also inclined to be of the same opinion. According to data from the Levada Centre, when asked ‘Do you agree that today’s opposition in Russia subsists mainly on funds from abroad and follow the instructions of Western poli- tical strategists?’ 11 % of Russians answered ‘Definitely’ and 20 % ‘Probably’. When asked about the mass demonstrations against electoral fraud that took place in Russia during this period, 23 % of those surveyed said that they had been ‘paid for by the USA’ [Rossiyane 2011]. We will not attempt to judge which sources put forward the 4 million roubles in donations that were received for the protest on 24 De- cember [Miting 24 dekabrya 2011]; we will even accept that a section of the participants made some material gain. However, this section is extremely small: once again it is worth mentioning the three hundred participants who were initially expected to turn out at the protest on 10 December. If the main protest demonstration was planning on attracting that size of crowd then the number of activists expecting to ‘get something out of it’ would have been no greater than a hundred. The overwhelming majority did not even think about money, and therefore Putin’s assertion that ‘people who came to the square, […] were even paid small sums of money’ [Transcript 2011], was received with humour and was the source of many jokes. The innovation of the protest at Sakharov Prospect was the use of volunteers. Previously at street demonstrations there have been no volunteers; the only exception was ‘police helpers’ who primarily aid police officers at Communist events. The range of volunteers and the coordination of their efforts was achieved through special Internet communities. Volunteers gave out items to be displayed at the protest, tidied up rubbish, helped with calculating the number of participants, recorded observations for public organisations and so on. Volunteers played a large role in the stylistic unification of protest participants. The creation of a single style of clothing was a device used in organising mass events (for example, it was widely employed during the ‘orange revolution’ of 2004 and demonstrations by the 237 MASS PROTESTS IN DECEMBER 2011
Nashi youth movement). In this case an element of stylistic unification was achieved by white items (sometimes with a written message) — ribbons, badges, balloons, flowers and also whistles, themed badges and so on (picture 2). Structure of visuals. One of the protest’s vivid innovations was homemade placards. People with homemade placards have been encountered in the past at demonstrations, but they were almost all elderly. Young people only made placards and banners collectively (for example, a row of people with placards was a device often used during activities organised by the young Communists); instances of individual self-expression were very rare. During the protest on 24 December, four researchers (Mikhail Alekseevky, Maria Akhmetova, Alexander Moroz and myself) recorded around 600 placards and art objects (badges, stickers, stripes Dmitry Gromov. ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We People’ on clothing and so forth; the flags of various organisations were not included in this sample), but this is a far from complete collection of the visual creativity of protesters. By comparing our material to photographs uploaded to the Internet, we can suggest that the total number of objects was around 1,100–1,200.1 In addition to the placards, other forms of self-presentation were present: installations, original clothing, costumed performance art, impromptu acts and so on (picture 3). We will examine the structure of the themes represented on placards and ‘speaking’ art objects (n = 600). The same theme could appear on the same placard but, as is evident when comparing percentage values, there is an insignificant crossover. 1. Protest against Vladimir Putin — 40 %. Portraits of Putin with commentaries referring to him. Phrases and images playing on statements made by Putin and so on (picture 4a). The then President Dmitry Medvedev was mentioned rarely and almost always alongside Putin. 2. Protest against unfair elections — 20 %. Statements demanding fair elections and/or re-elections. Mentions of the head of the Central Election Commission Vladimir Churov, including his ‘pseudonym’ ‘The Magician’, ‘Chu’ and others. Demands to ‘return votes’ and so on (picture 4b). 3. Protest again United Russia — 9.5 %. Accusations levelled at the party. Deforming the party’s emblem, including variations on the motif of the bear (picture 4c). Plays on the metaphor ‘The party
1 This indicator was obtained by comparing a selection (n = 600) to a selection of photographs from the Internet (n = 301). At the same time, we also took into account the particular composition of both selections and the number of placards that may have been held for a short time but were hidden while we were recording our observations. No 8 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 238
of swindlers and thieves’, including in its abbreviated form PST [PZhiV]. 4. Other protest statements — 30 %. Accusations levelled at the authorities in general. Demands for honesty and freedom of speech. Among these, in our opinion around 4 % did not relate to the current events regarding the conflict with the authorities. For example, demands were made to investigate the events of October 1993 or to grant the Dalai Lama a visa to enter Tibet. 5. ‘Non-political’ statements — 4.5 %. However, it is worth noting that we have doubts about isolating this group separately, since when put into the context of the political demonstration, the majority of neutral, non-political statements can acquire additional meanings. Therefore, although in picture 5a there appears to be no obvious political element, the humorous self-presentation in picture 5b is linked to the concept of ‘freedom of speech’, while in picture 5c wishing people a ‘good morning’ could be perceived as a symbol of change. The malevolent attitude of protesters towards Vladimir Putin was very noticeable: there were twice as many reproofs directed at him as demands for fair elections. The high percentage of accusations aimed at Putin on placards corresponds to the mood detected through sociological surveys. The carnival atmosphere of the protest is indicated by the rather large portion of placards with humorous content (49.3 %).1 Special mention should go to the category of placards that responded to recent statements made by key political figures. The sources of inspiration for the creators of these placards was the phrase used by Dmitry Medvedev when addressing Vladimir Churov after the elections: ‘You’re like some kind of magician, that’s what of the party leaders are calling you’ [Meeting 2011] (1 % of placards); Vladimir Putin’s statement in which he compares participants in the protest demonstrations to the Bandar-log2 (7 %) and when he com- pared the white ribbons to condoms (5 %) [Transcript 2011]; accusations of working for money (2 %). It might seem that the percentage of these statements is small, but these placards were among the most vivid and most often cited. The experience of the December protests suggests that key political figures would do well to be wary of how they express themselves unless they wish to become folklore characters.
1 This indicator is an average based on four expert assessments given by colleagues of the Department of Modern Folklore at the State Republican Centre of Russian Folklore (Alekseevky, Bessonov, Gromov and Prosina). The spread of opinions turned out to be very great, ranging from 25 % to 73 %. 2 For more detail on this, see Maria Akhmetova’s article also in this issue. 239 MASS PROTESTS IN DECEMBER 2011
Stylistically it is possible to differentiate between the ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ placards. Placards of the ‘traditional’ style might be encountered, for example, at Communist demonstrations. These placards are prepared by people of a more advanced age, they are quite verbose, informative but not aphoristic, written by hand in clear handwriting (picture 6a). The more contemporary style is generally favoured by middle-aged or young people. It often employs aphorisms, humour and diverse forms of design, often making use of computer technology (picture 6b). When analysing the mass protests of December 2011 it is interesting to make a comparison to the events of the ‘Orange Revolution’ at Independence Square in Kiev in December 2004. These events took place in a culturally similar environment, although from a historical perspective it is already quite distant. There were also homemade
Dmitry Gromov. ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We People’ placards during that period, but, judging by eyewitness assessments, photographs and research [Britsina, Golovakha 2005; Martsenyuk 2005; Lisyuk 2005], the enthusiasm for placards was significantly less then than it is now. We are proposing that the cause of this, among other factors, was the formation of the so-called Web 2.0 and the corresponding change in apparatus of individual self-presentation. Web 2.0 is an approach towards online informational resources which encourages users to input as much content as possible. In other words, from the beginning of the 1990s until the mid-2000s the Internet was used primarily to obtain information, whereas later users increasingly posted their own information online. This trend is linked to the emergence and expansion of social network sites — LiveJournal (1999), Facebook (2004), VKontakte (2006) and others. Online users have become accustomed to self-presentation in their own accounts — creating visual objects, texts, flashmobs and so on. It seems to us that it is this system of self-presentation — stimulated by the Internet of the new generation — which has caused an increased number of homemade placards compared to the events at Independence Square in 2004. This theory is supported by the fact that protest participants engaged in Internet communication, which has been noted by sociological surveys [Opros 2011; RPORC 2011]. Yet another reason for the heightened interest in placards is the general growth in interest in the rites and rituals observed in con- temporary society. The rituals of marriage and for celebrating special occasions are continually developing and spontaneous ritualism linked to the urban landscape is increasingly noticeable. Perhaps presenting one’s opinion through making placards is a constituent part of this multifaceted process. Be that as it may, an individual placard as a form of mass self- presentation pervaded the December protests, going in tandem with the arrival on the scene of ‘non-organised’ youth, who have little No 8 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 240
knowledge of the traditions of street political activism, but are accustomed to self-presentation on the Internet.
Chants. There was almost no chanting at the December protests. Sometimes attempts were made by speakers to stimulate chanting; for example, Ilya Ponomaryov called upon protesters to repeat the old-left phrase ‘United we stand’, while Boris Nemtsov mentioned the expressions ‘A thief should not be in the Kremlin’, ‘Russia without Putin!’ and ‘We will conquer!’. However, it would be incorrect to say that this genre of protest activity gained widespread support. On 10 December there were still some attempts to ‘energize’ people, but by 24 December there were virtually none.
This lack of attention towards chanting can again be explained by the nature of the crowd. Usually chants are performed effectively by harmonious groups of between 100 and 500 people who have previously prepared themselves for, or are attuned to, this kind of self-expression. The composition of lone people and small groups of novices who are unknown to one another were not attuned in this way. This prevented chants from being performed or the formation of protesters into an ‘extended’ arrangement. Immediately obvious is the varying attitude towards chants at the protests we are examining and at Kiev’s Independence Square in 2004: in the latter case they were very widely used. But it must be taken into consideration that in Kiev the initiators were generally harmonious groups (‘Pora’ and others), who had been involved in some preparation during the pre- election campaign.
The far right as an organised group. One of the organised groups present at the protest on 24 December was a far right group; there was a cluster of activists from the DPNI (Movement Against Illegal Immigration). Typically, their behaviour differs significantly from the behaviour of the main body of protesters.
Most striking of all is the level of their organisation. The decision taken by far-rightists to come to the protest was, according to an announcement of the DPNI website, made only an hour before it officially began. This meant that they were able to stand immediately adjacent to the stage, where they duly attempted to actively influence what was happening, whistling at the speakers using specially prepared whistles. The far right protesters had their own complaints about the organisers: only one orator from their group was permitted to speak, and Maxim Martsinkevich (Tesak) was not included among the speakers, despite the fact that the previous evening he had been in one of the top places in the results of Internet voting for speakers (picture 7). Therefore the far right protesters attempted to break through towards the stage and calmed down only when their re- presentative Vladimir Tor began to make a speech. In this way, 241 MASS PROTESTS IN DECEMBER 2011
a group fairly small in size (200–300 people) was able to influence the course of events in a major way thanks to their level of organisation. The self-presentation of organised far right groups differed in many parameters from the self-presentation of the main body of non- organised protesters. They had the highest density of flags, the clusters of which could be seen from afar. They also made use of chants: their repertoire was small but the chanting was regular and harmonious. Around 14 % of those from far right groups were wearing masks (pictures 8a, 8b). Compared to their other demonstrations, where the use of protective masks can be almost universal, this percentage is low, although in the rest of the area taken up by the protest there were virtually no masks at all. Aphoristic self-presentation. We were left with the impression that aphoristic statements reflect the general demonstration mood that
Dmitry Gromov. ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We People’ was common to both protests on 10 and 24 December. People who had willingly come to the protest were striving to express their civil position, and this determined their tendency to produce aphoristic remarks. The most noticeable form of statement was in the form of inscriptions written on placards. Self-expression may also have been achieved through chanting (which, as has already been noted, did not take root in this case). Finally, by carefully observing what was happening in the protest space, it was possible to hear quite a large number of shouts, remarks of an aphoristic nature, such as the following: 1. During the protest at Bolotnaya Square, when speaking on the stage the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) group at Moscow City Hall, cried: ‘Give back the mandate!’. Apparently this shout was effective, since it was also shouted out at the Sakharov Prospect protest to a member of the party Spravedlivaya Rossiya (‘A Just Russia’) simultaneously from various places around the square. As a result, the statement was reproduced many times on the Internet. 2. Mikhail Kasyanov began his speech in an unexpectedly expressive and hoarse voice. From one area of the protest there was a shout of: ‘Get Dzhigurda off the stage!’ (referring to the famous Russian singer Nikita Dzhigurda who has a hoarse voice). Bystanders laughed and took up the chant, but not for long. 3. Even before the beginning of the protest, among the ranks of far- rightists occupying the space to the right of the stage there was a refrain of: ‘Russians to the right, Jews to the left’. It was spoken in a low voice and evoked no reaction among bystanders. These three examples show how, once established, an aphorism may be taken up by the surrounding people, yet soon fade away. The desire for aphoristic statements was demonstrated particularly in the No 8 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 242
impromptu performance of ‘Our fence — your opinion’ (picture 3c); anyone who wished to was invited to speak from in front of it, and the ‘fence’ was covered in aphorisms that people had thought up on the spot. Unlike the December protests that gathered together novice volunteers, in traditional demonstrations the crowd is by no means always in the mood for aphorisms and this depends on a number of different factors. At the very least those coming to the demonstration should have a strong desire to make a statement and the ideological message of the demonstration should touch them deeply. As has been described here, street activism has fundamentally changed as a result of the surge in national activity in December 2011. Whether these changes will be sustained and what shifts in the political world they might cause, only time will tell.
References [102,486 chelovek 2011]: ‘102 tysyach 486 chelovek. My poschitali vsekh, kto proshel cherez ramki s chasu do chetyrekh dnya’ [102,486 People. We Counted Everyone who Went through the Metal Detectors between 1pm and 4pm] // Livejournal Novaya Gazeta. 25 December 2011.
[Mimimiting 2011] ‘Mimimiting’ // Lenta.ru. 2011. 10 December.
Pictures1
Picture 1. Protest at Sakharov Prospect, taken from the stage. Photograph by E. Feldman, Novaya Gazeta.
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c Picture 2. Volunteers give out items symbolic of the protest: a) white ribbons; b) white flowers; c) white badges
1 Photographs 4b, 6a and 6b were taken by Maria Akhmetova; the remainder (apart from the fi rst one) belong to the author of this article. 245 MASS PROTESTS IN DECEMBER 2011
а Dmitry Gromov. ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We People’
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Picture 3. Forms of self-presentation: a) an original costume — a person dressed as Harry Potter (a reference to the ‘magician’ meme as a synonymous replacement for Vladimir Churov); b) performance art — giving out free condoms as a souvenir (a reference to Vladimir Putin’s statement comparing the white ribbons to contraceptives); c) an impromptu performance: all who wish to are invited to share their opinion on the ‘fence’ No 8 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 246
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c Picture 4. Placards representing the main thematic groups: a) against Putin; b) for fair elections; c) against Edinaya Rossiya (playing on the image of the party’s bear emblem) 247 MASS PROTESTS IN DECEMBER 2011 Dmitry Gromov. ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We People’
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Picture 5. ‘Non-political’ placards can acquire a dual meaning in the context of the demonstration No 8 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 248
а b Picture 6. Various styles of placard: a) an elderly woman (‘traditional’ style); b) a young woman (‘contemporary’ style)
Picture 7. A placard in the far right section of the protest 249 MASS PROTESTS IN DECEMBER 2011 Dmitry Gromov. ‘We Are Not the Opposition, We People’
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b Picture 8. The far right part of the protest: imperial flags and masks. The inscription in picture b reads ‘Fair elections? No, I can’t hear you’