Police detained 11 young Russian communists in Saint Petersburg on Saturday who staged a demonstration wearing masks of President Vladimir Putin and compared him and his officials to the robots who repeatedly replicate themselves in the science-fiction movie The Matrix.
Alleging that Putin was monopolising the media during the campaign for the March 14 presidential election, one demonstrator said: "We wanted to denounce the presidential election because it's a farce."
"There's no democracy in our country," said Oleg Bondarenko, a communist whose party was finally toppled in 1991 after seven decades of one-party rule during the Soviet era.
Bondarenko compared Putin to a robot in the Hollywood science fiction movie The Matrix.
"He has replicated himself and all the state officials look like him. They have no strategic vision for the country and they're not very intellligent," Bondarenko said.
A police spokesman said the 11 protesters were arrested because the demonstration was not officially authorised.
Some 50 communists from Moscow assembled in front of Putin's home in Saint Petersburg, of which he is a native, then marched down Saint Petersburg's main thoroughfare, Nevsky Prospekt.
Some of the activists, who were all in their early 20s, wore T-shirts reading "Sunken sub", a reference to the disaster three years ago when Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank and all 118 men on board perished.
Others sported T-shirts referring to a disaster this month in which 27 people died when a roof collapsed at a Moscow water park.
Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov will not compete in the March 14 election, leaving it to the less charismatic communist Nikolai Kharitonov to stand against Putin, who has no heavyweight challengers.
The Russian authorities ruled this month that Putin was allowed to receive extra attention on television before the election and rejected a complaint from his challengers that the state-controlled media was biased.
Two opposition presidential candidates - who have been allocated almost no air time on state-run television - have filed a protest with Russia's central election commission, alleging preferential treatment is being given to the incumbent.
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