Mikhail Yermakov, a retired engineer, has never before taken to the streets to protest -- not when the Soviet Union collapsed, the wars in Chechnya began, the ruble plummeted in 1998 or President Vladimir Putin last year ended his right to choose his governor.
On Saturday, however, he joined hundreds of others in the central square of this gritty industrial city on the edge of Moscow in the latest of a week-long wave of protests across Russia against a new law abolishing a wide range of social benefits for the country's 32 million pensioners, veterans and people with disabilities.
PHOTO: EPA
Demonstrations were conducted in at least three other cities in the Moscow region, in the capital of Tatarstan and, for the fourth consecutive day, in Samara in central Russia.
In St. Petersburg, several thousand demonstrators blocked the city's main boulevard, with some calling for Putin's resignation.
Taken together, the protests are the largest and most passionate since Putin came to power in 2000. They appear to have tapped into discontent with Putin's government and the party that dominates the Russian legislature, United Russia.
"It is spontaneous, and this is the most dangerous thing for the authorities," Yermakov, 67, said, as speakers denounced the government from a step beneath a hulking bust of Lenin.
"It is a tsunami, and United Russia does not understand that it is going to hit them," he added.
The law, which took effect on Jan. 1, replaced benefits like free public transportation and subsidies for housing, prescriptions, telephones and other basic services with monthly cash payments starting at a little more than US$7.
In a sign of bureaucratic inefficiency, some of those eligible have yet to receive any payments.
Putin and United Russia's leaders have defended the law as an important reform ending a vestige of the old Soviet communist system, but they clearly failed to anticipate the depth of opposition from those who relied most on the subsidies: millions of Russians living on pensions of less than US$100 a month.
The protesters have denounced the new payments as insufficient to cover the cost of the benefits and as miserly for a country that recently reported a budget surplus of nearly US$25 billion.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
PINEAPPLE DEBATE: While the owners of the pizzeria dislike pineapple on pizza, a survey last year showed that over 50% of Britons either love or like the topping A trendy pizzeria in the English city of Norwich has declared war on pineapples, charging an eye-watering ￡100 (US$124) for a Hawaiian in a bid to put customers off the disputed topping. Lupa Pizza recently added pizza topped with ham and pineapple to its account on a food delivery app, writing in the description: “Yeah, for ￡100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on, you monster!” “[We] vehemently dislike pineapple on pizza,” Lupa co-owner Francis Wolf said. “We feel like it doesn’t suit pizza at all,” he said. The other co-owner, head chef Quin Jianoran, said they kept tinned pineapple
RSS