MOSCOW — Ultranationalists tossed smoke grenades and scuffled with riot police in Moscow today as authorities broke up an unauthorized demonstration on Russia’s day of national unity.
Riot police detained 500 people, but released them after only a few hours. There were no reports of injuries.
The demonstrators defied a government ban on unsanctioned marches to celebrate National Unity Day, a holiday created in 2005 to replace the traditional celebration of the 1917 Bolshevik rise to power.
The holiday celebrates a 17th century military victory.
Extreme nationalists who oppose non-white migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia have used the holiday to protest their presence in the Russian capital.
Hate crimes in Russia are soaring. In the first 10 months of this year, 113 people were killed and 340 injured in xenophobic attacks, according to the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, which said it was a 50 percent increase over last year. Nearly half of the attacks took place in Moscow.
Elsewhere in the city, demonstrators belonging to a club that re-enacts historic battles donned medieval-style helmets and chain mail as they marched in celebration of the holiday. Some 1,500 people, many chanting “Glory to Russia,” took part in the rally.
Smaller nationalist marches were held in other Russian cities.
In the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, scuffles broke out as a couple of dozen people tried to disrupt the march, the Interfax news agency reported.
