One Difference Between Russia and the USSR

According to Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva, a Russian human rights activist, the Soviets played by the rules.

While Soviet dissidents could strategize to protect themselves — knowing, for example, that prosecutors needed at least two witnesses — their tricks are of no use in a post-Soviet justice system, where cases can be wholly fabricated, she said. “Now they do what they want,” she said. “There were rules then. They were idiotic rules, but there were rules, and if you knew them you could defend yourself.”

She is still out there, working for human rights.

A coalition of opposition groups organized the rally to defend their right to protest, as enshrined under Article 31 of the Russian constitution. Rallies are one of the few outlets for Russia's weak and fragmented opposition.

Police began to clear the protesters as soon as they arrived. A man dressed as Father Frost, Russia's equivalent of Santa Claus, was dragged through the snow to a waiting bus.

Alexeyeva, who was dressed as Snegurochka, Father Frost's female assistant, was escorted to a bus by riot police. "I don't know why I was detained... How could I possibly offer any resistance to anyone?" she said, quoted by Echo Moskvy radio.

The Reuters article has a photo of the Russian riot cops throwing Father Frost down onto a snowy street.