On December 12 in Arkhangelsk, eco-activists and coordinator of Navalny's Arkhangelsk headquarters Andrei Borovikov held the Shameful Regiment action in defense of Shies, activist Anastasia Fomina told 7x7.
Activists came to the building of the regional government with posters depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast Igor Orlov, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry Alexander Erulik and Director of the Technopark company, which plans to build a landfill at Shies, Oleg Pankratov.
Coordinator of the regional headquarters of Navalny Andrei Borovikov said that he considers Constitution Day a personal holiday:
— If the Constitution had been respected in our country, I would not have gone through all these searches, trials and arrests and been convicted. I decided to celebrate this holiday properly, as befits a citizen of his country.
Anastasia Fomina, who organized the Fridays for Future climate strike in Arkhangelsk two weeks ago, explained why she had joined the action:
— I see how the legal literacy of activists in Arkhangelsk is gradually increasing, and this gives further hope for the creation of a proper civil society. We have begun to pay more attention to the wording of the laws, because this is the only way out in the fight for justice. Only by knowing the law can we use its violations to our advantage.
The activist told 7x7 that visitors of the government house smiled and nodded approvingly, congratulating on the holiday, during the pickets:
— We even managed to attract the attention of a Deputy from the United Russia party and a six-year-old boy: he came close to a person on strike with a poster about Vladimir Putin and tried to read aloud what was written.
Constitution day is a celebration of the adoption of the Constitution in modern Russia, which is celebrated on December 12.
Fridays for Future are the climate protests when the activists demand that the world community take action to combat climate change. The first actions took place in the summer of 2018, when Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, after record-breaking forest fires, decided not to go to school until the elections in Sweden on September 9. She sat in front of the Parliament building with a poster saying «Skolstrejk för klimatet» («School Strike for Climate») every day for two weeks. Her demands insluded reducing Sweden’s greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement. In 2019, the actions continued. From 20 to 27 September, protests took place in 4,5 thousand locations in 150 countries.
