"Protest Publics" in Russia in 2011–2015: Moving from non-conventional to conventional channels of public interests representation (cases of Moscow and Saint Petersburg)

In attempt to define the origin of the mass protests of 2011-2015 in Russia, the empirical tool provided by «Social Movement Theory» described in the first chapter is to be used. Any protest movement possesses a protest campaign, so the evaluation of the protest events of 2011-2015 in Russia has to be started with the examination of the criterion of protest campaign. The information and data used in this section is taken from the interviews with RPR-PARNAS activists I conducted during the internship in February-March 2015.

According to Natalia Pelevina - political activist, co-founder of the party of «5 December» who joined RPR-PARNAS in March 2015, on the basis of those participants who were involved in the process and the essence of demands the aggregate of the protest actions of 2011-2015 can be considered as a single campaign. According to the expert, those people who joined the protest in 2011 are up to this day in it, or were until recently; the liberal wing of the protest remained more or less the same.

But on the basic of expectations of protesters, according to Mihail Schneider - politician, the executive director of Republican Party of Russia - People's Freedom Party, there were two different campaigns: the first one was in 2011-2012 and the second one was in the end of 2012-2015. During the first stage of the mass protests in 2011-2012, there was a hope for the fair elections, with the dissolution of the Duma, with the re-election of the Duma, with repeated presidential elections. This hope was lost after the tough dispersal of the March of the Millions on 6 May, 2012 on Bolotnaya Square and with the prosecution of the protesters participating in this action. So in the end of 2012 the second campaign began. According to Natalia Pelevina, there was a certain decrease in the protest activity after May 6, 2012 because of the «Bolotnaya case» and overall disappointment of the protesters due to the absence of impact on power structures. Following actions after May 6, 2012 had a different emotional background - number of people participating in the following actions decreased because many of them felt that they failed to achieve what they wanted: fair elections, re-elections of the Duma and certain political freedoms.

Both experts state that there are no relations between the protesters and representatives of authorities due to unwillingness of the authorities to negotiate with the leaders of the protests. Natalia Pelevina notices that for a certain time in 2011 there was a feeling that the authorities are ready to negotiate, but such a feeling disappeared very soon. The only type of relation between protesters and representatives of authorities can be called confrontation, as Mihail Schneider notices. However some kind of relations with such representatives of authorities as police that watches protest actions, are required. The interaction with the power on streets is being performed through the activists who are specially selected and have some experience in it, as Natalia Pelevina states.

According to Natalia Pelevina, the demands of the protesters were clear and consistent. When election fraud happened, the demands were «For fair elections». When the authorities impeded the oppositional associations of citizens to get the access to the elections, the demands were «Let us to the elections!» Mihail Schneider also agrees that the demands of the protesters were clear and consistent; otherwise these people wouldn't go out to the streets, in his mind. According to Kirill Khrustalev - journalist, social activist, administrator and founder of social network group «Free News», the demands were systematic and based on the violations of the constitution and political freedoms of citizens. Pelevina argues that the demands were more a reaction for the activity of the authorities. When the authorities imprisoned the activists for political reasons, the demands were «Release political prisoners!» When the election fraud happened, the demands were «Investigate election fraud!» She states that the demands are overall based on the activists' perception of the civilized society in accordance with liberal values and views.

Mihail Schneider states that the clear addressee of the demands of all the protest actions of 2011-2015 was the president of Russia Vladimir Putin. In the very first actions of the end of the 2011-2012 the addressee was also partially the Supreme Court with the demand to overturn the election results and the State Duma with the demand of its dismissal. The protest action against «Law of Scoundrels» in 2013 was also aimed at the State Duma with the demand not to ban the adoption of Russian orphans by American citizens. But the main addressee of all the demands was the president. Natalia Pelevina has a different opinion about the problem of the addressee of the demands. She states that there was no need to address the demands to any concrete addressee, the addressee were the authorities in a broad sense. Every protest action was an emotional expression of dissatisfaction from democratic values violation. In her mind, when the authorities see this dissatisfaction, they understand that it is caused by their activities.

The next criterion for consideration is the criterion of concrete forms of unity of protestors as the basis for protest campaigns. Regarding the sources of financing, all the interviewed experts state that the primary source of getting funds for protest actions was the crowd sourcing: there was «Yandex Money» account on which the income was transferred. Majority of the transfers were in small amounts, but there had always been a lot of transfers. Ordinary transfers from supporters were in approximate amount of 300 rubles. Some of the funds were transferred from sympathetic richer people and business in amount from 30 up to 50 thousand rubles. These people remained anonymous because they wouldn't want any problems with the authorities. Another part of the financing was from the leaders of the associations of citizens and other leaders of public opinion. Generally these people donated from 5 up to 10 thousand rubles for a protest action. Regarding the proportion of collected resources, two third of the total funding was from crowd sourcing, one third - personal money of the leaders of the opposition. The total amount of the financial resources collected for organization of a protest action was around 2 million rubles. This amount of money was sufficient for arranging a decent protest action.

As for the foundation of associations of citizens in the course of protests, the only example is the establishment of the Russian Opposition Coordination Council. Michail Schneider considers the idea behind its establishment to be appealing, but it couldn't come into reality. In his mind, ROCC failed due to lack of decision making at the time decisions had to be made by its executives because of their different political views. Natalia Pelevina agrees with this statement saying that the executives of ROCC were not simply able to negotiate because the representatives of liberal views and socialist views couldn't come into some kind of agreement.

Russian Opposition Coordination Council couldn't come up with the joint program because the representatives of liberal views and socialist views can never have a joint program. The elected leaders (executives) stopped coming to ROCC meetings and the idea of ROCC reelection after one year from the moment of its establishment disappeared. Kirill Khrustalev concludes that Russian Opposition Coordination Council failed to become legitimate representative of the protester and express their interests and demands.

All the experts state that none of the associations of citizens taking part in the protests of 2011-2015 tried to become a leader of the movement or make a position in the head of it. According to Michail Schneider, there was a collective work in organization of protest actions. He explains the fact none of the associations of citizens or parties tried to become a leader of the movement by the reason that the agenda was not in reaching political goals but in solving utilitarian tasks such as protest action organization, organization of its security, choice of slogans and so on. Natalia Pelevina states that even though there was no leader among the associations of citizens or parties, some of them, such as RPR-PARNAS enjoy more authority than the others. RPR-PARNAS took a lot of initiative in protest actions arrangement, especially during the «Bolotnaya Case» process. But overall, in Kirill Khrustalev's opinion, the most successful protest actions were when there was a collective work in their preparation with participation of the leaders of public opinion.

As for creation and acceptance of the programs during the mass protests of 2011-2015, all the experts state that there were no such programs created and adopted. According to Natalia Pelevina, on the example of Russian Opposition Coordination Council, it was clearly seen that any kind of common program creation and acceptance was next to impossible due to different political views of the protestors. The left and liberals should have their own program. The protest couldn't have its common program - political views were too different. The protest had to demand solution of the problems from the authorities. That's why instead of a common program, common demands were accepted. Common demands were an attempt to force the authorities to do something. The list of demands had always been accepted collectively.

The experts I interviewed found it difficult to name any of the structures created in the course of the mass protests of 2011-2015. According to Kirill Khrustalev, League of Electors could be considered as the only structure, emerged for monitoring presidential elections in March 2012. The expert states that it was a short term project but rather effective in terms of the representation of the interests of the protesters. The goal of the League of Electors was to control the observance of electoral rights of citizens. The league included 16 founders who were representatives of non-party creative intelligentsia, including Leonid Parfenov, Yuri Shevchuk, Grigory Chkhartishvili, Tatyana Lazareva and others. On March 4, at the day of the presidential elections, most of the founders worked as observers at the elections. After the elections, the representatives of the League of Electors made a joint declaration where the presidential elections were characterized as unequal and unfair. League of Electors was also a platform for coordination of such actions as «White Circle» on January 29, 2012 when the participants of the action drove in the Garden Circle of Moscow with white stripes and the protest action on Bolotnaya Square on February 4, 2012.

The other important criterion is the criterion of significance of public self-representation. According to Natalia Pelevina, associations of citizens and leaders of the protest always relied on the middle class, which is aware of democratic values and human rights. The middle class was the major social group participated in the mass protests of 2011-2015. The expert states that associations of citizens and leaders of the protest had problems with lower class involvement due to its lack of awareness of the claims and demands of the protest. Pelevina claims that there was almost no influence on the opinion of the lower class due to the absence of the access to media. Michail Schneider confirms these words, saying that there was a lack of understanding from these potential participants from lower class. There was no such a situation in the country which would favor the growth of the protest wave. In Michail Schneider's estimation, there is 30% of the population in Russia which is potential supporters of democracy and liberal ideas. Moreover, there could be also up to 20% percent of potential protesters of the socialist and nationalist views. In total, half of the Russian population is the potential supporters of the protest movement, but these people do not feel the necessity for participation in protest actions, do not feel any perspective. Kirill Khrustalev states that the protests of 2011-2015 lacked the leaders of public opinion - people who are respected within the society and support the protest movement publicly.

However, according to all the experts, the protest had its leaders such as famous oppositional politicians Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Grigory Yavlinsky, Sergei Udaltsov, Gennady Gudkov, Dmitry Gudkov, Ilya Ponomarev, Ilya Yashin; social activists Alexei Navalny, Evgenia Chirikova, Tatyana Lazareva; journalists Sergei Parkhomenko, Olga Romanova, Leonid Parfenov; representatives of creative professions Yury Shevchuk, Boris Akunin, Dmitry Bykov, Artemy Troitsky. The interviewed experts agree that these people were leaders of the protest and protesters consolidated around them. These people mobilized their supporters for participation in protest actions. As Natalia Pelevina states, if, for example, Leonid Parfenov called for people to come, those people who liked and trust him were likely to participate in protest actions. The leaders of the protest are people respected within society and their position influenced the number of protesters a lot.

The main tool for informing people about upcoming actions and their mobilization, according to the experts I interviewed were social networks - together with the blogs of the leaders of public opinion, created communities of the activists in such social network as Facebook and Vkontakte became a soft of substitution of public space in media the protesters didn't have access to, Michail Schneider states. He also states that the idea of creation of any kind of independent media in Russia remains only theoretical. There was an attempt to create Network Social Television. In December 2011 Network Social Television started its work. Some opposition politicians and leader of public opinion, such as Michael Arkad'ev, Anatoly Baranov, Alexander Goltz, Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Tor, Lilia Shevtsova, Viktor Shenderovich and others started to release their author shows on different topics. NST led live broadcasts of opposition rallies in Moscow in December 2011 - March 2012, as well as meetings of the organizers of these rallies. Network Social Television functioned on the donations of audience, which were collected on its website. Mihail Schneider concludes that the creation of NST was a good attempt, but it failed due to the lack of financing in the middle of 2012. As for the media which covered the protest objectively in the interviewed experts' opinion, they name TV Rain, Echo of Moscow, Novaya Gazeta, and partially Moskovsky Komsomolets. As for the resources in the internet, these are Grani.ru and Kasparov.ru.

According to Natalia Pelevina, there was always unity of the participants of the protests from the point of protest activity on streets. The unity of the protesters was expressed in desire for change of what was unacceptable for any civilized country - presence of political prisoners and unfair elections. As Michail Schneider states, common demands which were always collectively accepted, united people for collective action. However as for political orientation and programs, the protesters were less united and homogeneous - there were representatives of liberal, socialist and nationalist view as it had been already said.

According to Natalia Pelevina, the reaction of the authorities on the protests depended on the number of people participated in the protest actions - the more people went out to the streets, the more the authorities were afraid of them. When the first massive protest actions occurred in December 2011, it seemed that the power structures became ready to negotiate with the leaders of the protest - president Dmitry Medvedev made some minor reforms including the reduction of the required for official registration number of members for parties. When up to 150 thousand people went out to protest actions, the authorities were afraid of the possibility of doubling this number next time. The expert emphasizes the fact that the power was particularly afraid of these people, but didn't respect them - it was all about the fear. Michail Schneider notices that that the power was ready to negotiate only when the number of protesters was growing rapidly. When the protest actions reached their limit of 150 thousand people, the authorities got used to it. Even though it was a big number of people, it didn't grow further but on the contrary started to shrink. In Schneider's estimation, in order to have an impact on the power structures, the number of the protesters had to reach 500-700 thousand people.

As an example of consolidation and mutual help of the protesters, the campaign in support of political prisoners after «Bolotnaya Case» can be considered. As Pelevina states, RPR-PARNAS was the most initiative association of citizens dealing with this issue. During the Bolotnaya process many actions in support of the prosecuted protesters were organized, RPR-PARNAS was also making a report about human rights violation during this process. According to Kirill Khrustalev, the representatives of the associations of citizens participating in the mass protests know that they are being monitored by the authorities, but it doesn't stop them from doing protest activity. When the protesters are consolidated and supported by associations of citizens, they become not an easy target for prosecution by the authorities.

The next criterion for consideration is the criterion of self-identity and subjectness of the protest. The question whether the protesters reached their collective identity is rather disputable and it can be considered from different perspectives. The uprise of the protest mood in the end of 2011 happened as a response for falsifications during the elections. These rallies were named «For Fair Elections». In order to understand how these people represent themselves, their slogans, demands and voting behavior during the elections to ROCC have to be analyzed.

The rally participants belonged to a variety of social and professional groups. However, the thing that can be noticed is the almost complete absence of statements articulating social identity («seniors», «young families», «veterans», etc.) or social problems. One of the reasons for it is that the slogans such as «For Fair Elections» can unite more people than slogans with certain social or political demands which on the contrary can break up the unity of the protest. In order to maintain this unity, the participants of protests were surprisingly tolerant to the radical representatives of the right and left sides of the political spectrum. For the protesters the solidarity within the protest was even more significant than the articulated demands. The unity was so fragile, that the protesters had to reject the idea of concretization of their demands in order to maintain it. Voting at the elections to ROCC, many of the participants were guided by the strategy to vote for those leaders who were able to consolidate people around them and maintain the protest rather than to vote for those leaders whose political views were appealing.

The final criterion for consideration is the criterion of structure of political opportunities, which has to be started with analysis of autonomous centers of power within political system. Diminishing of any autonomous centers of power within Russian political system was the result of the reforms in 2000s carried out during the first and second presidency of Vladimir Putin. These reforms included changing of the order of formation of the Federation Council, tightening of party legislation and rules for access of parties and candidates for elections, raising the minimum threshold up to 7% for parties in order to be elected to the State Duma and cancellation of direct elections of regional governors. These reforms resulted to curtailment of political competition in Russia. Hence presidential elections of 2004 and 2008 and parliamentary elections in 2007 couldn't be considered as competitive - the main candidate or dominant party received more than 70% of the votes. An important characteristic occurred during the changes in 2000s was not only the reduction of competition during the elections, but also a substantial redistribution of power between levels of government. As a result of cancellation of direct elections of regional governors and replacement of this procedure with their appointment by federal center, regional administrations started to function as part of a unified system of executive power, having lost their autonomy. Simultaneously, the required conditions for enhancing of the role of the «United Russia» party in the regional political life were provided. Since 2005 the party had a majority of seats in most regional legislatures, by the end of the 2000s in had a majority of seats in almost all regional legislatures. Thus, the dominance of the executive presidential power and the formation of a dominant party regime led to a strong hierarchical vertical of power, which didn't leave space for some kind of autonomy within centers of power in Russian political system.

The degree of openness of political system for new actors is determined by the development of the mechanisms of democratic interaction between political power and civil society. In the open political system, civil society is seen as a partner of political power, it has some instruments for political power control. The mechanisms of democratic interaction between political power and civil society in Russia had been weakening due to adoption of legislative measures, reducing the rights of citizens since the middle 2000s: the legislation of civic organizations, rallies and demonstrations was tightened, slander in media was criminalized, the set of anti-extremist amendments with unclear formulation was adopted making possible the prosecution of some political movements. The situation with independence and objectiveness of media had been getting worse and worse. Two trials of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev formed a precedent for politically motivated prosecution for economic crimes. All these facts make it possible to conclude that the degree of openness of political system for new actors in Russia is very low.

2.4 Protests in Russia in 2011-2015 as protest publics' activity

In attempt to define the origin of the mass protests of 2011-2015 in Russia, using the empirical tool provided by «Social Movement Theory» described in the first chapter, it can be noticed that this conventional theoretical model with its main assumption that in order to consider a series of protest actions as a movement, there have to be associations that have to perform as the basis of a movement, faces difficulties in explanation of the very emergence of the protests and hence has a limited application to the protests of 2011-2015 in Russia.

In order to explain the nature of the protests in Russia in 2011-2015, the theoretical concept of «public» developed within «Theory of Publics» is to be used in the research. Because of the fact the protests of 2011-2015, unlike social movements of the previous years, can hardly be defined on the basis of joint single campaign, common identity of participants and unified program addressed to the target audience, they are going to be considered as protest publics' activity in this research. In order to prove that it was the activity of protest publics, the assumptions made by Michael Warner described in the first chapter are to be applied to participants of the protest in Russia in 2011-2015.

The first claim made by Warner is that public is self-organized and formed around discourse. Mass protests started on the evening of 4 December, 2011 in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, right after the announcement of preliminary results of elections. The announcement of the results of the elections itself, that were perceived by many of observers and ordinary people both as fraud and ignoring of their freedom of choice, can be considered as «text» which created the protest publics as an entity formed by the usage of this «text» (Warner, 2002) or, as Prof. Belyaeva call it «troubling message» that triggered public response - the initial text-oriented or event-oriented reason for assembling of publics (Belyaeva, 2012). Along with the beginning of public meetings, protest publics started being formed around the discourse of «Electoral fraud» and demand «For free and fair elections» which was already reflected in slogans on the first mass meeting in Moscow at Chistoprudniy Boulevard (Forbes, 05.12.2011) and in Saint Petersburg at Great Gostiny Dvor (Fontanka.ru, 05.12.2011) on December 5, 2011: «Elections are a farce!», «Against unfair elections!»

The ability for self-organization is considered to be one of the most critical features of protest public in order to act independently from state and any other pre-organized structures (Belyaeva, 2012). The rapid process of self-organization of the protest publics in Russia was noticeably evident: in a time period less than a week by December, 10, mass protests already summoned according to different estimates from 25 (Actualcomment.ru, 10.12.2011) up to 150 thousand people (Grani.ru, 10.12.2011) at Bolotnaya Square in Moscow and from 7 to 10 thousand people at Pionerskaya Square in Saint Petersburg (Lenta.ru, 10.12.2011). It's important to notice that the self-organization of the protest publics occurred independently from both any state institutions and pre-existing organizational forms such as civil associations or NGOs: it happened through discourse of «Electoral fraud», not through any formal frameworks. Based on this discourse, five main demands were formulated by the protesters by December, 10 (Ryzkov.ru, 15.10.2011):

1) Immediate release of political prisoners

2) Cancellation of the folded election results

3) The resignation of the head of the election commission Vladimir Churov, official investigation of vote fraud

4) Adoption of the new democratic legislation on parties and elections

5) Conduction of new democratic and open elections

Another critical characteristic of public according to Michael Warner is that it is always «relation among strangers» that get united in a public through participation; public has to address the people who participate in the same discourse and there is no way all of these people can be known in advance (Warner, p. 55). The discourse of «Electoral fraud» kept on summoning more individuals into protest publics which turned out into mass protests on December, 24 in Moscow at Academician Sakharov Avenue that gathered according to different estimates from 29 up to 120 thousand people (FederalPress, 24.12.2011) and in Saint Petersburg at Pionerskaya Square that gathered around 5 thousand people (Ridus.ru, 24.12.2011). It's next to impossible that such a huge number of people was «limited by a set of someone's friends», the protesters were «strangers» united through the participation in the protest action and the same discourse.

The discourse of «Electoral fraud» kept on existing and summoning protest publics in the first half of 2012 as well. The rally «For fair elections» which started on Yakimanka street and ended as a protest action on Bolotnaya square in Moscow on 4 February, 2012, summoned according to different estimates from 36 up to 120 thousand people (Gazeta.ru, 04.02.2012). The same day there was also the rally «For fair elections» in Saint Petersburg which started near Oktyabrskiy Big Concert Hall and ended as a protest action on Konyushennaya square. According to different estimates from 5 to 30 thousand people attended the rally (Ridus.ru, 04.02.2012). The next rallies occurred the next day after Presidential elections were conducted. On 5 March, 2012 there was a protest action in Moscow on Pushkin square with the number of participants from 14 to 20 thousand people (Rg.ru, 06.03.2012) and in Saint Petersburg on Saint Isaac's Square with up to 3 thousand participants (Newsru.com, 06.03.2012), where the protesters announced their disagreement with the results of the presidential elections. The rallies continued on 10 March, 2012 - the protest action on Novy Arbat Street in Moscow summoned from 10 to 25 thousand protesters against the results of the presidential elections (Ng.ru, 11.03.2012).

The final protest action within the discourse of «Electoral fraud» took place in Moscow on Bolotnaya square on 6 May, 2012. Right before the inauguration of the elected president of Russia Vladimir Putin, from 10 to 100 thousand people (kp.ru, 06.05.2012) disagreed with the results of the presidential elections took part in the rally called «The March of Millions». Along with the previous slogans such as «For fair elections!» and «For fair authorities» the new one «For Russia without Putin» appeared. «The March of Millions» ended up with the massive clashes of the protesters with the police, arrest of 436 protesters (kp.ru, 06.05.2012) and initiation of the famous «Bolotnaya Case» within which 19 people were sentenced by Russian courts (tass.ru, 11.06.2014).

Mass protests within the discourse of «Electoral fraud» from the first protest action on 5 December, 2011 to the last one on 6 May, 2012 possess several other peculiarities that allow concluding that «Bolotnaya events» were the activity of protest publics. The public address made by the protesters as demand for fair elections and fair authorities can be considered as «impersonal appeal to strangers in order to provoke public discourse» (Warner, p. 58), however unlike a protest movement that must have its protest campaign with concrete claims to the target group, the protest publics had neither straight claims nor concrete target of the claims. Even though there was the public appeal to the State Duma, head of the election commission Vladimir Churov, president Putin in slogans, the claim-target connection in this appeal was very loose: for example the slogans «Elections are a farce!» or «Putin go away!» were not targeted at clear addressee for concrete claims satisfaction; they were a response for «troubling message» - falsifications during the election process.

According to Michael Warner, «Public is constituted through mere attention… it's a virtual entity that lacks institutional structure» (Warner, p. 60). As it becomes evident from the activity of protest publics formed around the discourse of «Electoral fraud» in 2011-2012, the participation of the protesters was not preconditioned by any pre-existing organizations or structures that provided policy programs and coordinated activities; the activity of the protest publics was significantly conditioned by the renovation of the attention to the existing discourse itself, until the actuality of the discourse of «Electoral fraud» was over along with the two electoral campaigns.

Next important feature of public is that it «acts historically… the period for action of public is framed by the lifetime of discourse circulation» (Warner, p. 68). Even though after the first half of 2012 mass protests didn't come to the end and were also attended by a significant number of people who participated in mass rallies of 2011-2012, the discourse of «Elections» was no longer valid due to the fact that the elections were already conducted and the attention to their results started being missed. The explosive but time-limited nature of «Bolotnaya events» can be explained by the assumption of Michael Warner that public is more prone to action and affiliated with politics when circulation of discourse is «punctual» - dense and existing for an abbreviated period of time (Warner, p. 69). That perfectly explains the activeness and involvement in political affairs of protest publics of 2011-2012 formed around the discourse of «Unfair elections», however protest publics that started being summoned after 6 May, 2012 were already formed around a different discourse.

However a new discourse cannot arise irrelatively of the previous one. According to Warner, public is «the social space created by the reflexive circulation of discourse… [and] «texts» through time» (Warner, p. 62). That's the reflexive circulation of «texts» or «troubling messages» that enables to establish a link between previous and current discourses. Severe suppression of the protest action on Bolotnaya square on 6 May, 2012 in Moscow, massive arrests and initiation of «Bolotnaya Case» turned out to be a new «troubling message» - the hope for fair elections is lost and new wave of political repressions and pressure on civil society is coming. Based on this «troubling message», the new discourse evolved: there is no evolution of democratic freedoms and hope for liberal changes until president Putin resigns.

Consequently the mass protest of the second half of 2012 were characterized by much stronger anti-Putin rhetoric which was reflected in slogans on the protest actions on 12 June, 2012 on Academician Sakharov Avenue in Moscow with the number of participants from 18 to 100 thousand people (rbc.ru, 12.06.2012) and on Konyushennaya Square in Saint Petersburg with around 2 thousand participants (news.ru, 12.06.2012); on the protest actions on 15 September, 2012 on Pushkin Square and Academician Sakharov Avenue in Moscow with the number of participants from 14 to 100 thousand people (tvrain.ru, 16.09.2012) and in Saint Petersburg with the number of participants of around 4 thousand people (fontanka.ru, 15.09.2012): «Petersburg, send away Putin!», «Putin, fly away!», «Putin to the dump of history!»

It's also important to mention that protest publics have strong democratic identity, even though the identities within protest publics are diverse due to the fact that they are «relations among strangers» as it was stated previously. In January, 2013 new «troubling message» that triggered response of protest publics appeared: on 28 December, 2012 president Putin signed so-called «The Dima Yakovlev Law» which banned the citizens of the United States from adopting children from Russia (Forbes.ru, 28.12.2012). The formal reason for adoption of the law was the accident with Russian orphan Dima Yakovlev adopted by American family, who died of heat stroke because his parents forgot him in a car where he spent nine hours under the sun (The Washington Post, 11.12.2012). In public opinion, «The Dima Yakovlev Law» was perceived as infringement of the rights of Russian orphans for being adopted, obtaining a family and happy future. The adoption of the restrictive law favored the further development of the discourse of «Infringement of rights» and formation of protest publics around this discourse. As a consequence, on 13 January, 2013 mass protest called «March against Scoundrels» took place on Academician Sakharov Avenue in Moscow which summoned from 5 to 50 thousand protesters (tvrain.ru, 14.01.2013) against the adoption of «The Dima Yakovlev Law» in particular and against further restrictions of civil rights in general.

In 2013 two major protest actions in support of political prisoners judged in the course of «Bolotnaya Case» occurred. The first one called «March for Freedom» took place in Moscow on Bolotnaya embankment on 6 May, 2013 - on one year anniversary of severe suppression of the protest action on Bolotnaya square on 6 May, 2012. According to different estimates, from 8 to 30 thousand people (echo.msk.ru, 08.05.2013) took part in the protest action demanding to release the prisoners prosecuted for their political views. Along with the rally in Moscow, the protest action also occurred in Saint Petersburg on Field of Mars with more than 1 thousand participants (newsru.com, 6.05.2013) who came to support political prisoners of «Bolotnaya Case». The second major protest action which was called «March Against Executioners» took place in Moscow on Kaluzhskaya - Bolotnaya Squares on 12 June, 2013 with the number of participants from 6 to 30 thousand people (gazeta.ru, 12.06.2013). The protesters came up with the same demand to release political prisoners of «Bolotnaya Case».

In 2014 the response of protest publics was triggered by new «troubling message»: annexation of Crimea by Russia and its latent involvement into the armed conflict in South-eastern Ukraine. As protest publics have strong democratic identity, such actions of Russian authorities were perceived by them as involvement into other sovereign state's affairs, intrusion into its territory and provocation of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The threat of the possible armed conflict provoked «Anti-war» discourse development. The first protest action of publics formed around this discourse took place in Moscow on Academician Sakharov Avenue on 15 March, 2014. It was called «March of Peace» and summoned from 3 up to 50 thousand participants (bbc.com, 15.03.2014) which protested against Russian involvement into Ukrainian affairs. The main slogans of the action were: «Take hands off Ukraine!», «No War!», «I'm for Peace!» (gazeta.ru, 15.03.2014) The second «March of Peace» took place in Moscow on Pushkin Square - Academician Sakharov Avenue on 21 September, 2014 and summoned even more protesters than the first one: from 5 up to 100 thousand people. The participants of the rally protested against «irresponsible and aggressive policy of Russian authorities towards Ukraine» (dw.com, 21.09.2014).

The last «troubling message» that initiated the assembling of protest publics was the assassination of Boris Nemtsov - famous Russian liberal politician, co-chairman of the Republican Party of Russia - People's Freedom Party on 27 February, 2015. In 2015 Boris Nemtsov was one of the leaders of liberal opposition in Russia; he constantly criticized the political regime in Russia which he perceived as authoritarian and undemocratic, president Putin, aggressive policy towards Ukraine and involvement into its internal affairs. In public opinion, Nemtsov's political views and sharp criticism of the Russian authorities were perceived as the major motive for his assassination. Consequently, public discourse evolved: politically motivated murders are unacceptable; irrespective of political views and attitudes no one deserves a reprisal for personal political convictions. The protest publics that formed around this discourse took part in the «March in Memory of Boris Nemtsov» which was organized in Moscow on 1 March, 2015. According to different estimates, from 16 up to 100 thousand people (lenta.ru, 01.03.2015) participated in the mourning procession which started at Kitaygorod Passage and ended on Moskvoretsky Bridge, where Boris Nemtsov was assassinated. During the procession, the participants held the pictures of Nemtsov with signs: «He fought for our future», «He died for our future». The «March in Memory of Boris Nemtsov» was also organized in Saint Petersburg where from 6 to 10 thousand people participated in the action (bbc.com, 01.03.2015), and in other Russian cities.

3. Transformation of protest publics' activity: moving towards conventional channels of public interests representation

3.1 Local activist groups as «publics»

Protest publics' activity has inevitably transformed the situation in the Russian society. After the parliamentary and presidential elections of 2012 at the stage when the mobilization of publics stopped being formed around the discourse of «Unfair elections», local activist groups which were aimed at local problems solution started to appear spontaneously in big Russian cities. Some of those local activist groups, evolved on the tide of protest public' activity were able to achieve certain results, some of them experienced crisis.

The incentives behind formation of such activist groups appeared to be different from the ones that led to the local mobilizations before the start of the mass protests in 2011. In case of city movements of the past, the collective action was caused by the problems themselves that required an immediate reaction and solution. In the new local issue-oriented groups, the problems didn't precede, but followed mobilization. Members of local activist groups decided to preserve the experience of the collective action and preserve their unity first, and only then formulated their own agenda. A relative spontaneity of the agenda choice can be explained by the fact that one of the latent motives for local activist groups' formation was the aspiration for preservation of the collective action that united the participants of the rallies «For Fair Elections»: the activists related their activities to the experience of unity with other members of mass protests and election observers. The intensive experience of association created a feeling of devotion to the unity signified by the mass mobilization.

After the elections I just came at one of the meetings of «Election observers of Petersburg» and said: «Guys, they elect themselves by their self, right? They do what they want. Ok, let them elect themselves, but we are going to make them work!» I shared my experience [in dealing with city areas problems], told what I did by myself. And they said: «Alright!» 10 out of 15 observers supported me, decided to do it together. (male, 1981, higher education, 12.02.2016, Saint Petersburg)

Professor of anthropology at Northeastern University Jeffrey Juris in his work «Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere» traced the evolution of form of a collective action from «set of individuals» to «groups.» (Juris, 2012) Analyzing how mobilization in a form of «set of individuals» gathered in a certain place, transformed into creation of «groups» with definite social and political goals, professor Juris notices that these two forms are interrelated in terms of succession: activists create local groups in order to preserve their activity in a new form and new realities. Similar evolution of form of public interests representation was witnessed in Russia in 2012 when after the major mass protest actions local activist groups started being created.

Such trajectory, from mass protests to local activist groups was not typical in Russia before the start of «Bolotnaya events» in 2011. As sociologists Carine Clement and Boris Gladarev state, the dominant pattern of mobilization in Russian society before 2011 was movement from local struggle to broader social and political issues. According to Carine Clement, the activity of the most social movements before 2010s in Russia was rather pragmatic which aimed to solution of definite problems (Clement, 2010). Her observations led to conclusion that the shift from personal interests, such as salaries and benefits, to broader politicized agenda rarely happened. Boris Gladarev, who studied the movement for preservation of the historic look of Saint Petersburg, designated a typical pattern of mobilization for Russian society as «common through private». According to his observation, individuals tend to group up in response to the intrusion of authorities in private space (Gladarev, 2011). More or less both researches have come to the similar conclusion: local movements before 2011 in Russia were mobilized by the urgent and personally perceived problems.

Since early 2012 new type of people started to get involved into practices of collective action. These people started their activity from highly politicized topics and then gradually and consciously got down to local civil initiatives and conventional civil practices (Center GRANY, 2012). Therefore newly emerged local activist groups, on one hand, became similar to the social movements of the previous years in terms of their agenda (improvement of city areas, protection of historical buildings, etc.), but on the other hand, the genesis of such groups was different: they got mobilized not by intrusion of authorities in «private» space and need for immediate response for it (somebody's house removal, for example), but by the willingness to extend the experience of collective action, which was received during participation in the rallies or observation of election process in 2011-2012. The stages of «activist's career» can be in contrast in a similar way: if in Carine Clement's research the average man starts his way towards becoming an activist from facing a certain problem in his «private space», acting alone (bringing complaints to municipality), then joining a local group, becoming election observer and after that he or she may become a participants of political rallies; in the case of the formation of local activist groups on the tide of mass protests of 2011-2012, some of the future members of these groups joined the rally «For Fair Elections» first, participated in the mass protests, became election observers, then joined local activist groups and gradually started to solve their problems in «private space» using activist methods.

Now I realize that we, the people who were «Election observers of Petersburg» got united by this activity and probably, at least I hope so, realized that there are a lot of problems in our society. And due to unwillingness and inability of the government to solve them, we as socially responsible people have to do something for solution of these problems. Each of these active people [the election observers] started dealing with this or that issue. (male, 1981, higher education, 12.02.2016, Saint Petersburg)

Different nature of local activist groups formed on the tide of mass protests of 2011-2012 poses the question of identification of the new phenomenon. In order to explain their origin, the theoretical concept of «public» developed within «Theory of Publics» is to be used in the research. Local activist groups formed on the tide of mass protests of 2011-2012 are going to be considered as «publics». In order to test that, the assumptions made by Michael Warner described in the first chapter are to be applied to local activist groups as local publics.

The first claim made by Warner is that «public» is self-organized and formed around discourse. In spring 2012 when the parliamentary and presidential elections were already conducted and the actuality of the discourse of «Unfair Elections» trended towards decline, unresponsiveness of the authorities to the demands posed by protest publics on mass rallies during 2011-2012 turned out to be a new «troubling message» - there is no reason to wait for «changes for the better» initiated by the parliament, president or any other power structures. Based on this «troubling message», the new discourse of «Small real deeds» evolved: some of the people who participated in protest publics' activity came to conclusion that protest, as a form of public interests representation is too politicized and not effective in fulfillment of needs of people for tangible changes.

The discourse of «Small real deeds» which emphasized the importance of concrete result that could be achieved via activist practices on local level, favored the formation of local activist groups (local publics) aimed at solution of concrete problems on local level. In most cases local activist groups are unregistered, but stable associations of citizens whose activity evolves as a response to some action or inaction of authorities. In terms of ability for self-organization, formed activist groups were much alike protest publics of 2011-2012 which makes it possible to interrelate these two forms of public interests representation in terms of succession: the formation of local activist groups occurred independently from both any state institutions and pre-existing organizational forms such as civil associations or NGOs: it happened through discourse of «Small real deeds», not through any formal frameworks.

The discourse of «Small real deeds» as a broad paradigm within which the activity of local activist groups came into existence accumulated three basic spheres of local publics' activity:

1) Observation of municipal authorities' activity (attendance of municipal meetings, tracking of various initiatives of administrations)

2) Informing the locals (issuing newspapers about problems in a district, activity of administration and current local events)

3) Improvement of city areas (problems with illegal constructions, protection or restoration of parks and recreation areas, waste collection, city area adjustment)

Another critical characteristic of public according to Michael Warner is that it is always «relation among strangers» that get united in a public through participation; public has to address the people who participate in the same discourse and there is no way all of these people can be known in advance (Warner, p. 55). One of the local activist groups formed around the discourse of «City area problems» was «Beautiful Petersburg». The group started being formed in spring 2012 in Saint Petersburg right after the presidential elections were conducted. The initial aim of «Beautiful Petersburg» was the improvement of city area in Kirovsky district via writing applications to the local municipality demanding to solve various problems: remove potholes, repaint playgrounds, restore sidewalks, lawns and other. The local activist group addressed the people who participated in the same discourse of «City area problems» via the means of social networks, posts in their virtual community. The actuality of this discourse made it possible to unite around 49 thousand people by 2016 into a public, represented in the virtual community of «Beautiful Petersburg» in vk.com (vk.com/peterburg_krasiv). This public is «relation among strangers»; the participants are united into it merely through participation in the discourse of city area improvement.