Boosted by Putin, Russia’s Middle Class Turns on Him
By ANDREW E. KRAMER and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
NYT
MOSCOW — Here is the rub for Vladimir V. Putin: The people who stood outside the Kremlin on Saturday, chanting epithets directed at him, are the ones who have prospered greatly during his 12 years in power.
They were well traveled and well mannered; they wore hipster glasses. They were wonky (some held aloft graphs showing statistical deviations that they said proved election fraud). In short, they were young urban professionals, a group that benefited handsomely from Moscow’s skyrocketing real estate market and the trickle-down effect of the nation’s oil wealth.
Maria A. Mikhaylova came to the demonstration in designer eyeglasses and with her hair tied back with a white ribbon, the symbol of the new opposition movement. Ms. Mikhaylova, 35, works in a Moscow bank, and said her goal was not to upend Mr. Putin’s government. “We don’t want any violence,” she said, but rather to compel the political system to take account of the concerns of people like her.
“I work a lot, and I’m doing all right,” she said. “And I could be doing a lot of other things with my weekend than standing here.”
(More here.)
NYT
MOSCOW — Here is the rub for Vladimir V. Putin: The people who stood outside the Kremlin on Saturday, chanting epithets directed at him, are the ones who have prospered greatly during his 12 years in power.
They were well traveled and well mannered; they wore hipster glasses. They were wonky (some held aloft graphs showing statistical deviations that they said proved election fraud). In short, they were young urban professionals, a group that benefited handsomely from Moscow’s skyrocketing real estate market and the trickle-down effect of the nation’s oil wealth.
Maria A. Mikhaylova came to the demonstration in designer eyeglasses and with her hair tied back with a white ribbon, the symbol of the new opposition movement. Ms. Mikhaylova, 35, works in a Moscow bank, and said her goal was not to upend Mr. Putin’s government. “We don’t want any violence,” she said, but rather to compel the political system to take account of the concerns of people like her.
“I work a lot, and I’m doing all right,” she said. “And I could be doing a lot of other things with my weekend than standing here.”
(More here.)
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