TODAY: Weekend protests see activists detained; Solidarity given ominous gift; activist heckles Medvedev; Lavrov attending Mideast Quartet, US and Russia to discuss arms trade; hate crimes, killer blogs, Russophobia.

The opening day of the founding congress of Solidarity, Russia’s new democratic movement, was reportedly marked by a delivery of ‘dead and wounded sheep‘ clad in Solidarity baseball caps.  Sunday’s unsanctioned anti-Kremlin protest by the Other Russia opposition group saw 150 people detained in St Petersburg and Moscow, depending on which numbers you believe.  Protesters were marching against the Kremlin’s extension of the presidential term from four years to six, a move that President Dmitry Medvedev was defending during a Constitution Day speech when he was heckled.  The heckler was swiftly dealt with in the Moscow Times by Vladimir Frolov, a former Duma deputy and government PR, who wrote that the protest ‘had more to do with promoting himself than anything else‘.  A smaller protest at the Greek embassy also saw activists detained.