About 10,000 Russian ultra-nationalists marched across Moscow on Monday in an annual show of anger against the presence of Muslim migrants that witnessed dozens of arrests.
The city-sanctioned demonstration shook the same blue-collar region on the city’s outskirts that saw riots break out three weeks ago over a stabbing murder blamed on a citizen of Azerbaijan.
“Today, a mosque – tomorrow, jihad,” proclaimed one banner held by nationalist flag-waving youths who gathered under a drizzle on a wide avenue surrounded by towering apartment blocks.
Another man with a shaved head and a young child on his shoulders said simply: “We are all Russians here. Kids have nothing to be afraid of.”
The show of Slavic pride concluded with a booming performance by Kolovart – a white supremacist rock group whose lyrics idolise Hitler and call for the destruction of other ethnic groups.