Incident on the dancefloor – pre-history of the arrest of Alexey Olesinov

Feb. 27, 2012 Avtonom

13th of February, a known Moscow anti-fascist Alexey Olesinov was arrested in St. Petersburg with charges of “hooliganism”, related to incident in Moscow club “Vozdukh” 17th of December.

The following statement on the event was published by anonymous participant of the anti-fascist initiative “Direct help” already 19th of December, but considering arrest of Olesinov, we consider necessary to pick up the topic again.Alexey had not anything to do with this fight, but it is now used as a pretext to imprison him. It is obvious, that “Anti-extremist center” and FSB are now revenging the fact, that they could not jail him for a longer time back in 2009, when he was framed up last time. It is obvious, that real reason why officials are after him, are the anti-fascist activities of Olesinov during last decade.

Old version of our website is currently unavailable, but some background information on the court case of 2009 is available here: Fresh news on topic will be available with tag.

Story of the events in club “Vozdukh” is useful not only in order to once again see, how much official version may differ from real events, but also to demonstrate to all owners of Moscow clubs, how short-sighted it is to employ people with far-right views to security, as they have a tendency to provoke visitors, which will eventually lead to property destruction and other trouble.

Currently, Aleksei is remanded, and next time court will decide on continuation of imprisonment in prior to court 18th of March. You may donate to legal costs of Olesinov through Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow, more details on how to do this are available here: http://wiki.avtonom.org/en/index.php/Donate

Rage of subculture (first-hand account of a participator of “Direct Help” on events in club “Vozdukh”).

On Saturday 17th of December, I became an unwilling witness of incident, to which disappointed audience of the festival “East Beat Fest” took part in club “Vozdukh”, which is located at “Nizhni Susalny” side-street of Moscow. I came there to relax in a friendly atmosphere, and to listen my favorite bands.

In middle of the concert, two new persons came to work for the security – during first part of the concert, security was done by two older guys with t-shirt “security” in a shift. Visitors of the club and participators of the concert immediately paid attention to new security, as they were provoking visitors. They were demonstratively wearing “travmat”-pistols (a popular Russian self-defence weapon, which shots rubber-coated metal bullets), another hand had a tattoo with tsarist black-golden-white flag, and letters CSKA. Guys immediately admitted, that they are “listeners of patriotic rap”, and in their youth they did “trashed some blacks”. Their work consisted of gathering bottles of mineral water from and random harrassment of guests of the concert, the same time they attempted to annoy organisers by bragging that they were ultra-right football hooligans, and members of such notable hooligan firms as “Yaroslavka” and “Gallant Steeds”.

After a number of verbal conflicts with spectators, new security started to complain, that people are going in and out with weapons – this although nobody refused from being searched, and security could not find any weapons during searches. Meanwhile, concert went on, and when headliners, Engage At Will from St. Petersburg and unsubs from Kirov were supposed to perform, a fight between two spectators took place in second floor of the premises. Four persons from the security immediately ran to second floor, where they found two participators and their friends, who were currently negotiating in order to resolve the conflict peacefully. Security grabbed first person they saw, and attempted to push him down the stairs. His friends stepped up to defend him, and did not let him be pushed down the stairs.

After a long and heated debate, security withdraw, promising to solve issues with spectators in the street. They went to complain to art-director of the club, claiming that in second floor “everything was smashed”. Art-director decided to halt concert prematurely. Band members attempted to negotiate, as it was mere half hours of remaining showtime, but director threatened them with police. Organisers promised, that they would be ready to negotiate with police as well, but managers of the club asked everyone to disperse, and organisers to gather their sound system. Organisers agreed, and started to disassemble sound system. I did not witnessed what happened next, but I heard this from my punk acquintances, who helped with disassembling the sound system.

They told that security did not let some of the people to the street, promising that soon their “directors”, “mafia” and “Yaroslavka” will come, and that they will settle their disagreements with organisers of the concert. At that point, organisers had already left the premises with part of the sound system. People, whom security attempted to hold as hostages, refused to stay and wait for whatever there was to come, and headed towards exit. At this point, security grabbed his “travmat” and started to shoot at the crowd. This resulted a stampede at the exit, as people panicked after the shot, some windows got broken either due to stampede or due to shooting. How one of the armed securty personell got beaten up (and according to mainstream media, also shot with “travmat” gun and stabbed” - editorial collective of avtonom.org), is unclear.

But it is obvious, that conflict was provoked by security, or as they now claim in the media, “administrators” of the club. And they were the ones who escalated the conflict, by grabbing their guns and shooting at the people. Now wounded security promises to “give any kind of testimony”, in order to save their arses. And they accuse anti-fascists for escalation of the violence. Obviously, that such people feel that any subcultures pose a threat to them, as nobody will never accept the ridiculous ideas, with which security of the concert associates itself. As for the administrators of the clubs, we recommend them to pick up their cadres more carefully, and also to take account wishes of the organisers of the concerts, and also to follow conditions of the contract until end of the concert, otherwise their profits will disappear as smoke to the air due after a reaction of discontent public.

A member of “Direct help”.

Арест активиста антифа Алексея Олесинова from Anton Stekov on Vimeo.