In most parts of the world, a children’s toy, yellow rubber duck is associated with a child’s bathroom paraphernelia, but in Russia it is different, the city council of Ijevsk refused to grant a rally permit because the protesters intended to show up with yellow ducks at the demonstration. According to the government of Ijevsk, the duck was created by the “Western intelligence centers” intended as “a symbol of revolution and unlawful overthrow of the state.”
Furthermore, to strengthen their final decision, Ijevski government used an conspiratorial article published on new-front.info written by Oksana Sazonova, entitled “Unimaginative Invetion by the Opposition“: What Does the Yellow Duck on Russian (and Not Only) demonstrations signify?, where it is indicated that yellow ducks in Russia are symbols of anti-government protests and participants of unauthorized rallies carry them to pick the curiosity of the passing-by populace. Yellow duck are also used as avatars for internet groups and as profile pictures for social networks.
The author of the article Oksana Sazonova notices that the use of ducks by street dissidents has a simple explanation: Alexei Navalny’s “Foundation for Struggle Against Corruption” claims that the Prime Minister of Russia Dimitri Medvedev built a house for ducks on the premises of his residence. Today only a few people remember the famous investigative film “He’s not your Dimon” (film produced by Navalny), the duck house is only mentioned once and it couldn’t be spotted from aerial camera shots – but the documentary still became the reason of the yellow duck becoming a symbol.
According to the author of the article, “heckling” in the street and walking around carrying toys creates an illusion of apoliticality, but the purpose remains the same as in any “orangism”: to delimit “Our people” in any society and create a sense of non-violence and spontaneity.
The article also notes that yellow ducks are used during protest marches in Russia as well as in Serbia, Brazil and China.
Photo taken from News-front.info article
Sazonova writes that it has been already over a year since new rallies and marches known as “yellow ducks protest” are being organised in Serbia. In formality, rallies are related to the resentment of Belgrade residents, caused by the construction of new buildings in the historic part of town and the collapse of one of those buildings in which two homeless persons were killed. In reality, these protests developed into large-scale anti-government demonstrations, complaints were voiced against the mayor of Belgrade and the prime minister who is the head of state was insulted.
The Russian government has precedent of proclaiming conspiracies concerning various toys. They also consider toy called “Spinner” as part of a conspiracy against the Kremlin. Similar to “Spinner”, last year, in a report done by RENTV, the online game Pokemon Go was presented as a challenge to Russia’s national security and as a spy weapon in the hands of foreign intelligence services. See the material prepared by the Myth Detector on this topic.
Based on Euvsdisinfo’s material
