This year
the holiday, now called Russia Day, came exactly 20 years after Boris Yeltsin
was first elected president of Russia when it was still part of the Soviet
Union.
Tens of
thousands of people, most of them members of pro-Kremlin youth groups bused in
from provincial towns, were expected on Red Square for a pop concert and
fireworks display in the evening. Crowds gathered throughout the day.
Police,
who were out in force to prevent any unrest, moved quickly to break up a
demonstration by a variety of opposition groups. An Associated Press reporter
saw protesters put into buses and driven away. Police said 28 were detained and
later released.
Opposition
leader Sergei Udaltsov, one of the first to be detained, said his activists
from the Left Front “believe that in 20 years Russia hasn't become a free
democratic country.”
The June
12 holiday traces its history to events that were intended to put Russia on the
path to becoming a democracy. On that date in 1990, the legislature of the
Russian Soviet republic declared the sovereignty of Russia, which intensified
the struggle for power between Yeltsin and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
One year
later, Yeltsin was elected to the newly create post of president of Russia.
Many consider that election more democratic than any held before or since.
The June
12 holiday, originally called Independence Day after the fall of the Soviet
Union in late 1991, was given its current name in 2002 when Vladimir Putin was
president. Polls show that few Russians today know the origins of their
national day.
Putin's
chosen successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, spoke about the significance of
the holiday as he handed out state awards during a Kremlin ceremony.
“Let me
remind you that then, already 21 years ago, many things happened in our country
for the first time,” Medvedev said. “Russia for the first time in full voice
declared that it would adhere to the principles of democracy.”
Under
Putin and Medvedev, who were photographed clinking champagne glasses after the
Kremlin ceremony, many of the democratic achievements of the 1990s have been
rolled back.
