Some 500 people affiliated with the Different Russia movement came to Pushkin Square in the afternoon to protest President Vladimir Putin's alleged crackdown on democracy. They spent about two hours rallying in the cordoned-off square without any reported interference from a 2,000-strong police force, but were unable to proceed with a protest march they had been planning to hold despite city authorities' refusal to give the go-ahead.
The Moscow rally, the latest in the Different Russia movement's Dissenters' Marches launched last December, came just two days after a similar action in St. Petersburg.
Saturday's demonstration, timed to coincide with a major international business forum hosted by the city, was the first one to see no police violence or interference. All previous such protests had been brutally dispersed by disproportionately large police units, with many of the participants taken to detention centers.
The Kremlin drew harsh international criticism last month following an aggressive police response to a rally in the Volga city of Samara during a Russia-EU summit there. Former chess champion Garry Kasparov and other Different Russia leaders were detained in a Moscow airport to keep them from attending the demonstration.
