Nemtsov Marchers Far Older than Those in Recent Russian Protests, Zakharov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 1 – A year ago, Russian commentators pointed to the way in which young people were coming to dominate protests in Moscow and other Russian cities; now, a survey of the march in Moscow yesterday on the fifth anniversary of the murder of Boris Nemtsov finds that the average age of participants was over 45.

            This pattern of course reflects the fact that Nemtsov matters more to an older group of Russians than to younger ones. He was part of their lives far more than he may be for those significantly younger. But it also suggests that some of the suggestions last year about a generational shift in Russian protests was at a minimum overstated.    

            These conclusions are suggested by the results of the survey Aleksey Zakharov, the leader of the independent crowd assessment group “White Counter,” conducted yesterday (newizv.ru/article/general/01-03-2020/v-boy-idut-odni-stariki-sotsiologi-vyyasnili-kto-uchastvoval-v-marshe-pamyati).

            According to Zakharov, 453 of the estimated 22,300 participants agreed to answer his questions. Demographically, 60 percent of them were men; 40 percent women. The median age was 47, far higher than the 30 to 32 years in demonstrations in the Russian capital last summer and fall.

            The marchers were overwhelmingly Muscovites city and oblast (96 percent), with higher educations (78.2 percent), and had taken part in marches before.  A majority, nearly 60 percent, said that the march was both an act of memory and a political statement. And 96 percent said they were ready to take part in future political actions.

            They divided more or less evenly between those who said it was important to them that the march had received official sanction and those who said that didn’t matter to them.  They were overwhelmingly representatives of the left side of the political spectrum and opponents of Putin.

            Three out of four said they favored policies that would reduce income inequality; and forty percent said they would vote against Putin’s constitutional amendments and another 31 percent said they would not take part in the referendum on them.