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Russian protesters on why they’re risking their futures
By:   []
Date: None

Over this past month, Russia’s mass protests in support of Alexey Navalny have brought people out in over one a hundred cities across the country.

According to independent monitoring organisation OVD-Info, the total number of people detained during the first rally on 23 January was 3,770. This figure, a record in Russia’s recent history, was quickly surpassed: on 31 January, 5,600 people were detained at anti-government protests across the country. Then, on 2 February, people who came to support Navalny at Moscow City Court were also detained en masse, as well as protests later that night in Moscow and St Petersburg.

For many Russian cities, detentions and clashes with riot police are a completely new phenomenon. Yet elsewhere - for example, Moscow, St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg or Khabarovsk - the actions of the police were, it seems, less than surprising given recent violent dispersions of protests by Russian law enforcement.

To understand what motivated people to participate in unauthorised rallies in January - despite the risk of being detained, 15 days of administrative detention and a heavy fine - I interviewed protesters on the streets of Moscow on both 23 and 31 January.

Mass protests are not places to hold extended interviews. I asked respondents only two or three questions: why they decided to participate in the protest, issues that they were personally concerned about, how often they attend protest actions and whether they were afraid of being detained by police.

On 31 January, I also added questions about the respondent’s social status (level of education, profession), and asked whether the interviewee considered themselves to be supporters of Alexey Navalny, how they define their political views, whether they participated in the 23 January protest the week before, and whether they will participate in protests in the future.

In total, I interviewed 27 people at the first protest and 23 at the second. The youngest respondent was 17, the oldest was 86.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/who-is-protesting-in-russia-navalny/