Birds in Brussels

Brussels – lunch at Tea & Eat and overpriced boutiques on Avenue Louise. I picked the wrong days for this trip, as the dollar is at an 8-month low against the Euro. Budgie birds (pictured) who were scared of me in a cage outside a florist’s shop just off Avenue Louise at Stephanie Square. They seemed to be doing OK despite the chilly weather, although they were a little alarmed when I stuck my cell phone up to the cage and snapped a picture - I wasn't able to catch them cuddling because they were startled by my presence.

It's all about soul

My ticket to Brussels was the first place I saw the English-language version of Aeroflot's relatively new "...потому что от души" ("...because it comes from the soul") campaign. I guess they mean blue-eyed soul...

End of the line #2 - Выхино

The southeastern end of the purple line - Vykhino.

Selling flowers in the shadow of a port-a-potty and some classic end-of-the-line-type high-rise apartment buildings:



Waiting for one of the marshrutki (minibuses that run on regular bus routes) to depart:

Doloi Putina!

I stuck around until almost the end of the rally - a social commitment intruded and I couldn't stay until the very end, although I did catch Valeria Novodvorskaya's remarks (pictured here) and several instances of the crowd chanting "Down with Putin!"



I tried to tape some of the remarks using my mobile phone's dictaphone feature, but think the journalists in attendance probably had better equipment and got the best sound bites.

Here's what the Moscow Times had to say about it:

At least 2,000 people gathered on Pushkin Square on Saturday to call for an end to the war in Chechnya. It was one of the largest antiwar protests in years and also provided a rare public platform for broader criticism of President Vladimir Putin’s rule.

Protesters listened to speeches from prominent antiwar figures and chanted slogans like «Peace in Chechnya!» and «Down With Putin’s Politics!»

They held «No to War» balloons and signs that said «Putin Is Killing Our Freedom," but they also held posters of jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and photographs of people who died in the storming of the Dubrovka theater in 2002.

Saturday’s protest acquired an extra sharpness because it fell on the second anniversary of the beginning of the Dubrovka hostage crisis.

The protest, which began under gray skies at 4 p.m. and lasted for about two hours, was organized by For Human Rights and the Committee for Antiwar Activities and supported by the Committee 2008. [...]

There was some debate about how many protesters showed up. Ponomaryov said there were 2,500 to 3,000. City police, who had 200 officers on hand, counted about 2,000 protesters, Interfax reported, citing city official Sergei Vasyukov.

But in any case the number of participants was well higher than anticipated, Vasyukov told Interfax, noting that organizers had predicted around 500 people would show up when applying for permission to hold the rally. Vasyukov complained that this made providing security difficult.

Speakers included prominent human rights activist Valeria Novodvorskaya, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, State Duma Deputy Oleg Shein of Rodina and Vladimir Kara-Murza of Committee 2008.

Politkovskaya, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta who negotiated with the hostage-takers during the Dubrovka crisis, addressed the crowd from the podium and above a sign that read, «Five Years of Putin, Five Years of War and Terror, Enough Already!» [...]

The MT won't let you see the article without paying, but the Chechen Times website has the full text available.

Favorite signs

Of all the creative messages being sent at this protest, I liked these two best:


"Putin and Khodorkovsky - trade places!"


"Vova [Putin] can't win his game of toy soldiers but doesn't want to stop playing. Isn't it time to give him [medical] treatment?"

Counterprotest

Across Tverskaya, some shills for the current Administration had gathered, with signs, reading "Putin's enemies are accessories to terrorism!" and "Stronger authority means a healthier society," among others.

Optical illusion

One of the protesters noticed me taking pictures and rightly pointed out this image as worthy of being snapped:


Poor Aleksandr Sergeevich, cuckolded ("with horns," in this case two pigeons) even long after his death...

Protest

Came out of the metro today at Pushkin Square and decided to check out what all the commotion was about. Walking around, I saw the square was entirely surrounded by militsia and access to the gathering protest required passing through a metal detector.



The anti-Chechen-war theme of the protest was made pretty clear by this sign:

End of the line #1 - Щелковская

An irregular series where our intrepid blogger ventures to the terminal stations of various Moscow metro lines. The first installment - the eastern end of the dark-blue line, Shchyolkovskaya station.

An impromptu bait store left unattended by the steps to enter the metro:



Locals wait for the bus next to a bulletin board inundated with offers of rooms for rent:



Buying a ticket back downtown (obesity is not as much of a problem here as it is in the US, but it is not uncommon, either):

Golden handcuffs

Is this ad for a jewelry store (seen in a blue line metro car) more than just a joke? Perhaps a commentary on what can happen to the super-rich in Russia today?