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Muscovites Hold Another Rally Against Paid Parking

It is the third time Muscovites have taken to the streets to protest against the paid parking zone expansion.

A third rally against paid parking expanding to residential neighborhoods was held on Saturday in the northern Moscow district of Otradnoye, local media reported.

Several hundred people took part in the rally, the Ekho Moskvy radio station reported.

The LDPR nationalist party later took credit for organizing the event, though it originally appeared to have been planned by local residents, and the party's flamboyant leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky attended the event — after parking his car in a space for disabled drivers, the radio station reported.

"What is there to pay for — the air?" he was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. "In one place you can park a car for free, in another you have to pay for it. … It's a good approach, doing nothing but extorting money from people," Zhirinovsky said.

Demonstrators demanded the dismissal during the rally of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and his deputy Maxim Liksutov, who is responsible for the city's transportation system.

It is the third time Muscovites have taken to the streets to protest against the paid parking zone expansion. The first two rallies took place in the northeastern district of Ostankino and the northern district of Aeroport.

Several hundred people have participated in the rallies, as well as politicians and lawmakers from the Communist party.

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