About 5,000 people have gathered for rally on Bolotnaya Square - police
MOSCOW. May 6 (Interfax) - About 5,000 people had gathered on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow by the time an opposition rally started, a spokesman for the Moscow Police told Interfax.
"Some 5,000 participants had gathered by the time the rally officially started, including about 300 media people," the spokesman said.
A minute of silence was observed for the worker killed as the stage was being put in place for the rally.
Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the Solidarity movement and of the People's Freedom Party, said tens of thousands of people had joined the rally.
"I want to tell those who have gathered here on Bolotnaya Square: the entire square has been filled with people. Tens of thousands of people have gathered," Nemtsov said.
Activists spent about an hour passing through metal detectors before entering the square. Police blocked approaches to the square from Kadashevskaya Embankment and Bolshaya Ordynka street.
About a dozen vehicles and vans carrying interior troops and police have been deployed near the square. A police helicopter hovered over the square.
A truck was put in place to be used as a stage with a banner reading "Freedom to May 6 Prisoners!" Two red roses were put on the improvised stage in memory of a worker killed on Monday.
"At the start of the rally we will ask representatives of political parties to lower the flags, and participants to observe a minute of silence for Maxim Melkov," an organizer, Tatyana Sukhareva, told Interfax before the rally started.
Reports said earlier that a 26 year-old worker was killed when sound equipment collapsed as an improvised stage was being assembled on Monday. Following the accident a proposal was made to cancel the rally or change its format. Finally the organizers set up another stage.
It was not the first fatal accident during preparations for mass political events in Moscow.
A lighting equipment technician died of a heart attack during preparations for a rally on Manezhnaya Square on March 4 2012. The death did not lead to changes in the program of the event, timed to coincide with presidential elections and organized to support Vladimir Putin.
A 26 year-old amateur photograph fell to his death as he was climbing up a fire escape to photograph the opposition march on May 6 2012.