According to the human rights project «OVD-Info»**, at least 26 people were detained in 12 regions of Russia during actions in memory of Alexei Navalny. It is known that ten people were detained in Novosibirsk, at least three people each were detained in Moscow and Ufa, and two in Voronezh. In Belgorod, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, St. Petersburg, Ukhta, Ulyanovsk, and Chelyabinsk, one person was detained each.
Most of the detainees were released without reports being filed. In many cities, officers in uniform and plainclothes filmed those laying flowers and recorded their details, while memorials were destroyed, with flowers being thrown into trash bins. In some regions, access to monuments was blocked, and in Yekaterinburg, there was another report of «mining», similar to what was done a year ago.
In St. Petersburg, at the monument to victims of political repression, police detained a man who tried to attach a sheet with the quote «All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing».
In Perm, a young man was taken and brought to the police department when he came out with a poster saying «If you are especially in pain today, you are not alone! Alexei's heart beat for us». After a conversation, he was released without a report.
A resident of Belgorod wrote to her acquaintances that she would go to lay flowers at the monument to victims of political repression, and then reported that she was detained, but was released an hour later without a report.
In Voronezh, a girl was detained for a solo picket: «Do not be afraid. This is our country, and we have no other». Another local resident stood in a solo picket at the monument to Osip Mandelstam immediately after her young man was detained. She was also taken to the police department.
In Kazan, at the place where the «Navalny Headquarters»*** used to be located, activists installed a commemorative plaque.
According to the channel «Komi Politzek», a man who was detained in the morning at the memorial to the repressed was taken to the police station for identification and then taken to a drug treatment center, where he was released after a check. He returned to the memorial and found that the monument to the prisoners of Ukhtpechlag, where he had previously laid flowers, was completely covered with snow and compacted with a shovel.
Residents of St. Petersburg bring flowers to the Solovetsky Stone, around which metal barriers were installed today. Access to the monument is allowed for three people at a time, and they are not allowed to stay long, reported a correspondent from RusNews. Meanwhile, the flowers are immediately taken away by utility workers.
Memorials were destroyed in Khabarovsk and Saratov, utility workers took the flowers and cards, and the candles were thrown away, writes RusNews.
* Included in the list of «terrorists and extremists».
** Recognized in Russia as a «foreign agent».
*** Recognized in Russia as an «extremist» organization.
Photo: Bumaga, RusNews