A planned concert protesting the construction of a highway through a forest outside Moscow turned into an opposition rally on Sunday evening after authorities prohibited the use of sound equipment.
The concert, to protest the destruction of the centuries-old Khimki forest to clear space for a toll highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, drew over 1,000 people to downtown Moscow's Pushkinskaya Square on Sunday.
In what some saw as a heartening sign, local authorities "sanctioned" a star line-up including rock veteran Yuri Shevchuk of DDT and Televizor to perform, but changed their minds at the last minute, saying no sound equipment could be used, only megaphones, which were not easy to get hold of at such short notice.
Thousands of police, who cordoned off the square hours before the event, warned passers-by they had better go home or to the nearby McDonald's, saying there would be no concert anyway. Why bother standing in line for an hour to steal a sight of mute rockers?
And they were right, of course, there was no concert. What there was, though, was something far less to the taste of police than a rock concert - a political rally.
In a bid to snub the rally, the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi (Ours), whose members turned out in their dozens, called on those present to go to the Khimki forest to take part in a late-summer clean-up event. RIA Novosti
