If you have not been following the current events in Russia, the people in mass numbers are protesting the allegedly fraudulent Duma elections which occurred recently.
"The holiday mood, winter chill and end-of-the-year fatigue failed to dampen the country’s newfound political activism, with a protest on Moscow's Prospekt Akademika Sakharova on Saturday garnering more people than its Dec. 10 predecessor on Bolotnaya Ploshchad."
"Attendance estimates ranged from 30,000 to 120,000. Several Moscow Times reporters at the event put the figure at about 80,000, which is well above the 30,000 to 60,000 at the previous event."
"The roster of speakers was more diverse and impressive than on Dec. 10, with whistleblower Alexei Navalny, socialite Ksenia Sobchak and even former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin taking turns at the microphone, to various reactions from the crowd."
"The purpose of the rally was to protest the widely disputed outcome of Dec. 4 State Duma elections and the Kremlin's overall stifling of the country's politics. But for some newcomers, it had also become personal."
The rest of the article in connection with the recent protests in Moscow is here.
Over the past few days while following the enormous demonstrations in Moscow, I have not been able to keep my mind off of the fateful events in the fall of 1993 in Russia, as I was there...watching it live right before my eyes...dodging bullets.
By way of background, I have reprinted below a brief explanation from Wikipedia in connection with the 1993 Constitutional Crisis in Russia.
"The constitutional crisis of 1993 was a political stand-off between the Russian president and the Russian parliament that was resolved by using military force. The relations between the president and the parliament had been deteriorating for some time. The constitutional crisis reached a tipping point on September 21, 1993, when President Boris Yeltsin purported to dissolve the country's legislature (the Congress of People's Deputies and its Supreme Soviet), although the president did not have the power to dissolve the parliament according to the then-current constitution. Yeltsin used the results of the referendum of April 1993 to justify his actions. In response, the parliament declared that the president's decision was null and void, impeached Yeltsin and proclaimed vice president Aleksandr Rutskoy to be acting president."
"The situation deteriorated at the beginning of October. On October 3rd, demonstrators removed police cordons around the parliament and, urged by their leaders, took over the Mayor's offices and tried to storm the Ostankino television centre. The army, which had initially declared its neutrality, by Yeltsin's orders stormed the Supreme Soviet building in the early morning hours of October 4th, and arrested the leaders of the resistance."
"The ten-day conflict became the deadliest single event of street fighting in Moscow's history since the October Revolution of 1917. According to government estimates, 187 people were killed and 437 wounded, while sources close to Russian communists put the death toll at as high as 2,000."
The reason that I cannot keep my mind off of the events from 1993 is that it scared me to death. On October 4, 1993, across the street from the American Embassy, I watched men shooting AK-47s all around me. From under the bridge on top of which the Russian tanks rested, I watched the Tanks of the Taman Division shell the Russian White House. Later that same day, I was likely one of only two Americans who was actually in the Russian White House while the shooting and shelling was occurring.
My excuse for being in the center of the events that day is simple - when you are young for some reason you think you are immortal.
October 4, 1993, was the scariest day of my life.
At the urging of my wife and to memorialize the events for my kids, I will spend the next week trying to recount the events starting on September 25, 1993 - the first time that I was on Red Square - and finishing on October 7, 1993 - the day I came back to the USA for a three week vacation.
Despite all that transpired that day, I did go back to Moscow shortly thereafter and lived there for another eight months.
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