Protestors in the capital braved freezing temperatures, carried placards, and railed against the Russian government’s response to the economic crisis.  Demonstrators called on the government to resign.

Small pickets took place around Moscow, starting in South-eastern part of the city.  Early in the day, members of the banned National Bolshevik party lit flares and waved flags near the Vykhino metro station, close to where a 20-year-old activist, Anton Stradymov, had been beaten to death on January 14th.

Later in the day, National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov was arrested in the central Triumfalnaya Ploschad (Triumph square).  Limonov had walked into the square carrying a copy of the Russian constitution, referring to it to its guarantee to freedom of assembly.  The opposition leader, who was surrounded by guards and supporters, was then pulled from the square and arrested by OMON riot police.  A number of Limonov’s supporters, who chanted “We need another Russia,” and “Russia without Putin,” were also detained.

Around 250 members of Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front (UCF) and the Solidarity opposition movement rallied on Ulitsa Bolshaya.  Masked men with metal rods came from behind the demonstrators and attacked the group, grabbing at banners and injuring several of the protestors.  The attackers, who were untouched by police, then drove away in waiting cars.  UCF activist Aleksei Kazakov, who had a bloodied face and nose, continued marching and eventually called for an ambulance.  Fellow demonstrators waiting with Kazakov were subsequently arrested by police.  The protestors suspect the attackers were members of a pro-Kremlin youth movement, Young Russia.

A separate protest put on by the Russian communist party brought out around 1000 participants in Moscow, who called for a return of the centrally planned Soviet economy.

Several thousand pro-Kremlin youth rallied in a different part of the city in an effort to back the government’s anti-crisis measures.

In other parts of Russia, people also took to the streets to protest rising prices and what they call a poor government response to a rapidly slowing economy.  Demonstrations took place in St. Petersburg, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Blagoveshchensk, Omsk, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Penza, Voronezh, Tomsk and Orel.

In the far-eastern city of Vladivostok, over 2000 people marched over 5 km (3.1miles) in protest of higher import duties on foreign used cars.  Imports of foreign autos from Japan and Asia have dropped by 95 percent since the new duties took effect.  The demonstrators called for the resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Throughout the day, the United Civil Front, the Kasparov.ru online opposition newspaper and other human rights groups reported that their telephone lines were under attack.  Reaching rights lawyers and reporting what was happening was impossible, the groups said.

Demonstrations, numbering hundreds of people, have also taken place in other Russian cities, centering in the far-eastern Primorye region. Car enthusiasts and importers are angry at the new tariff, which raises prices on used cars imported from Japan and other Asian countries.

The tax, initiated December 10th, aims to encourage domestic production of cars and press Russians to purchase cars made in the country.

While authorities have not backed off the tariff since protests began nearly two weeks ago, they have begun to make some concessions. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised to cut shipping charges on domestically made cars, so that Russians in the far east would not pay more than those living in the European side of the country.

Still, many demonstrators were unsatisfied with the proposal and shocked at the police response to a peaceful demonstration. Vladimir Litvinov, who leads a human rights group in Vladivostok, spoke candidly with The Associated Press:

“We support a civilized resolution to all the problems,” he said, “but when they send Moscow riot police to break up a gathering in our city, and they start breaking arms and legs and heads… People are very, very angry. It’s hard to predict what might happen now.”

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Solidarity, an opposition movement launched by democratic critics of the Russian government, released a statement directed toward protesters:

An address from Solidarity to participants of protests against raising tariffs on foreign cars.
December 19, 2008

Dear friends and colleagues!

Our movement expresses solidarity with your valid and legal demands, and fully backs you. Raising tariffs on foreign-made cars is a blow to more than twenty million car enthusiasts in our country, and a blow to jobs in the auto business. [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin took this decision to protect the oligarchs close to him, who own car businesses: S. Chemezov (AvtoVaz) and O. Deripaska (AvtoGaz). This will not lead to anything other than higher car prices and the preservation of a lagging Russian auto industry. In substance, when he had to choose between twenty million car lovers and the oligarchs, Putin chose the latter.

On December 19th, Putin spoke out with an initiative to purchase domestic cars out of the [federal] budget. However, we doubt that he and members of the government will lead by example and support the domestic car industry. [We doubt] that Putin will stop driving in a Mercedes with a convoy of countless foreign-made cars.

Solidarity proposes that civil servants drive domestic cars, and that import tariffs not be raised.

Only a protest with solidarity can force the authorities to carry out the will of the people!

-The office of the Solidarity Federal Political Council