Young people wearing white red-starred and 1941-45'd T-shirts with the text of the Russian national anthem on the back chanted "Long Live Veterans!" and "May Russia Be Forever!" A minute of silence in memory of all those who perished in WWII was followed by wartime and modern patriotic songs.
Vasily Yakemenko, Nashi's federal commissioner, said in his address to the audience, "We are now in charge of fight for the independence of our Motherland! We will never give away our country!"
A veteran told RIA Novosti he welcomed what was going on in the street.
"I am very happy to be among young people. I feel like being younger myself. I am 83 years old but I still remember the number of my Komsomol (a Communist youth organization with which Nashi is sometimes compared) ID."
The demonstration also involved a group of students from Nizhny Novgorod Technological University (Nizhny Novgorod is a major administrative center in Central Russia). They told RIA Novosti their trip to Moscow was very well organized.
They gave us buses and booked railway tickets for scores of people, one student said. Most young people, however, either declined to talk to media or were clearly advised to think better of it.
The demonstration was heavily guarded by the police.
