In Kitai-Gorod in Moscow, we came across two sets of protesters, at either end of a long park. One set was made up almost entirely of middle-aged men from the Republic of Kalmykia, a subject of the Russian Federation on the Caspian Sea. They were only a small handful of people, handing out photocopied pamphlets and oppositionist newspapers, and generally protesting the Russian government, Putin's United Russia party, the invasion of Georgia and the general oppression of the people of Kalmykia.

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Kalmykian protesters. There is one lonely police officer in the back, watching them. I don't know who the person next to him is.

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The paper this man is holding up shows a picture of him being arrested for protesting.

One man in their group claimed to have been in Abkhazia during the invasion of Georgia, protesting the whole time. He said that Abkhasia is full of Russian tourists who go there and lie on the beach and completely ignore the protests that are going on and the politics all around them. He said you couldn't even buy a real newspaper in the area he was in, only tabloids, because that was all the Russian tourists wanted to buy.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the park there was a massive gathering of disgruntled teenagers in elaborately made costumes. What were they protesting? The potential shut down of their favorite TV station, 2x2, the only station in Russia that plays such American animated favorites as The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy (called "The Griffins" in Russia), and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Apparently these sorts of shows had upset some people in the government and in the Russian Orthodox Church for "inciting religious hatred" and for their generally unwholesome content. One protester complained that the same people who wanted to shut down the station had also, in 2005, tried to ban the entire Jewish religion for practicing ritual murders. And what would they replace 2x2 with? A "Youth Patriotism Channel", of course.

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Teenagers in costume protest the possible shutdown of 2x2. Notice the kids in South Park masks.

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Many police officers were spread out around the protesters, watching.

Among the things the protesters chanted was "South Park! South Park!"

Fortunately for the teenagers of Russia, news came out yesterday that 2x2 would survive. For now, anyway.

Afterward, we went to the nearby Moscow Choral Synagogue, which at one point was the only synagogue operating in the Soviet Union. In the last decade alone there have been mutiple attacks on the synagogues of the city, and so the place has metal detectors and is well guarded. Because of the lack of places of worship for Jews throughout Russia, people come here from all over the surrounding area, especially now in the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It was the middle of day on a Sunday (the day after shabbos), and inside a packed house was watching a video lecture on the High Holy Days.

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The Choral Synagogue with barriers and guards.

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Video lecture inside the synagogue.

Russia, of course, has a long history of antisemitism and mistreatment of the Jews, including the aforementioned 2005 attempt to ban the religion altogether. While we were there we saw one poster of a man with a Star of David drawn derisively over his head, and in our own hostel in St. Petersburg there was an antisemitic joke book lying around on a table. An impersonator of Czar Nicholas II told me cheerily (and without provocation) what a Jew I looked like, as did a drunk Georgian in a bar. (The Georgian, at least, was buying me drinks at the time, and was himself drunk out of his mind.) While these last two events could have been seen as light-hearted and meaning no particular offense (especially by Russians), try to imagine someone in America telling an African-American what a "blacky" he looks like.

Antisemitic Joke Book in St. Petersburg, Russia
Jew Jokes for Russians. The illustration is of a Jewish man with his wife and children driving a trolley while Russians gape at them.

It's not the first time I've witnessed antisemitism, of course, but it was out in the open in Russia in a way that made me more than a little uncomfortable.