On March 10, 1991, a major opposition demonstration took place in the center of Moscow. Though estimates of the crowd size vary, the rally remains one of the largest protests in Russia’s modern history. As many as half a million people filled Moscow’s Manezhnaya Square near the Kremlin, demanding the resignation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and expressing their support for Boris Yeltsin, who would go on to become the first president of the independent Russian Federation. The demonstration was also a protest against the preservation of the USSR — a question at the center of a referendum that would take place a week later. In that vote, most Soviet citizens endorsed the Union’s continued existence, but the country and its empire nevertheless collapsed later that year.
Yuri Borisov
Dmitry Borko
Dmitry Borko
Dmitry Sokolov / TASS
Yuri Borisov
Yuri Borisov
Scanpix / LETA
Scanpix / LETA
Dominique Mollard / AP / Scanpix / LETA
Scanpix / LETA
Yuri Borisov
The estimates
There are various estimates of the size of the crowds at mass rallies and protest actions that took place in Russia in the 1990s. One of the organizers of the March 10, 1991 demonstration, Evgeny Shneyder, believes that between 200,000 and 250,000 people joined this rally, while a pre-election demonstration on February 25, 1990 drew up to 600,00 people. That said, on February 23, 1991, a rally took place in Moscow in support of preserving the USSR, and according to some estimates it was attended by up to 800,000 people.