Volgograd hosts rally against election fraud

In Volgograd, the action of citizens, who consider the outcomes of the elections to the State Duma held on December 4 to be falsified, passed without incidents. Policemen and Cossack patrols were on duty around the perimeter of the square at a large distance. No state officials came out to meet the protesters.

The participants of the rally began appearing at the gathering place back from noon. The organizers and about a hundred of protesters appeared first.

"I organized people in the 'VKontakte'," the blogger Nikolai Shiryaev, one of the organizers of the rally, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "I helped them to get together, make the rules, and draft their peaceful speeches at the rally. I did not call them. They themselves called each other through the network. It was their decision. About 4500 persons responded. It is clear that not all of them will really come."

More than two thousand people came in fact. Protesters stood in separate groups. Representatives of the "Yabloko" and CPRF Parties were holding flags and banners.

Groups of nationalists with imperial flags could be seen in the crowd; many of them were in masks. At the podium and along the perimeter of the square, the procedure was supervised by self-security activists with green armbands, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

One of the organizers has reminded, in his address to the crowd, about the aims and motives of the All-Russian campaign. He said that the elections could be treated as rigged, as the number of violations "was boundless". According to his story, the authorities had exhibited the "highest degree of hypocrisy". The participants of the rally expressed their support with shouts and applause.