At least 15,000 pensioners blocked the centre of St Petersburg on Saturday to protest against changes to the state benefit system in the largest demonstration in Russia's second city for a decade. Under a new law, many pensioners receive cash instead of the right to benefits such as free travel and medical care. But they say the payments of $15-100 a month are too small to make up for the lost perks, a mainstay of retirement since Soviet times.
"They should let people live and die with dignity," said pensioner Larisa Sergeyevna. "The pension is too small, and now they've taken everything away. They've ripped us off and now we're penniless."
The protest, which follows a week of similar actions elsewhere in Russia, began outside government offices where President Vladimir Putin's career began and swelled to numbers not seen in the city since a 1993 political crisis.
The protesters, including some from the radical National Bolshevik party, carried banners with slogans criticising the reform or calling for the resignation of the government and of Putin, who was in St Petersburg after a meeting on Friday with German President Horst Koehler.
Putin has dominated Russia's political scene since becoming president in 2000, and - except for opposition party rallies - public protests against him are rare.
Representatives from opposition parties, including the Communists and the liberal Yabloko party, said they planned to hold daily protests between January 25 and January 29 with crowds of 150,000 to demand restoration of the old benefits.
"They don't give a damn about the people and they're not willing to listen to us," local Communist leader Vladimir Fyodorov told the crowd. "We will bring the people in power to their knees."
The change to the system affects 14 million people who get federal benefits, but local governments may choose to keep funding perks for another 21 million people who come under their budgets, resulting in some sharp divides for neighbours on different sides of administrative boundaries.