Barricade on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street
action—happening, 1998
May, 23, 17. 00: the action is over, a blocking of the street 150 meters from the Kremlin, which continued for two hours and was realized by more than two hundred artists, intellectuals and students. It was a protest against the increasing political and cultural reaction, which is manifest in the total breakdown of parliamentary democracy, society's unability to counteract the governmantal dictatorship, the distribution of nationalist ideology (erecting of official monuments, business-centers, the introduction of repressive laws, ignoring the protests of miners, teachers etc. )
The action was the first examination of non-traditional political technologies in russian conditions. It's participants trust neither the existing power, nor the possibilities of the representative democracy. The basic idea of the participants is that evey citizen is to have his own voice and express his own will, regardless of "realism" and "objectivity" (the evening before, the organizers received a message from Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the leader of the Paris May 68 demonstrations and the present Europarliament Deputy). According to the main slogan of the Parisian revolution of 1968: "Let's be realists — Let's demand the impossible", the initiative group demanded:
— a monthly payment of $ 1 200 for every participant of the action;
— free use of drugs for every participant of the action;
— the right to free and uninhibited travel for every participant of the action. During the action the participants spontaneously proclaimed the new slogans
concerning the change of contemporary russian order of robbery capitalism. At the same time, the traditional slogans of the parisian revolution were risen:
"It's prohibited to prohibit!", "All the power — to the imagination!", "Let's be realists — let's demand the impossible".
Approximately at 16. 30 the action's participants started the march to Kremlin, shouting "We're victorious!". 10 minutes after its beginning the militia, which stood almost passive till this moment, blocked the participants' way and arrested six organizers and the activists, using extremely violent methods.
17. 30: The non-arrested participants congregated near the 83rd militia department, where, as the militiamen were saying, the arrested were taken. The militia in the office said that all the arrested had already been transferred from there to an unknown location. Near by the militia department the activists met the Central Area Head Prefect A. S. Musykantsky, who refused to help them or the sympathisers in any way, because the barricade action prevented him to get to his daughter's birthday in time. He called the whole action "petty hooliganism".
19:00 The group of non-arrested participants managed to contact 83th, 11th and 43d Moscow departments of militia. According to the latest information, the editor-in-chief of "RADEK" magazine Anatoly Osmolovsky and writer Dmitri Pimenov were taken to the Narcotics Testing Centre. The fate of the others in custody is still unknown. We don't exclude the possibility that the authorities will try to start a criminal case.
May, 24, 01. 00: In the evening, reports about the action were broadcast on almost all TV channels and radio. We can say, the journalists took the side of the power, and used the common strategy of downgrading the scandal. The reports were made in a slighting and ironical tone. The participants never expected that the bourgois media, which belong to the big financial-industrial companies, would join in their demands, and are absolutely satisfied with the widespread distribution of information on the events.
The group of non-arrested organizers learned, that the editor-in-chief of "RADEK" magazine A. Osmolovsky and writer D. Pimenov are in the 11th, artist Avdei Ter-Oganyan and activist Dmitri Model in 122nd, writer M. Demskaya and a participant by name Misha are in the 88th Moscow departments of the militia. An activist David Ter-Oganyan was released approximately at 21. 00. In the General Prosecution office we found out that the case of the arrested was already being considered. A. Osmolovsky said that probably they will be held in custody for 48 hours. D. Pimenov told the journalists who came that the militia jeered at him and refused to call for the ambulance in spite of his multiple complaints. After the visit of journalists the ambulance was called (22. 29) and took Pimenov to Botkinskaya hospital with a kidney disorder and "alcohol intoxication". The journalists (the staff of Russian central TV and an american newspaper) can witness that they didn't notice any signs of alcohol intoxication (and couldn't notice, because he was unable to drink anything after the arrest, for five hours already), which means: the information is untrue or he was violently forced to drink in the militia department. In conversation with the journalists the vice-director of the area's Department of the Internal Affairs falsely claimed that the ambulance was called before their coming, and stated, that the arrested were drug-crazed. He also said, they have no rights, except those to eat and drink and they are well fed in the militia station.
We didn't expect any other behaviour from the russian cops, but we must inform about every their crime, raise the finger, leave nothing in the shadow. We didn't expect anything else from the authorities, just feared more aggressive action from them, more understanding of the situation. We count the events of the previous day a real and important victory. Now we're definitely sure, we've chosen the right way to act.
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