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Thousands in Russia Protest End to Soviet-Era Pension Rights
TurkishPress
Russia
January 15, 2005
Evgeny Asmolov - (AFP)
The biggest rally was in the centre of the president's own home town Saint Petersburg, where up to 10,000 protested.
Slogans called the president and his ministers "murderers of the old and invalid" and condemned a "genocide of the Russian people."
About 1,000 demonstrators blocked a highway between the Saint Petersburg city centre and the airport shrieking: "Shame" and "Shoot them!" and carrying banners denouncing "a mafia of profiteers."
Demonstrators included leaders of the communist party and the National Bolshevik Party, both now in opposition, and the liberal Yabloko parliamentary opposition group.
It was the first time Communists, whose predecessors ruled the Soviet Union, had joined pensioners' demonstrations.
Putin was still in Saint Petersburg early Saturday after receiving German President Horst Koehler there on Friday.
Saint Petersburg governor Valentina Matvyenko received a deputation of protestors and later told the press she had "objectively informed the president of people's reactions to the reforms."
An elderly man was killed in the city by a car trying to force its way through the demonstrating crowd, police said. Reports said three people were injured.
The Russian leadership has been confronted since the beginning of the week with a growing discontent over implementation of reforms ending Soviet-era benefits for pensioners, invalids and other disadvantaged categories.
These included free public transport and basic medicines. These benefits are being replaced by financial compensations which recipients consider totally inadequate, since only the very poorest of the poor would benefit.
About 1,000 pensioners also rallied Saturday outside the town hall in Khimki, a large Moscow suburb.
Young Communists joined the demonstrators and police prevented the crowd blocking a highway between central Moscow and the capital's Sheremetyevo airport.
Police temporarily held eight activists of the National Bolshevik Party, releasing them three hours later, a party spokesman told radio.
About 200 people demonstrated at Pushkin Square in the heart of Moscow for the release of 40 National Bolshevik Party activists arrested last month after they temporarily occupied the presidential administrative headquarters to protest the reforms.
Other demonstrations were held Saturday in Kazan, capital of the Tatarstan Republic, Samara and Saratov on the River Volga.
The government tried Friday to deflect public anger by announcing an increase in the basic state pension and further financial compensations.
The new government legislation which came into force this year replaces across-the-board benefits for elderly people and invalids with a system of means tests which give only the poorest free services.
Protesters are calling for the maintenance of free local transport passes and health benefits, plus reduced rates for municipal services for retired people.
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