Church Procession in St. Petersburg Mirrors One in Moscow and Attracts Few Extreme Nationalists, SOVA Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – The St. Petersburg church procession on Sept. 12 was about the same size – 90,000 as against 100,000 – and attracted just as few extreme Russian nationalists – less than one percent in the northern capital compared to about two percent in both cases, according to the SOVA Center which tracks extremism.

            For data on the extremists in the procession in the northern capital, see sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2026/09/d54533/; for a discussion of the march in Moscow, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/09/representatives-of-extreme-russian.html.

            On the one hand, what used to be considered extremism has in many cases gone mainstream in Russia and so those in “extremist” groups march with others rather than separately; but on the other, it is incorrect to describe the latest processions as a recrudescence of the Russian marches of earlier times.