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Opposition Allowed to Rally but Not March on May 6

Moscow authorities have approved an anti-Kremlin rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad on May 6 but rejected a request to also stage a march, saying it would disrupt traffic on a working day.

"The Moscow Mayor's Office agreed to the rally on May 6. The march was denied. We'll gather from 6 to 7 p.m. The rally is from 7 to 9:30 p.m. on Bolotnaya Ploshchad," opposition organizer Pyotr Tsarkov wrote Thursday on Twitter.

The decision did not come as a surprise because Alexei Mayorov, the head of security at City Hall, said earlier this week that such a massive event as the march would not be sanctioned for a working day. May 6 falls on Monday, the first day back at work after the extended May Day holiday.

The authorities have capped the number of demonstrators allowed on the square on May 6 at 30,000, Solidarity member Alexander Ryklin told Interfax.

The protest will fall on the one-year anniversary of another anti-Kremlin rally on the same square that erupted in violence that the protesters and police have blamed on each other.

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