From a posting published over on the Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center which argues that 10,000 people on the streets of Kaliningrad over the weekend is a notable development:

So what is new here? During the transition between Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev there were protests all the time, followed by arrests, followed by NGO statements of disapproval of human rights violations.

For one, the Kaliningrad protest represents the largest demonstration against Moscow to have occurred in the enclave in more than a decade, rivaling the massive marches after the fall of the Soviet Union (many in Kaliningrad believed their geographic position would lead to sovereign status as an independent nation). Remember the outbreak of protests in Vladivostok in 2008 over the automotive trade? This one was six times larger. Blogging on Global Voices, Vadim Isakov translates part of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov’s popular essay on the events posted to his LiveJournal: