The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin

What will happen next? The Kremlin seems to be flailing. Yesterday tens of thousands of young people bused in from out of town were herded into the center of Moscow for a United Russia victory rally. They were issued bright vests and blue drums, which they discarded unceremoniously after the event. Pictures of the drums, dented, stained, and soaked, piled on the sidewalk, flooded the blogs. They seemed to symbolize the regime perfectly: a lot of noise and pomp, then an inglorious abandonment in the dark freezing rain. What are the government’s other options? Most of the people detained on Monday and Tuesday are still in police holding cells, and they have already overtaxed the facilities’ and the courts’ capacity: mass arrests at Saturday’s protest are simply not an option. Violence is possible but feels doubtful, because Putin, I suspect, has not yet realized how desperate his situation is. More likely, he will attempt to mollify the protesters by throwing them a bone. Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s chief puppeteer, has already suggested that a new party be formed to accommodate “irritated urban communities.” Putin and his inner circle seem unaware that the whole country is irritated with them, so they probably think that allowing a handpicked ersatz opposition candidate on the ballot in the March presidential election will let off enough steam. The protests will have to continue until those in power realize that they are a tiny and despised minority—and then they will act like a cornered animal. What is in their limited repertoire—a terrorist attack that will allow Putin to declare a state of emergency? Such a move will not save his regime, but might delay its demise by a year or two.

In the evening, I go to a meeting of Rus’ Sidyashchaya (Russia Behind Bars), an organization formed a couple of months ago by Olga Romanova, a former business writer who became a full-time prisoners’ rights activist after her entrepreneur husband was arrested and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for fraud. After bribery failed to set him free, Romanova launched her own investigation, turning up evidence that her husband was sentenced on the basis of forged documents—provided, she believes, by his former business partner, who also, until last year, was a senator. Romanova made it to the Supreme Court, which overturned the verdict—and after Moscow City Court ignored that decision, she made it to the Supreme Court again, and again got the verdict overturned. She then flew to a distant prison colony to collect her husband, who had been behind bars for more than three years already. The video of their reunion instantly went viral.

Rus’ Sidyashchaya meets at a café in the center of town, the sort where thoughtful young men and women choose among eighteen varieties of excellent tea before proceeding to a few varieties of mediocre wine. But these Wednesday-night gatherings are mostly of women who look like they work as accountants or middle managers. Except they are working full-time to get their “business prisoner” husbands out of jail. I sit at a table with Svetlana Bakhmina, a former mid-level Yukos lawyer who served four and a half years in prison, and a shy young bespectacled woman who tells me her husband has been sentenced for alleged fraud.

“And here is Irek Murtazin!” shouts Romanova, who is forty-five and heavyset, with dyed red hair.

A slight man in his late forties enters. He is a former television executive from Tatarstan who was fired in October 2002, over his coverage of the theater siege. He became a popular blogger, and in 2009 was arrested for allegedly libeling the president of Tatarstan. He was sentenced to twenty-one months in prison for libel and, the court ruled, for “inciting enmity against a specific social group,” defined as government officials.

“I have good news and bad news,” says Murtazin. “The bad news is, a Tatarstan judge who hit and killed a young man while driving drunk last summer has just been acquitted.”

The room issues a collective sigh: this bad news is hardly news at all, so common are accidents involving state officials—and their acquittals.

“The good news,” says Murtazin, “is that nearly half the justices of the peace who were getting cases of those detained in the protests Monday and Tuesday called in sick today. That’s eighty judges with the flu.”

Now, this is news. And it turns out that because detention facilities are overflowing, some of the detainees are being released and casually instructed to show up for court at a later date. Corruption fighter Alexey Navalny, however, appeared before a judge today and was sentenced to fifteen days for his role in leading the illegal march on Monday.

One of the women at the meeting is handing out white ribbons to everyone. In less than twenty-four hours, the revolution’s symbol has become official.

When I get home, the number of people who have clicked “I’m going” on the Facebook page for Saturday’s protest has passed ten thousand.