People Vent on May Day

Tens of thousands of people took part in May Day demonstrations across the country, with many using the traditional labor holiday to criticize the government.

"We are marking this holiday against the backdrop of the global financial crisis for the first time," said Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, whose party rallied about 4,000 supporters in Moscow for a march from Kaluzhskaya Ploshchad to Teatralnaya Ploshchad.

Mikhail Metzel / AP A boy saluting at a DPNI gathering.

Zyuganov called for the government to consider an anti-crisis program prepared by the Communists. "The government must stop wasting money on big business and oligarchs," he said.

No violence was reported as organizations from across the political spectrum got a chance to air their views, including the banned National Bolshevik Party, which was prevented from staging several anti-Kremlin marches last winter. National Bolshevik activists marched with the Communists and carried banners reading, "Tomorrow belongs to us," the group said on its web site. The march was sanctioned by city authorities.

Mikhail Metzel / AP United Russia and pro-government trade unions staging a Moscow march.

St. Petersburg police, however, broke up an unsanctioned National Bolshevik demonstration, detaining 20 activists with knives, pellet guns and hand flares, Interfax reported. Also, St. Petersburg police detained about 100 activists from anti-fascist groups for planning "a provocation" against the National Bolsheviks, Interfax said.

Some 300 Yabloko activists held an anti-government rally on Bolotnaya Ploshchad. The demonstration was not sanctioned, but police made no attempt to break it up. The opposition Solidarity group also rallied.

Denis Sinyakov / Reuters Riot police detaining a demonstrator after he lit a flare Friday during May Day demonstrations in central Moscow.

Dozens of activists with the ultranationalist Movement Against Illegal Migrants, or DPNI, gave fascist salutes and shook their fists at a sanctioned demonstration on Ploshchad Krasnopresnenskaya Zastava.

United Russia, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, together with trade unions drew more than 25,000 people wearing blue and red to the streets in central Moscow to support the Kremlin's policies, according to the party's web site.

Similar opposition and pro-Kremlin rallies were held throughout the country. Dozens of opposition activists were detained by the police at various unauthorized rallies.

A record-breaking 60,000 people participated in pro-Kremlin rallies across Chechnya, Chechen police told Interfax.