For several years now, a photograph of a demonstration has been circulating on social networks, the participants of which allegedly came out to protest against the collapse of the Soviet Union. We have checked whether this description of this image is correct.
The photograph (or rather, several photographs often circulated together, taken from a similar angle) shows a huge crowd filling Manezhnaya Square in the center of Moscow. All these people (from 500,000 to “millions”) allegedly gathered in one place one day in 1991 to support the preservation of the USSR.
A similar description accompanies one of the photographs in the media bank “RIA Novosti", as well as on the publication’s social networks Lenta.ru and on the website "Culturology.rf" The photo was widely circulated in Facebook, as well as in "VKontakte" And "Zene"
In the RIA Novosti media bank, along with the signature, the name of the author (Alexander Makarov) and the date when the photo was taken (February 23, 1991) are indicated. Indeed, on that day in Moscow on Manezhnaya Square a rally took place in support of a renewed, united USSR, for civil peace, harmony and further democratization of society. Its participants expressed no confidence in Boris Yeltsin and supported the country's President Mikhail Gorbachev. Magazine "Kommersant Power"with reference to the police, he wrote that about 250,000 people took part in the demonstration, and Forbes in 2012, he cited an estimate by the organizers of the action at 600,000 - 800,000 protesters. Contrary to the assertion that the action was spontaneous, which is cited in some publications on social networks, it was organized by the deputy groups “Union” and “Moscow”.
Of course, such a massive event in recent history is captured in many photographs. The most famous overview photo stored in the TASS archive and made by Anatoly Morkovkin and Gennady Khamelyanin.
The shooting location is obviously the same as in the viral photos, however, numerous red flags are visible in this photo, which is natural, because supporters of preserving the USSR have gathered. This image, like the one being checked, is active spreads on the Internet with a similar signature, and there is no doubt about its correctness.
However, there are no red flags in the analyzed frames. It is easy to spot Russian tricolors and national flags of Ukraine on them.
On March 10, 1991, another rally, which claims to be the largest in Russian history. At that time, according to some data, up to half a million people came to Manezhnaya Square. They demanded Gorbachev's resignation and supported Yeltsin. The organizers called for a vote against preserving the USSR in a referendum that was to take place in a few days. And although in the end the majority of voters supported preservation of the Soviet state, it soon collapsed anyway. It is absolutely logical that people came to such a rally with national flags.
Authorship of the top photo belongs TASS photographer Dmitry Sokolov. Almost identical, differing only in small details, frame did Associated Press photographer Dominic Mollard. His photograph is widely known in the West and is often issued for photographs taken much later in other places. Related to this shot is another interesting one story: it turned out that at AP it was slightly edited at one time to remove the glare, but after receiving a request from an attentive reader, the original was returned to the public domain.
There is no doubt that the photo was taken precisely on March 10, 1991, this date is indicated by both TASS and AP. As for the bottom photo, from RIA Novosti, it appears that the site incorrectly indicated the rally during which the photo was taken.
Finally, in another similar photo, issued in some publications for a photo from a rally for the preservation of the USSR, it is also impossible to detect red flags, but (despite the poor image quality) other banners and other elements are located approximately in the same place as in the photographs from March 10. Apparently, the photo (or maybe the video from which the frame was later taken) was taken at the same time.
Thus, in publications about the rally for the preservation of the USSR, they often use a whole series of similar photographs from a demonstration of opponents of the preservation of the Soviet system, which took place a little later in the same year.
Cover photo: social networks
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