Drivers supportive of Russian Prime Minister and presidential hopeful Vladimir Putin took to the streets of Moscow to back his campaign and call for stability. The action echoed a number of other pro-Putin events around the country.
The Russian Interior Ministry reports that around two thousand cars took part in a pro-Putin car rally in the center of the Russian capital. The organizers of the event put the number of vehicles at five thousand. The rally started on Moscow’s wide Academician Sakharov Avenue and headed towards the Garden Ring, the circular road that surrounds the capital’s center. Participants honked their horns and waved flags. Their cars were brandished with portraits of Putin and slogans such as “Putin rules.” A number of other demos in support of the Prime Minister took place in several other Russian cities Saturday. These include Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Volgograd and some others. Event organizers in the cities of Ivanovo and Novosibirsk were fined for exceeding the permitted number of rally participants. But the most notable rally took place in Saint Petersburg, where the number of demonstrators reached 60 thousand, according to police estimates. They carried posters such as “We are for Putin, for a strong Russia” and “Yes to changes, no to revolution” and adopted a resolution demanding that a revolution not take place in Russia.The number of political rallies of various political allegiance has lately been on the rise in the country. On January 29, drivers in Moscow wielded white ribbons as they drove through the streets of the capital demanding fair elections. Event organizers put the number of participants at 5,000, while the Interior Ministry says it did not exceed 300. February 4 saw a slew of protests both for and against the ruling United Russia party and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.