Despite Repression and Lack of Moscow Media Attention, Russians Continue to Protest – and Sometimes Succeed in Forcing Change

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 21 – Since the beginning of July, Russians have taken part in protest actions across the country, the editors of Kholod Media say. Most of these actions have been small, far from Moscow and about local issues, all reasons why they have in most cases failed to attract the attention of central media. But remarkably some have succeeded in forcing change (holod.media/2024/07/22/10-protestnyh-akczij-o-kotoryh-vy-mogli-ne-znat/).

            Perhaps the most intriguing of these unreported protest actions took place in Perm on July 17. Then a group of more than 250 people calling themselves “Russians Against Islamization” assembled to demand that officials block the construction of a mosque there (activatica.org/content/663af95c-8c50-4708-8e2d-e099320cf755/zhiteli-permi-vyshli-na-miting-protiv-stroitelstva-mecheti, t.me/perm36/14085 and t.me/horizontal_russia/38311).

            Meanwhile, on July 4, in Nizhnevartovsk in the Khanty-Mansi AD, 50 people came out to protest plans to build a Russian Orthodox church in a residential district there (t.me/horizontal_russia/38047). Participants said they weren’t against a new church but only its location near their housing (https://muksun.fm/news/2024-07-04/tserkvi-tut-ne-mesto-v-nizhnevartovske-lyudi-vyshli-na-miting-protiv-stroitelstva-hrama-5129702).

            Earlier, on July 7, 300 residents of Ulan Ude in Buryatia assembled to protest the plans of officials to build a new “super” prison colony there, something that would involve the destruction of more than 160 hectares of land (t.me/Baikal_People/6196,   t.me/Baikal_People/6213 and t.me/rusnews/38283).

            And on July 14, villagers in Ulyanovsk Oblast organized a demonstation to protest against the erection of fences in a local woods, something that they said would deprive them of the opportunity to walk there as has long been their custom (t.me/horizontal_russia/38215 and ulpressa.ru/2024/07/20/zhiteli-sela-smorodino-pozhalovalis-na-ograzhdenie-lesa-chastnoj-firmoj/).

            Attracting more attention and forcing officials to respond have been protests about power outages in Dagestan, Krasnodar, Anapa, and Rostov (t.me/rusnews/56831,  t.me/rusnews/56717, t.me/horizontal_russia/31793,  t.me/horizontal_russia/38374,  t.me/horizontal_russia/38386 and vk.com/my_bataysk?w=wall-64588835_285988&ysclid=lytz0es2t0651751676

            And finally, there were at least two protests against increases in the price for communal services, one in Syktyvkar in the Komi Republic and another in Biysk in the Altai. In both, participants called on their fellow citizens to stop voting for capitalists and in the Komi republic for the governor to resign (t.me/horizontal_russia/37906,  t.me/horizontal_russia/37906, vk.com/wall-140177262_24221  and vk.com/wall-140177262_24258).

            In short, Russia is not quite as quiet as Putin likes to present it and as all too many in the capital and in the West prefer to believe.