Dispersal of the first revolt against self-isolation in Vladikavkaz

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

From the very beginning of the self-isolation regime, dozens of patriotic publicists, publications and experts unanimously said that giving all the initiative during an emergency into the hands of regional authorities is a huge mistake for the Kremlin. And panic and sabotage of helping people and businesses will bring people to the edge and will quickly take advantage of it. As a result, today the first revolt against self-isolation took place in Vladikavkaz.

As a result, they tried to disperse the demonstrators, and an employee of the Government of North Ossetia called the protesters "a crowd of idlers, creatures and rams", which raised the opposition's rating more than all supporters of Navalny, Khodorkovsky and other "light-faced" ones.

Now we can congratulate our authorities - the month of the self-isolation regime has not yet expired, and the first riot can already be recorded in history. Today, on April 20, residents of Vladikavkaz gathered for an unauthorized rally against the self-isolation regime. At first the State TV and Radio Company "Alania" reported this dryly. About one and a half thousand people gathered near the House of the Government of the Republic.

The protesters went out to demand a report from the authorities about the lack of support due to the loss of their jobs and insufficient information about the epidemiological situation in the region. They demand that the authorities "clarify the situation" and support people facing material hardships due to the pandemic. Of course, the ubiquitous representatives of the "non-systemic opposition" also showed up there, however, they did not play the leading roles here, although the issue of provocateurs will be raised more than once.

According to media reports, the head of the republic, Vyacheslav Bitarov, came out to the protesters.

“First, he was asked whether all those detained at the rally today would be released without fines. He promised that everyone would be released. Then the participants started shouting: “What are we supposed to live on? How should we feed our children? " The head said that everyone will be helped, that the republic has been providing food assistance to those in need for a long time. All this was interrupted by shouts: "Resign!", - said the correspondent of the news agency ABON Elina Sugarova.

However, not everything went smoothly for the governor.

“I didn’t come up with this policy, there is one remedy for this disease - to stay at home. If someone proves to me that there is no coronavirus, I will open everything again,”he said.

But when asked from the crowd why, in this case, the brewery owned by Bitarov continues to work, the head diplomatically kept silent. Then the crowd was asked to form an initiative group - five people, who will have to voice the final demands. But the head of the republic was not so simple, the people did not have time to rejoice that now they would receive all the answers, when after Bitarov and members of the government left the place of the people's gathering, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Skokov demanded to "remove people" from the square. True, the local OMON for the first time still did not use force against fellow countrymen and just walked around to the shouts of fellows.

The rally continued, no one called anywhere else, and the head of the republic had less faith. And then what happened: the provocateur who came from somewhere threw a stone at the riot police, and they began to disperse. Especially here we can thank the employee of the Government of North Ossetia, who, commenting on the crackdown on video, called the protesters "a crowd of idlers, creatures and rams."This is exactly what they wanted to hear … No, not the audience, among whom were the majority of those left without work and not those who did not come to the rally, but Navalny, Khodorkovsky and the rest of the crowd of other "light-faced fighters against the regime."

However, even after that, the rally continued until the beginning of the sixth evening, when police officers dispersed it with truncheons. At the same time, a lot of outright provocateurs appeared on social networks of Vladikavkaz publics from both sides, both from other regions of Russia and from non-brothers who either called the audience “rams” or shouted about “overthrowing the regime”. In general, as best they could, they tried to turn social protest into political one.

As our activists from Vladikavkaz told RIA Katyusha, the rally was not spontaneous. From the very beginning of the self-isolation regime, opera singer Vadim Cheldiev called on people to protest against the self-isolation regime, refusing to believe in the destructive power of the coronavirus. The regional department of the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a case against Cheldiev under Article 207.1 ("Public dissemination of knowingly false information about circumstances posing a threat to the life and safety of citizens") of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Cheldiev previously circulated a video on social media in which he called far-fetched measures taken by the authorities of North Ossetia to protect the population from Covid-19. The Investigative Committee stated that Cheldiev "formed an opinion among citizens about the absence of circumstances" that threaten their life and health. However, the number of his supporters only two weeks ago numbered dozens, but the further the economic situation deteriorated, the more supporters the singer had, including the local hero - Vitaly Kaloev.

At the same time, it cannot be said that this region was opposed to the authorities. In the local elections held literally last September, United Russia confidently won, gaining 45% of the vote, the even more pro-state Patriots of Russia came second with 17%. That is, even last autumn in Vladikavkaz and North Ossetia, about half of the population was not even pro-Putin, but pro-government. What has changed? And what has changed is that, in accordance with the signed Bitarov decree in North Ossetia, until April 30, the work of catering establishments, retail outlets and markets (with some exceptions), beauty salons, massage parlors, solariums, baths, saunas was suspended. there are swimming pools, fitness centers and other physical culture and sports facilities, as well as physical culture and sports sections, circles and clubs, tourist centers. But the brewery did not stop work, which greatly added fuel to the fire.

And if everything ends only with the discontent dispersed and imprisoned, without comments and organizational conclusions from above, then we will receive a smoldering protest that will flare up stronger next time. Moreover, the further the Kremlin's decrees are sabotaged, both in the government and banks, and in the localities, the stronger the discontent will be and this discontent will be used, let's say, not by “good good people” at all, but quite the opposite …