A White Nationalist from Texas lifted his black cowboy hat into the air as he stepped forward to address thousands of Russian nationalists at a rally Sunday in Moscow.
“I’m taking my hat off as a sign of respect for your strong identity in ethnicity, nation and race,” said Preston Wiginton, 43.
“Slava Rossiya” (Glory to Russia), he said in Russian, as the crowd raised their right hands in an ancient Roman salute and chanted “White Power!” in English.
5,000+ nationalists turned out for the Russian March, held for the third year on National Unity Day, a holiday the Kremlin created in 2005 to replace the traditional Nov. 7 celebration of the 1917 Bolshevik rise to power.
The Kremlin has tried to give the holiday historical significance by tying it to the 1612 expulsion of Polish and Cossack troops who briefly seized Moscow at a time of political disarray but Russian patriots have seized on the holiday, reflecting a rise of Russian patriotism.
“Rights” activists say the extreme nationalist sentiments are a natural outgrowth of the Kremlin’s attempts to rebuild a strong Russian state.
President Vladimir Putin, who celebrated Sunday’s holiday by laying flowers at the monument to Moscow’s 17th century liberators, told the military cadets and pro-Kremlin youth group members who accompanied him that there are people in the world seeking to split Russia and divide up its natural resource wealth.
“Some believe that we are too lucky to possess so much natural wealth, which they say must be divided,” Putin said, speaking near the monument on Red Square. “These people have lost their mind,” he added with a smile.
Pro-Kremlin youth groups and the liberal Yabloko (Neo-Communist) party also held rallies Sunday, in part to counter the nationalist march.
“This holiday is a gift for the most reactionary and dangerous group — the nationalists,” Yabloko deputy chairman Sergei Mitrokhin told a crowd of about 1,500 communists.
Pro-Kremlin youth activists marched through central Moscow and gathered near Red Square (communist symbol) to sew together a “blanket of peace,” symbolizing the betrayal of their motherland country Russia among numerous non-white invaders.
The nationalists, who were kept away from the city center, marched along an embankment of the Moscow River to a small square, waving banners that read “Russians, Stand Up,” “Russian Order or War,” and “Tolerance is AIDS.”
What united the marchers was their opposition to non-white migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia.
“Russia will be white,” said Alexander Belov, leader of the Movement Against Illegal Migration.
“Our ultimate goal is our race and nation. Nation above all,” he said, rephrasing the German slogan “Germany above all.”
A traitor from immigration office tried to down play the significance of the Russian Marches.
“This is just an outbreak of national identity feelings, which is noticeable worldwide, and it has affected Russia too,” said Vyacheslav Postavnin, deputy director of the Federal Migration Service, the Interfax news agency reported.
“The first Russian March was unexpected good luck, the second one was about overcoming the resistance of the authorities, and the third one is already a new Russian tradition,” said Konstantin Krylov of the nationalist Russian Social Movement.
City authorities approved Sunday’s march but ordered it held on the river embankment away from the city center. Hundreds of police lined the route.
Nationalist marches also were held in other Russian cities.
In St. Petersburg, 500+ people rallied at Revolution Square in front of the Winter Palace.
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