In the evening of March 25 in St. Petersburg an illegal antifascist march has taken place. Over 150 people have taken part, despite extremely harsh weather conditions - the city was in the middle of snowstorm (which probably slowed down the police reaction).
Several groups of participants have gathered from different parts of the city and started walking down the city's main avenue, Nevsky Prospect, from Ploschad Alexandra Nevskogo around 8 p.m. They were chanting antifascist and anarchist slogans and distributed leaflets connected to the theme of the march. They carried banners and lit torches. The march was dedicated to the memory of Alexei Krylov who was killed by nazis in Moscow 9 days ago, on March 16, on his way to a punk gig.
The police apparently didn't know what to do and after a brief and unsuccessful attempt to block the marchers from crossing the Ligovsky Prospect they shut down Ploschad Vosstaniya metro station. The antifascist column has turned to Ulitsa Vosstaniya and then through the courtyards to Ulitsa Mayakovskogo. The police have started to isolate and arrest people. First two were captured in the courtyards, at least one more at the cross of Ulitsa Maykovskogo and Ulitsa Zhukovskogo where the antifascists have split in two groups. By then the police started to arrest everyone they deemed suspicious, and overall there were around two dozen people held. Five of them who were underage were released from police custody the same night, while the rest are to face court on Wednesday morning.
The antiscists have taken to the streets to proclaim that they aren't willing to tolerate the neonazi violence which has become a serious problem in Russia. The news reports about attacks on foreign students, about migrants being murdered have turned routine and aren't shocking anyone. There are also attacks on the subcultural youth who try to oppose the neonazis. In the last 2 1/2 years at least five antifascists from different Russian cities were murdered for their convictions - including the St. Petersburg musician Timur Kacharava. We are convinced that the methods of fighting the hateful ideas should be varied - articles in the press, educational programmes, graffitti, peaceful street actions etc. The entire history of antifascist movement bears witness to the fact that it can only be successful if it uses the entire range of tactics, including direct physical confrontation.
An antifascist march in Alexei Krylov's memory had also taken place in Moscow on March 19. Over 300 people participated.
Antifascist information group.
antifa_spb (A) riseup.net
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пт, 28/03/2008 - 4:20am 
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