Russia staged a 'picket of snowmen' against Putin: it was dispersed by the police

Elena Kalinina, a Russian eco-activist from a village in the Arkhangelsk region, decided to organize a picket of snowmen. The police reacted quickly and arrived the next day, they took the posters from the snowmen, and the woman was taken away for a conversation. The edition told in more detail with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

The picket began on January 26 in the village of Zacachye, but it lasted less than a day. The eco-activist made 4 snowmen and handed them posters: “Vova, it's all over between us”, “Down with the Tsar”, “Peace to the huts! War to the palaces! " and "This is our country!"

How she came up with such an idea and what happened next, she told reporters.

“Mainly protests take place in big cities, and in villages and villages it is not customary to gather like this, so I decided that somehow I also need to state my position,” said Kalinina. “I placed them next to my plot, along the road on the side of the road, along which a lot of cars drive.”

Photo: VKontakte / Elena Kalinina

Photo: VKontakte / Elena Kalinina

After talking with the police, the snowmen did not remain silent and continued their protest anyway. Only now, without posters, it is written directly on them: "I am alive", "I am in the ranks", "You will not strangle", "You will not kill."

Photo: VKontakte / Elena Kalinina

The snowmen are still standing, only without the posters.

“Nobody cleaned them up. Otherwise, I see that some media write that they were destroyed. In our village, after all, everything is not so vandalized by the police. We have, in principle, adequate police officers. But from above they were told to take down the posters,” says the environmental activist.

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In the end, the protocol was never drawn up, but the police were shocked by this.

“We went to the department. They didn’t hold me for long, about 30 minutes. The police were shocked. They are ordinary people. Ours, local, village. And they are shocked that the state and senior management are reacting to such “protests.” Their position: they don’t understand this, why it is. And, probably, all reasonable people would react this way,” says Elena. “Because of this reaction from the police, everyone knows about the snowmen, but they could have just stood quietly.” Only our villagers and readers of my page would know.”

As it turned out, the police were called "from above".

“These are not complaints from locals, and they themselves did not see and stop. This is page tracking. Activist pages have been constantly monitored in recent years. This is a reaction to a post on VKontakte,” says Elena.

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And they are watching her pages because of her activities as an eco-activist.

“Ever since the Shies protests. I dealt with them. Although now everything is quiet, calm and understandable, I was studying during the active phase,” says Kalinina. — This was when mass rallies took place. Then we were punished for a large uncoordinated event in Arkhangelsk, and I was the first one to be reported in Russia under the law on fake news. Because of this, I’m a household name, so apparently the authorities are closely monitoring everything we write on social networks.”

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