The past is a foreign country: A look back at the Moscow protests of December 2011 and what’s become of their leaders, 10 years later

MEDUZA/EN/VHF

Roughly 10 years ago, on December 4, 2011, elections were held for Russia's State Duma. The official results had United Russia, the ruling party, winning 49% of the vote. The mass voter fraud that led to this result, however, sparked protests across the country -- the largest since the early 1990s. The most notable events in the "Snow Revolution" or "Bolotnaya Revolution," as the protests were referred to by the media (though this was far from a revolution) were the rallies in Moscow: the protest at Chistye Prudy on December 5, the protests on Bolotnaya Square on December 10 and on Sakharov Prospekt on December 24, and the march on Yakimanka Street and the rally on Bolotnaya Street on February 4. The "March of Millions," an opposition march on Bolotnaya Street on May 6, ended in a clash with the police and subsequently with the "Bolotnaya Square Case," in which dozens of people were detained. On the 10th anniversary of the protests, a time when many Russians dared to hope for sweeping political change, Meduza looks back at the leaders and what's become of them in the decade since. Original Article: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/12/08/the-past-is-a-foreign-country