This ability to mobilise gives me confidence that the slogan “Down with the Tsar!” will finally, after 500 years, be replaced by the phrase “Down with autocracy!”.

Yesterday’s [Saturday’s] huge rally in Moscow and the support for it in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and a number of other cities, the subsequent harsh detentions of its participants has raised a number of questions for the opposition about how to continue the fight against the regime.

The answer to these questions will have to be given to the council of independent candidates, no matter who joins it, what the council calls itself, or what form this group of political representatives for civil society would take in the future.

Actually, the main achievement of the past day [Saturday] and all the preparations for it is the fact that civil society demonstrated it is able to mobilise itself without the usual leaders and in turn quickly put forward numerous new people as its representatives.

Being a Muscovite, I am proud of my fellow countrymen and thankful to everyone who went out to support them in other cities of Russia, despite the threat of possible persecution.

I am very glad that the speaker’s stand was not be filled with “political pensioners”, but with fresh people, and that the existing leaders and their resources agreed to play a “service” auxiliary role, without overstepping the mark and quarreling over the “location” [of the speaker’s stand].

I’m talking here about Open Russia and about FBK (The Anti-Corruption Foundation) and about Yabloko and about the guys from the Gudkov’s team and about the libertarians and about Vesna and others I don’t know yet, but whom after a couple of days, I’m sure, I’ll know.

This ability to mobilise gives me confidence that the slogan “Down with the Tsar!”, will be after 500 years finally replaced with the slogan “Down with the autocracy!”.

And not only on posters, but also in people’s minds.

As a Russian citizen temporarily residing abroad due to the “federal” and “international” search warrants announced after my expulsion, as well as the  threats of extrajudicial reprisals and a pseudo-judicial life sentence, I will soon announce the additional steps I have taken to support Russian civil society.

Russia will be free!