Moscow Opposition Figures Tried to Tell Protesters at Shiyes How to Act, But the Latter Pursued Their Own Program and Won Out, Solovyova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 30 – Eight years ago, “one of the most high-profile, and most importantly successful protests in Russia began against the construction of a garbage dump at the Shiyes station” in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Elena Solovyova recalls. Their actions attracted the attention of people across Russia and around the world.

            But the Komi Daily journalist says that some Moscow liberals thought it was their job to tell the Shiyes protesters how to act. Fortunately, she continues, those taking part, from both the Komi Republic and Arkhangelsk Oblast, ignored that advice, continued on their own course, and won out (komidaily.com/2026/07/30/vosem-let-protestu-na-shiese/).

            Not everyone in Moscow behaved that way; but enough did, reflecting imperialist and paternalist attitudes of some of them to anyone from beyond the capital’s ring road that have limited the ability of many in Moscow to take seriously and work closely with people many Muscovites see as provincial.

            The Shiyes protests “revealed this colonial attitude very clearly,” Solovyova says. “And now, when eight years have past since they began, it is important to remember why the environmental protest against the construction of a trash dump became an anti-colonial one as well.”

            That the Putin regime and its supporters always viewed the Shiyes project as a colonial one was obvious from the beginning, she continues. Putin and his people talked about the need to shift trash away from where people lived and put It somewhere on the periphery.

            But they ignored the fact that there were people in precisely the areas Moscow wanted to put trash and that their interests needed to be protected to. That is what Shiyes showed, and that is why eight years on it must be seen as a powerful anti-colonial action, Solovoyova continues.

            Many Russian opposition figures in Moscow understand this, but a significant fraction of them still do not. They aren’t ready for people “from the provinces” to act on their own in defense of their interests and insist that such “second-class” people must subordinate themselves to the Moscow opposition.

            Had the protesters done so, they wouldn’t have created the powerful environmental defense party that these Muscovites promised. They would have given up without the victory that they won by continuing to protest. Looking back, Solovoyova says, that is what must be remembered now and in the future.

            For background on how environmental protests in regions became both political and more effective than what the Moscow opposition has tried, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/environmental-activism-often-seedbed-of.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/11/environmental-protests-in-russian.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/11/shiyes-protesters-victories-affecting.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/as-at-end-of-soviet-times-mass-actions.html.