Russia Protesters Get Rare Win as Officials Drop Church Plan
Russia Protesters Get Rare Win as Officials Drop Church Plan
(Bloomberg) -- Four nights of protests last week delivered an unusual victory to activists in a city in Russia as officials dropped a controversial plan to build a cathedral in a popular downtown park.
The decision, announced in Instagram by the regional governor, followed the intervention of President Vladimir Putin, who called last week for a poll to gauge support for the project. Thousands of residents of Yekaterinburg had come out to demonstrate against the cathedral in the days leading up to Putin’s comments, at times clashing with police.
The spontaneous protests were the latest in a series of demonstrations over local issues that have spread across Russia in the last year or so amid stagnant living standards. But the sudden about-face was unusual for the Kremlin, which has rarely been willing to appear to give in to public pressure.
“Three years ago, this would have been very dangerous” for the authorities, said Gleb Pavlovsky, a political consultant and former Kremlin adviser. “Yes, this could catalyze more protests, these things usually do, but that’s not critical to the Kremlin now.”
In Yekaterinburg, Governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev didn’t wait for the full-scale study of local opinion that Putin had suggested to determine a solution. After a government-run pollster Wednesday released the results of a survey showing 74% of residents said building the cathedral on the site of the park was a bad idea, he wrote in Instagram that a new site should be found.
“We’re very happy about the result. It’s really unexpected, of course,” said Konstantin Kiselyov, a member of the city assembly who had joined the protests. “A lot of people still don’t believe the authorities decided to give in to the people.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Stepan Kravchenko in Moscow at skravchenko@bloomberg.net;Evgenia Pismennaya in Moscow at epismennaya@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin
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