Holding Russia to Western Democratic Ideals at Bolotnaya Square

Bolotnaya Square protest on 10 December 2011, under Ilya Repin's memorial statue.

 

Bolotnaya Square was previously named Repin Square between 1962 and 1994, for its memorial statue of Ilya Repin. His statue remains to this day even after the renaming of the square. Ilya Repin was a Russian realist painter who had been trained in Europe. He employed European techniques in his paintings, and helped to introduce Russian art to a European audience.(1) While Bolotnaya Square is a visible site due to its central location, it also serves as a particularly powerful venue because Repin can be seen as a symbol of integrating elements of European culture into Russian culture. Similarly, the protests at Bolotnaya Square call for Western ideals of democracy to be applied and fostered in Russia. 

Aerial photograph showing the scale of Bolotnaya Square protest on 10 December 2011.

 

On 10 December 2011, Bolotnaya Square saw “what is likely to be Moscow’s biggest demonstration since the fall of the Soviet Union”(2). For this first major incident of the 2011-2013 wave of Free Election demonstrations, the protesters made five demands, including freedom for political prisoners, an official investigation of vote fraud, new democratic and open elections, and registration of opposition parties.