Nikolai Alekseev's whereabouts unknown

[princealbertofb]

You are right Rychard, and Marshlander. We must be really cautious to maintain those hard acquired rights...

[fredv3b]

There are still some politicians in Moscow who wish to go back to Stalinism.

I think they have gone back to Tsarism.

[marshlander]

Nikolai Alekseev made it back to Moscow in time to join the demo against Mayor Yuri Luzhkov on Tuesday.

Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has in the past called gays "satanic" and has repeatedly banned gay pride parades or protests. When the activists do meet to protest, they are usually arrested by riot police...

The activist said that his detention could be to do with an ongoing battle between Mr Luzhkov and the Kremlin, and could have been organised either by people who wanted to discredit Mr Luzhkov further, or by those who wanted to promote the Moscow mayor. Homosexuality is frowned upon in Russia and the Moscow mayor's stance has a great deal of public support. [URL="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-gay-rights-activist-kidnapped-by-police-at-airport-2084749.html"]as reported in The Independent
[/URL]

This video shows his re-arrest at the demo.

[Rychard the Lionheart]

The Mayor of Moscow has his own troubles, below is an extract from an article on the FT.com website posted today.

A political compromise appears to be in the works to ease the resignation of Moscow’s embattled mayor Yuri Luzhkov as early as next week, and one possibility among many could be the splitting of the mayor’s job into two posts.

Ever since a campaign in the media to oust Mr Luzhkov erupted two weeks ago, seemingly orchestrated by the Kremlin, the question of who would replace the mayor has been the subject of enormous speculation.

Mr Luzhkov, an old warhorse from the era of former President Boris Yeltsin, is one of the most powerful men in the country and his mastery of the Moscow political machine politics has made him a potent political force since he came to power in 1992.

The Kremlin is reluctant to fire Mr Luzhkov, and both President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are understood to prefer to see him resign. He has so far insisted that he will see out his term which ends next year.

Sooner he goes the better, but who will follow him, another hardliner?

[marshlander]

Update - Yuri Luzhkov has been sacked!

What happens now, I wonder ...

Moscow mayor was a pillar of Putin's Russia | Reuters

[Rychard the Lionheart]

Will the next Mayor of Moscow be a Kremlin man or not?

Below an extract from the Moscow Times website dated 01/10/2010.

A senior Kremlin bureaucrat was tipped as the latest front-runner in a race to become Moscow's new mayor on Thursday, even as newly ousted Yury Luzhkov pledged not to quit politics.

Vladimir Kozhin, who heads the Office of Presidential Affairs, is the Kremlin favorite to become the next Moscow mayor, a Kremlin source said in an interview published Thursday in the Sobesednik newspaper.

Kozhin was named as the leading contender among seven being considered by the Kremlin, the source said. His rivals include Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov; Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov; Alexander Khloponin, presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District; Konstantin Chuichenko, chief of the Kremlin's control department; and Alexander Beglov, deputy head of the presidential administration.

The source also named government chief of staff Sergei Sobyanin, but Sobyanin said Thursday that he would not accept the post, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.

United Russia's Moscow branch has compiled a list of “about seven” names to present to the party's central office, said senior official Yelena Panina, Vzglyad.ru reported.

Panina named no names, but Prime-Tass said the list includes federal, regional and City Hall officials as well as Moscow prefects.

It remained unclear when a new mayor might be appointed. Panina said the Moscow branch would name its candidates by next week, and United Russia secretary Vyacheslav Volodin said the finalized list would be submitted to Medvedev by Oct. 11, United Russia's web site reported Thursday. Medvedev may then pick a name off the list or name someone else.

Vladimir Semago, a former State Duma deputy with United Russia who dropped a mayoral bid in favor of Luzhkov in 1999, demanded that his name be placed on the list, Lifenews.ru reported.

Semago, who threatened to sue United Russia if he wasn't nominated, said he would make a good mayor because he was not rich and would not be accused of corruption.

Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov said the new mayor would be "dull, weak, dependent and loyal," Interfax reported.

Nemtsov also predicted that the functions of the next mayor would be split in two. Luzhkov served as both the mayor and the head of the body that represents the city of Moscow as a federal jurisdiction.

At least a dozen senior members of Luzhkov's team may be fired soon, RIA-Novosti said, citing Moscow government sources. The list includes Moscow's chief architect Alexander Kuzmin and Luzhkov's spokesman Sergei Tsoi, it said.

Former Deputy Mayor Alexander Ryabinin, who resigned this week, will be charged with bribe taking, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said, Interfax reported. Ryabinin, who oversaw the city's lucrative construction sector, has been under a cloud for months after being accused of forcing a businessman to hand over a piece of retail property to his own daughter.

East or West, political corruption still exist, no political system is immune ot it.

[Rychard the Lionheart]

Moscow announces new mayor.

Below is extracts from the Guardian website, dated Thursday 21 October 2010 13.58 BST.

Sergei Sobyanin, trusted Kremlin aide of Vladimir Putin, the city council rubberstamped his appointment to replace sacked Yuri Luzhkov. The appointment consolidates the Kremlin's takeover of Moscow and its prodigious resources, and marks the formal end of the Luzhkov era. The pugnacious Luzhkov, who ran Moscow from 1992, was dismissed after apparently growing too powerful and falling out with Russia's ruling Putin-Medvedev duumvirate.

Critics were distinctly unimpressed. "He's a faceless bureaucrat. He's part of the Putin system," said Eduard Limonov, an opposition leader, dissident and writer who is frequently detained during anti-Kremlin rallies. "He has no distinctive threads. He's an obeying official. He will be boring and absolutely flat, square. Luzhkov at least was a picturesque guy."

Others said Sobyanin would have a more progressive attitude on issues such as opposition rallies and gay rights. The European court of human rights today ruled that Luzhkov's repeated ban on gay parades in Moscow was illegal.

"He [Sobyanin] has to be completely different from the last mayor," a gay rights activist, Nikolai Alekseev, said. " Asked what he thought of Sobyanin, Alekseev said: "I don't know who he is. I can't say anything about him."

Is this a backward step and is he a hardliner? I think one corruption is being replace with another, status quo for Moscow.