Kommersant learned that the magazine has virtually disappeared from newsstands only after receiving reports from its readers. Representatives of the publication then went around to several dozen retailers and were consistently told that copies of Vlast had either been sold or were returned to distributors as unsold, despite the fact that a new copy of the magazine is not due to come out for another several days.

The issue in question, dated July 4, is largely dedicated to the upcoming resignation of largely unpopular St. Petersburg Mayor and United Russia member Valentina Matvienko, who was controversially chosen by President Dmitri Medvedev last month to become Speaker of the Federation Council. The soon-to-be-former mayor is pictured on the cover blowing a small horn with a quote that plays on the Soviet-era award “For Service to the Fatherland” – only here the word “service” is replaced by a term made up by city authorities for the gargantuan icicles that killed a record number of residents this past winter. Matvienko was widely criticized for failing to keep streets clear of snow and ensure that icicles be removed from buildings before they could harm pedestrians. The article itself discusses her successes and failures in office, her strained relationship with the president, and the possibility that her new position may simply be an honorable discharge from Russian politics.

According to Ekho Moskvy, the newspaper is not ruling out the possibility that the issue angered the city administration. On condition of anonymity, a representative of one of two companies that distribute 90 percent of all the copies of Vlast throughout St. Petersburg told Kommersant that the order to cut off distribution came directly from the St. Petersburg City Printing Committee; the company made no official statement. A representative of the second company did make an official statement that no copies had been confiscated from retail outlets.

Printing Committee head Aleksandr Korennikov told Kommersant that he was unaware of any confiscations.

Khamroev, a member of the Russian civil rights society Memorial, was attacked in Moscow on December 7.

According to Interfax, the rights advocate was visiting an acquaintance – a Russian citizen who emigrated from Kyrgyzstan – who had called Khamroev and complained that armed men had broken into his apartment.

“Bakhrom came out to the place. They didn’t let him in the apartment, they forced him to leave the entrance,” said Oleg Orlov, head of Memorial. “Then a man came out of a microbus parked nearby – we know the number – and asked Bakhrom several questions and suddenly hit him several times on the head. Bakhrom lost consciousness and was hospitalized.”

The leadership of Memorial believes that Khamroev was beaten by law enforcement officers.

Khamroev had previously been attacked in January 2007. The human rights activist was beaten by three men and suffered from a concussion.

The proposal was made late Monday to Strategy 31 co-organizer and prominent rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva. Speaking to Ekho Moskvy radio, Alexeyeva said she “was just at the mayor’s office,” where officials said they were willing to “widen the part” of Triumfalnaya Square that they had proposed last week for the oppositionists to rally. The expansion, said officials, would “block traffic,” but if no more than 800 people took part in the rally, it would not be broken up by police as in each past Strategy 31 rally. “They say that about 800 people plus the press will fit there,” said the rights activist. She did not rule out, however, that more people might try to participate.

“It’s very important that people who definitely want to be at the rally come on time, because when the space fills up, it could be difficult to get there,” noted Alexeyeva. She also expressed hope that the other two Strategy 31 organizers, Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov and Left Front representative Konstantin Kosyakin, would agree with her to accept the proposal, so that the Russian opposition could finally hold a rally in defense of the constitutional right to free assembly without being broken up by police.

The mayor’s office originally agreed to sanction the rally only if no more than 200 people showed up, but then reneged on their offer when rally organizers insisted on letting 1500 people protest.

A source in the mayor’s office told the Interfax news agency that the city was not willing to take down a construction barrier and remove equipment currently taking up the majority of space in the square, as oppositionists requested last week that they do in order to allow the usual 1500 or so protesters to take part in the event.

After talks on Monday night, however, the three Strategy 31 organizers were unable to reach a consensus on whether or not to accept the city’s proposal. According to Ekho Moskvy, Limonov and Kosyakin now plan to write a another letter to the mayor’s office asking for 1500 people to be allowed to come out to the rally. Alexeyeva said she would not be signing the letter.

Limonov had earlier expressed both surprise at the proposal and skepticism in general. “For my part, I can also say that we were told that there was only space for 200 people; where all of a sudden, in the course of a day, did space for another 600 come from?” he said.

Lev Ponomarev, head of the organization For Human Rights, told Ekho Moskvy radio that a request had been sent to Interim Mayor Vladimir Resin to sanction the “Day of Anger,” part of a regular series of rallies under that name. The demonstrations are aimed at allowing Russian citizens to voice their collective grievances against corrupt government officials, civil rights abuses, unconstitutional policies, and other political and societal problems. The rallies are routinely banned and violently broken up by police.

While it is completely routine for the Russian authorities to ban opposition protests on weak or nonexistent pretexts, former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov was known for going to the extreme and banning rallies just so he didn’t have to see them. As Ponomarev told Ekho Moskvy, it would not be right for Resin “to continue the tradition that was formed under Yury Luzhkov, in which any rally on Tverskaya Square across from his office was automatically banned.”

“There were many violations of the rights of Muscovites, illegal actions, corruption” under Luzhkov, the rights advocate went on. “One of these violations was the regular prohibition of large demonstrations outside his window. There must be changes. Resin, in temporarily fulfilling the mayor’s duties, should act according to the law.”

Organizers of the upcoming Day of Anger, scheduled for October 12 on Moscow’s Tverskaya Square, handed in an application for the event the day Luzhkov was fired. On September 30, they received notification that their application had been denied, on the basis that the rally would “bother Muscovites and guests of the city” and could possibly result in damage to a monument on the square. Oppositionists decried the move as unfounded, saying that the city was giving up the chance to improve the political climate in the capitol.

Corresponding Day of Anger rallies are planned for October 12 in cities throughout Russia, including in St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Penza, Kirov, Voronezh, Ufa, Krasnoyarsk, Ivanovo, and many other cities. The last Day of Anger in Moscow was held without official sanction on September 12. Thirty out of the approximately 200 participants were detained by police.

According to Ekho Moskvy radio, a group of well-known actors, musicians, journalists, and rights activists came together to attempt to go about several hours of their normal lives – going grocery shopping, to a cafe, or to the movies – in wheelchairs.

The event began at Moscow’s Lenin Library, where the wheelchaired participants attempted simply to enter the building. This turned out not to be possible, as the library doesn’t have a ramp, and it isn’t possible for someone in a wheelchair to climb six steps.

The participants were also unable to use the metro, since the turnstile proved to be too narrow.

The ralliers proceeded to the Pushkin Museum, which was also impossible for the wheelchaired participants to enter by themselves. The museum staff said only that they have guards who are ready to lift handicapped visitors into the museum by hand if necessary

At one point, Bolshoi Gorod Editor-in-Chief Filipp Dzyadko attempted to enter a cafe in his wheelchair. This was also unsuccessful, due to the doorstep and narrow doorway.

Overall, participants of the rally said that curbs and awkward ramps posed the most danger to handicapped persons in Moscow.

The journal held a similar event in 2009 that elicited a sizable public response. According the Kasparov.ru news portal, city authorities began to make accessibility improvements in response – but, judging by this latest event, it’s clear that much more work is needed to be done. Journalist Yasha Levine undertook a similar effort in 2007 for the Exile magazine; a lengthy photo essay of his experience can be found here. He notes that despite an accessibility law introduced in 2001 by then-President Vladimir Putin, transportation remains one of the most serious problems for the handicapped in Moscow. For example, while certain models of wheelchairs can theoretically be finagled onto the metro, there is no way for the handicapped to transfer stations.

Coverage in Russian and photographs by Bolshoi Gorod of the event can be found by clicking here.

A group of youth activists attending Seliger 2010, a summer-long camp that was founded as a training ground for the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi but is now run directly by the federal government, erected a row of 13 plastic heads on sticks. Each head has a hats bearing Nazi symbols and a picture of a different Russian public figure, including former Soviet dissident Lyudmila Alexeyeva, musician Yury Shevchuk, and jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

The installation was originally thought to be organized by Nashi itself, but was later found to be the work of a smaller pro-Kremlin youth group called Stal (”Steel”). According to the group’s LiveJournal page, Stal is a “patriotic movement created for the unification of thinkers and prepared for decisive action for the sake of its country, for the sake of Russia, of youth.” They also call themselves “the weaponry of Russia.”

According to Ekho Moskvy radio, Russian Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin is deeply enraged by the installation. He said that it would be hard to do more damage to Russia’s reputation and that the organizers should be severely punished.

Russian bloggers immediately pointed out that the installation violates a federal law banning the public demonstration of Nazi symbolism.

Members of the Public Chamber, a federal body meant to foster dialogue between civil society and the government, called for a full boycott of the camp.

“I am deeply outraged that our best human rights advocates and well-known public figures – Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Nikolai Svanidze – are compared to Nazis,” said Alla Gerber, Public Chamber member and president of the Interregional Holocaust Foundation. “The authors of this installation are irresponsible hooligans, absolutely insane people who don’t know what Nazis are.”

Nashi defended Seliger 2010 for allowing different youth movements to express different points of view, Stal’s being no exception. In a statement posted on its website on Wednesday, Nashi said that the camp’s administration “does not subject participants’ statements to censorship, does not participate in the preparation of installations, does not pay for art objects that delegations bring along.”

Lyudmila Alexeyeva told Ekho Moskvy that public figures would do best to ignore such incidents, and thus she does not plan to file suit for slander against the installation’s organizers.

“Things like this don’t offend me,” said Alexeyeva. “And really, if they originate with Nashi, then excuse me, who is there to be offended by – those who make do without any human qualities, decency, or intelligence? Let them amuse themselves in this ugly fashion. Put up a caricature of an old woman who already looks sufficiently morose. If my grandchildren did this, then I would explain to them that good children don’t do this. But here I’m not going to explain anything.”

In remarks today at the official opening of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev spoke about his goals for Russia’s economy and how state policy would be shaped to achieve them, Interfax reports.

“Russia,” the president said, “must become an attractive country that people from all over the world will aim for in search of their dreams. In search of the best opportunities for success and self-realization, which Russia can give to everyone ready to heed this call and love Russia as their new or second home.”

“Such are the goals of our modernization – they are realistic and achievable,” Medvedev asserted. He added that favorable conditions for modernization are currently developing in the country’s economy. He also said that state fiscal policy would be shaped with this in mind.

The three-day forum, which began Thursday afternoon, brings together European leaders, representatives from international corporations, economists, and other global policy makers to discuss modernization and development in emerging economies. A range of topics, including energy and security policy, are expected to be covered.

A presidential aid had stated earlier that Medvedev’s speech “will be mainly dedicated to Russia and the way we have changed.”

The Russian president singled out inflation in his opening remarks as one of the primary issues faced by his country’s economy. He also said that the inflation rate has fallen over the course of the year and is now hovering at about 6%.

In his turn, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pledged that inflation would not rise above 5-7% over the next three years, with the top target for next year set at 6.5%. He stressed that citizen trust in state policy was the key factor for successfully overcoming economic difficulties, and that Russians do indeed trust the ruble and their domestic banking system.

Former Economics Minister and Scientific Director of the Higher School of Economics Yevgeny Yasin said that the figures cited by the prime minister are realistic, but that inflation in Russia must necessarily fall to around 3-4%. In an interview with Ekho Moskvy, he also stipulated that the best time for prices to fall – the crisis period – had already passed.

While Russia has reported a decline in inflation each month since August 2009, some analysts say that the government’s reliance on consumer prices to calculate the rate presents a false reading of actual inflation. “Consumer prices,” says political commentator Sergei Shelin, “only make up a part of all prices. All the remaining prices are growing, and seem to know absolutely no shame.”

A panel entitled “Finance after the Crisis” was held in the same room after Medvedev’s remarks. There, according to the newspaper Vedomosti, influential global financial analysts discussed whether or not the presidents’ goals were achievable. The newspaper reported that of those present at the panel, 61% believed that the Russian financial system faces stagnation over the course of the next 2-5 years. About 5% expect another crisis, and the last third are optimistic that Russia will see a speedy rate of growth.

At another panel later in the day, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said that the task of cutting the budget deficit is harder for Russia than other European countries. This, he explained, has to do with the fact that the state treasury is highly dependent on the oil and gas sector. Kudrin reminded his audience that the current cut in Russia’s deficit is happening as a result of high oil prices – not because of the efforts of the government.

The finance minister also said that a rise in the retirement age would be an unavoidable result of the budget deficit, and confirmed plans for substantial increases in taxes on gasoline, alcohol, and tobacco.

On Wednesday, the Tverskoy District Court in Moscow handed down the sentence to 56-year-old Sergei Makhnatkin, finding him guilty of assaulting a police officer during a December 31, 2009, rally that was part of the opposition’s Strategy 31 campaign in defense of free assembly. In the yearlong history of the rallies, he is the first person to receive an notable term of confinement.

Makhnatkin’s supporters insist that he had nothing to do with the protest. According to United Civil Front representative Aleksandr Khatov, the now-convicted man was detained when the rally was broken up by police. “He was just a passerby on his way to Red Square in order to meet the New Year there,” said Khatov. “But then he saw that police had seized a woman and were dragging her towards a bus.”

Makhnatkin came to the defense of the elderly woman and, as a result, was detained and put in a police bus with nine other rally participants. There, Khatov went on, the man was handcuffed to his seat and beaten in front of all those present.

70-year-old Raisa Vavilova, the woman who Makhnatkin tried to help, testified as a witness for the defense during the trial. She told the Interfax news agency that Makhnatkin had never previously appeared at any demonstrations by the extra-systemic [those denied the right to operate in the political system - ed.] opposition. “He was an accidental passerby who stood up for me when I was detained on Triumfalnaya Square. They thought he was one of us,” confirmed the elderly woman.

According to Khatov, Makhnatkin testified that the incident with the police officer took place in the police bus where he was put after being detained. There, said the defendant, a policeman attempted to choke him. The court ruled, however, that the officer did not use any violence against Makhnatkin, as an examination had found no signs of trauma on his body, and the officer, meanwhile, had a broken nose.

“He couldn’t have hit anyone, because he was handcuffed to the seat,” said Khatov. “Maybe he turned clumsily while he was being beaten.”

Makhnatkin turned out to be the only one of the 60 people detained at the rally who met the New Year in police confinement; all others had been let out before midnight. After being released, the man filed a complaint with the police department demanding that the officers who beat him be punished.

On June 1, Makhnatkin was summoned to a police station where, he was told, he would have a chance to identify his assailants. Instead, said Khatov, police wanted to fingerprint the Tver resident. When Makhnatkin refused, he was arrested and sent to a pretrial detention facility.

In response, Makhnatkin declared a dry hunger strike – no food, no water – which Khatov says the man has now sustained for eight days. While dry hunger strikes are known to sometimes last as long as a week, most people cannot survive more than three days without water. When the trial began on June 8, his supporters found that he looked quite ill and feared for his health.

The verdict handed down today noted that the court considered only the police officers to be credible witnesses, dismissing all those on the side of the defense as persons of interest.

“It’s notable that the testimony from defense witnesses was not accepted for consideration,” Anastasia Rybachenko, an activist with the opposition movement Solidarity, wrote on her blog. “The judge felt that she couldn’t trust them, since they entirely refute the testimony by the prosecution’s witnesses – police officers.”

While prosecutors asked Makhnatkin to be sentenced to the full five years allowed by Russian law, the court, according to Gazeta.ru, took “all circumstances of the case” into consideration and ruled that it was possible to hand down a lighter sentence.

Makhnatkin’s lawyers do not plan to appeal.

“He was given a state lawyer who didn’t even show up at the verdict reading,” said Rybachenko.

Renowned rights activist and Strategy 31 co-organizer Lyudmila Alexeyeva said that the defendant had turned down legal aid that rights advocates had offered him.

“We sent Makhnatkin a lawyer. For some reason, he turned him down; it’s possible that he didn’t understand that it was free aid,” Alexeyeva said on Ekho Moskvy radio. “He’s something of a strange man, this Makhnatkin.”

“Not only does he not deserve two and a half years, but those police officers who fabricated this case deserve punishment,” she added.

Alexeyeva explained that police at the rally had taken Makhnatkin “for one of [National Bolshevik Party leader and Strategy 31 co-organizer Eduard] Limonov’s guards and was very glad that a guard of Limonov allowed himself to hit a police officer,” she went on. However, “when it became clear that he had nothing to do with Limonov, it was already too late.”

Alexeyeva said she would work to ensure Makhnatkin’s release.

“The man is innocent and we are going to get him released,” she said.

Solidarity bureau member Sergei Davidis said that his movement is looking into getting Makhnatkin a lawyer to appeal the court’s verdict.

Speaking to Ekho Moskvy, former Deputy Prime Minister and Solidarity bureau member Boris Nemtsov denounced the case as a show trial.

“This is an act of intimidation; it is aimed at making it so that the people who more and more gather on the 31st date become afraid of winding up in prison,” he said. “It is a show trial, done so that all the rest who plan to come out on July 31 in Moscow and St. Petersburg, stop.”

Aleksei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy radio, made the remarks at a session of the Moscow City Police Public Council on Tuesday. As he later clarified on his radio show, the editor felt that while the Russian government’s routine prohibition of opposition events on the square is illegal, it is necessary for opposition organizers to “take a step back” if they want to reach their goal of achieving the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of assembly.

The comments come a week after police detained 170 protesters at a rally in defense of free assembly, part of the Russian opposition’s ongoing Strategy 31 campaign. Dozens of activists were beaten, and at least two were hospitalized. The rally, like the others before it, had not been sanctioned by Moscow city authorities, who said that they had already granted permission to pro-Kremlin youth activists to hold a rally in support of blood drives on the square that day.

Venediktov characterized the ongoing conflict over Triumfalnaya Square, which Strategy 31 organizers say has become their traditional meeting place, as a “mutual obstinacy” that, realistically, can only be resolved by “nulling the situation.” Since neither the government nor the oppositionists are willing to cede the square, “it simply must be given up,” he said.

Konstantin Kosyakin, a Strategy 31 co-organizer, rejected the proposal and told Kasparov.ru that the activists plan to hold their ground.

“People already automatically come to Triumfalnaya at six o’clock on the 31st of the month,” Kosyakin said. “The government is afraid that this place will become an attraction for all oppositionist and civil rights forces. Therefore, if we compromise, the people will think that we have betrayed them.”

“This government is a government of thieves and bandits, and you cannot meet them halfway,” he added.

Gazeta.ru Editor-in-Chief Mikhail Mikhailin, also a member of the Public Council, told news website Grani.ru that he wholly shared Venediktov’s position. He said that if large gatherings on Triumfalnaya Square truly hinder traffic – one of the reasons Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has given as to why Strategy 31 rallies are routinely prohibited – then both Strategy 31 rallies and blood drive rallies organized by pro-Kremlin youth groups should indeed be banned.

Meanwhile, Moscow Helsinki Group head and Strategy 31 co-organizer Lyudmila Alexeyeva also attended the Public Council session and refuted that Venediktov asked for Triumfalnaya to be closed to protesters. “It’s possible that he said something else afterwards, it’s written on the Ekho Moskvy website, but there he said that everyone needs to be put in the same conditions: ‘Either nobody is allowed, or don’t just allow [the government's] favorites.’ I’m told that it’s written on the website that he demanded that Triumfalnaya Square be closed. I heard nothing of the sort,” she said.

Denis Bilunov, executive director of the opposition movement Solidarity, said that Venediktov’s statements play into the hands of the authorities by calling for concessions by the opposition.

“We can make concessions when, for example, [Russian President Dmitri] Medvedev or Luzhkov speak unequivocally about the illegality of refusing to sanction protests on Triumfalnaya Square and begin to investigate this,” he said.

Correction – June 9, 2010:  This story originally reported that the event held by pro-Kremlin youth groups was a blood drive. It was, in fact, a rally in support of the idea of a blood drive; no blood was donated at the event. The article has been corrected to reflect as much.

The four activists, who hailed from the liberal Yabloko party, wore shirts reading “Save Baikal from the TsBK,” referring to the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill, which environmentalists say is killing the world’s largest freshwater lake.

The small group unfurled a wordless banner picturing the lake in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square, and was surrounded by police after taking only a few steps. After the police succeeded in taking away the banner, the activists argued that they had every right to hold their protest and demanded to speak to Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev. Ten minutes later, however, all four had been detained and brought away for processing at a police station.

Russian federal legislation prohibits rallies or protests from being held without receiving government sanction, which rights activists say is a violation of the country’s constitution. In addition to that, it is entirely forbidden to hold any kind of gathering, protest, or march on Red Square without the express permission of the president himself.

Despite grave environmental concerns, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a decree in mid-January to change the environmental laws previously prohibiting waste from being dumped into Lake Baikal to allow the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill to resume suspended operations. Saturday was the final day to sign a petition calling on UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova to defend the lake, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While supporters of the mill say that it will bring much-needed jobs to the region, critics insist that not only does the decree violate Russian law, but it also “obstructs the environment-safe economic development of the town of Baikalsk and the whole Baikal region.”

Regional police have taken startling measures to suppress outrage about the mill, including by bringing armored vehicles and least one tank to a large protest and by seizing computers from environmental activists.

More photographs from the protest can be found on Ekho Moskvy’s website by clicking here.