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Monday, Jan. 17, 2005

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  A day earlier, about 10,000 elderly protesters flooded St. Petersburg's major thoroughfares for most of the day, paralyzing traffic and prompting a local governor to promise to issue travel passes at subsidized prices to ease the reform.

The protests, which engulfed numerous other cities across Russia's 11 time zones, were triggered by a Jan. 1 law giving retirees, the disabled and war veterans cash stipends instead of benefits such as free public transportation and medicine. Protesters claim the payments do not cover the costs of the benefits they are meant to replace.

"It's an outrage," protester Nina Kuzmina, 65, said Sunday. "The government must step down and face justice."

Kuzmina, who survived the 900-day Nazi siege of the city during World War II that killed more than half a million residents, most of them from hunger, accused the Kremlin of carrying out a "genocide" of the elderly.

"We have been working all our lives to raise the country's image, and now they humiliated and robbed us," she said angrily.

Not Enough for Medicine

Protesters said the monthly cash payments - equivalent to about $10 - are not enough to replace public transportation costs, let alone pay for medicine. An average monthly pension equals about $80, but people of retirement age remember Soviet days when rents, medical care and utilities were free, and food and many other basics were heavily subsidized by the state.

Protesters in St. Petersburg demanded both the return of benefits and an increase in pensions.

"Prices keep rising and now they have canceled our benefits," said protester Yevgeniya Sidorova, 70. "Putin and his government want us to lie down and wait for death to come."

The rallies, many of which involved blockades of key highways, have turned up the heat on Putin, who has seen little public protest so far during his tenure, when most citizens have either supported or simply accepted the Kremlin's initiatives.

Retirees' protests in the Volga River city of Samara went into their fifth day Sunday, and a rally in the southern city of Stavropol drew 5,000 people.

The authorities rushed to quell the rising tide of discontent by promising to return some of the benefits, while pro-Kremlin politicians fumed at opposition forces, accusing them of instigating the protests.

St. Petersburg Gov. Valentina Matviyenko went on the city's television channel late Saturday to promise subsidized travel passes.

"We won't neglect you," Matviyenko said. "But I strongly ask you not to yield to provocations."

Matviyenko said she discussed the protests with Putin, who was visiting the city Saturday but did not appear in public, and he ordered the Cabinet to respond to the discontent. She did not say how.

Observers have said the protests likely would intensify when people start receiving January utility bills, which will increase significantly because of the end of government subsidies.

The Kremlin has described the reform as a long-overdue effort to streamline and modernize the economy, but many commentators predict now that Putin may respond to the crisis by firing Cabinet ministers.

Lyubov Sliska, a senior member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party that dominates the parliament, said Friday she did not rule out the possibility that Putin could fire the entire Cabinet.

© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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