The Rally of Dissent on Triumfalnaya Square, part of the ongoing Strategy-31 initiative by the Other Russia coalition, saw an increased number of participants compared to recent events. Opposition groups put estimates at between 700 and 1000 protesters.

Among those detained were former deputy prime minister and leader of the Solidarity opposition movement Boris Nemtsov, Solidarity leader Ilya Yashin, prominent political activists Roman Dobrokhotov and Nikolai Lyaskin, Memorial human rights organization chairman Oleg Orlov, and Lev Ponomarev of the organization For Human Rights.

Also detained was National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov, who organized the rally together with former Soviet dissident and prominent rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva and activist Konstantin Kosyakin. Limonov was detained several minutes after appearing at the rally, but was able to answer several questions from journalists.

“We, the citizens, have the right to be here on this square,” Limonov declared. “Whether the police have this right is a big question.”

Law enforcement officials, which included internal military forces and the notoriously brutal OMON police forces, were reportedly harsher than usual in their treatment of detainees. Eyewitnesses noted that a girl, bloody after being beaten by police, was among those in an OMON bus on its way to a police station.

Protesters attempted to block the road when the buses began to depart from the square, but were dispersed by police.

Journalists, photographers and cameramen had been cordoned off early in the evening into a small space near the exit of a nearby metro station.

The large number of participants, however, was somewhat overwhelming for the police.

“Usually they manage to detain all the activists in 30 minutes,” said photographer Ilya Varlamov, “but this time it took two hours.”

Many protesters clipped tags to their coats with the phrase “Article 31 of the Russian Constitution,” providing for freedom of assembly, which they hoped would inform the police of “what they were detaining.”

Sunday marked Nemtsov’s first time participating in the series of rallies, dubbed Strategy 31 by its organizers. “I haven’t participated up until now in the rallies on the 31st,” the former deputy prime minister said on his blog. “It seemed to me that with Limonov in charge, it wasn’t worth our ideological differences. On December 31, my attitude toward the rallies changed. It became shameful, upon seeing that while we drank champagne and snacked on olivye, OMON officers were driving the distinguished Lyudmila Alexeyeva onto a police bus.”

The rally on December 31 ended in the detention of approximately 60 of 400 activists present, including the 82-year old Alexeyeva. Her arrest in particular drew immediate scorn from domestic rights groups as well as the United States and various European governments.

Like all previous Rallies of Dissent, Sunday’s demonstration was held without official sanction from the Moscow city authorities. While organizers submitted a proper application, the mayor’s office stated that “winter festivities” had been planned for Triumfalnaya Square on Sunday evening and advised them to pick another location. Organizers of the rally maintain that federal authorities are simply continuing to do whatever they can to block citizens’ rights to exercise freedom of assembly.

Analagous rallies were also held on Sunday in St. Petersburg, Astrakhan, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Murmansk and other cities througout Russia.

Valmarov’s photographs of the rally can be seen by clicking here.

The coalition leaders also plan to appeal to Russia’s Constitutional Court.

Moscow authorities claimed that the rally would not be allowed due to “winter festivities” that were already scheduled to take place on Triumfalnaya Square, where the Other Russia has traditionally held its Rallies of Dissent.

This month marked the seventh time that the rallies were denied sanction by the Moscow authorities. Coalition leaders began holding the rallies in 2009 on the 31st of every month with that date , in defense of the 31st article of the Russian constitution guaranteeing freedom of assembly. Each has been banned under a variety of pretexts, but organizers have held the protests nevertheless.

“Most likely, it’s not the Moscow government that’s deciding our fate every time,” rally organizers said in Thursday’s statement. “Apparently, it’s the federal authorities that are making the decision, and this is a political decision that contradicts the constitution.” Among the organizers was 82-year old Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a former Soviet dissident and prominent rights activist who was among 60 people detained at the last rally on December 31, 2009. Each of the other protests has ended in a similar manner.

“You have turned Russia into a police state,” the statement continues, addressing the Russian authorities. “The citizens of Russia have been robbed of politics, robbed of elections at all levels: from governors to the deputies of local assemblies. We are trying to win back a small square.”

Beginning this month, regional Other Russia leaders will begin to hold the Rallies of Dissent in St. Petersburg, Astrakhan, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk and Murmansk in addition to Moscow.

Organizers in St. Petersburg have already turned to the courts to defend their right to hold the January 31 rally. Officially, city authorities have banned the demonstration on the basis that it would block traffic around the central Gostiny Dvor shopping complex. Organizer Andrei Dmitriev maintains that the charge is contradictory, and says that while he hopes the courts will allow the protest, it will be held regardless of the judicial outcome.