An activist with the Solidarity opposition group known as Crazy Lyonya is to appear in court Monday for donning a blue bucket on his head and leaping onto the roof of a bureaucrat's car near the Kremlin.
The activist, Leonid Nikolayev, has been charged with hooliganism and faces a fine of up to $80 or 15 days in jail for the May 22 stunt aimed at highlighting growing public opposition to the use of flashing blue lights on bureaucrats' cars that allow them to break traffic rules.
"Different kinds of clans have formed in our society. I have addressed them as an equal," Nikolayev said of his stunt on Ren-TV television on Saturday. "It was a symbolic action."
A video of the incident, which surfaced on YouTube last week, shows Nikolayev darting across a busy street near the Kremlin's walls toward a black Ford Focus, equipped with a blue light, that is waiting for a green light to turn. As he approaches the car, Nikolayev pulls a blue bucket out of a bag and puts it on his head. He then scrambles up the hood of the car, over the roof and down the trunk. The surprised driver, wearing a suit, jumps out of the car and unsuccessfully tries to grab Nikolayev, who loses his blue bucket, exposing a green bucket underneath.
The driver returns to the car when he sees a friend of Nikolayev photographing the incident and flips on his flashing blue lights, ignoring the still-red light to steer into oncoming traffic.
But the authorities tracked down Nikolayev and detained him near his home west of Moscow, said Sergei Kanayev, head of the Federation of Russian Car Owners, who attended a pretrial hearing Friday.
The court released Nikolayev and scheduled a trial for Monday, his brother, Igor Nikolayev, told Interfax.
The owner of the Ford is unclear, and Monday's proceeding may not cast light on the identity. Nikolayev's protest has been classified as an administrative offense, which does not require a second party to bring charges in court.
A growing number of drivers have called for an end to the use of flashing blue lights on officials' cars, which have been blamed for a slew of accidents and several fatalities in recent months. Protesting drivers have placed blue buckets on the roofs of their cars to express their frustration with the blue lights.
Solidarity is an anti-Kremlin group led by former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemstov and former chess champion Garry Kasparov. Solidarity decided Saturday to register as a political party, it said on its web site.