Police detained dozens of anti-Kremlin activists, including an 82-year-old Soviet dissident dressed as Santa Claus' female helper, at a New Year's Eve rally on Moscow's main shopping street on Thursday.
Hundreds of riot police surrounded a Christmas tree in the center of the city and arrested the opposition activists as they gathered to defend their right to peaceful protest.
A man dressed as Father Frost, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, was dragged through the snow to a waiting bus. Soviet-era dissident and rally organizer Lyudmila Alexeyeva, dressed as Snegurochka, Father Frost's female assistant in Russian fairy tales, was escorted to a bus by riot police.
"I don't know why I was detained.... How could I possibly offer any resistance to anyone?" she said, quoted by Echo Moskvy radio, which reported that between 30 and 50 people had been detained.
A coalition of opposition groups organized the Dec. 31 rally to defend their right to protest, as enshrined under Article 31 of the Russian constitution. Unsanctioned rallies are one of the few outlets for Russia's weak and fragmented opposition.
"Down with Putinism, freedom to Russia," one protester shouted from the window of a bus being driven to a local police station, a reference to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The opposition says Putin was the architect of a major clampdown on civil liberties in Russia during his presidency from 2000-2008.
Activists shouted "shame" as police detained several elderly people.
Moscow City Hall denied permission to hold the protest on the grounds that it clashed with a rally by pro-Kremlin activists, who danced to holiday music as police made their arrests.
The pro-Kremlin group Young Russia said in a news release that 70 of their activists had rallied against the opposition, whom they accuse of receiving funding from the West.
"Bad Santa arrived from abroad to steal our holiday," the statement said.
According to local tradition, Father Frost gives presents to children on New Year's Eve, Russia's main winter holiday.