Officials sanction a vigil in downtown Moscow for Boris Nemtsov

Officials have agreed to grant a permit to organizers of a memorial march through downtown Moscow, beginning on Sunday, March 1. The procession will start in Kitay-Gorod and continue to the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, just minutes from the Kremlin, where Nemtsov was shot and killed on Friday evening, February 27.

The announcement that the city has sanctioned the memorial march came from Leonid Volkov, one of the organizers of an opposition rally originally planned for March 1, later scrapped after news of Nemtsov’s murder.

The march will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m., starting in Kitay-Gorod and going to the bridge where he was killed. The march is sanctioned by the mayor’s office. You should encourage everyone to come, and everyone should come.

Volkov says anyone who comes to Maryino, the location of the canceled opposition protest, will be informed about the change of plans.

And I repeat: let’s save all the post-analysis for later. Today, we’re laying flowers. Tomorrow, everyone come to Slavyanskaya Square at 3 p.m.

Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot and killed in Moscow just before midnight on Friday, February 27. His colleagues are certain that it was a political assassination. Police have yet to make any arrests.
Nemtsov was one of the most prominent Russian politicians of the early 1990s and 2000s. After serving as governor of the Nizhniy Novgorod region from 1991 to 1997, he was at one time vetted to be President Boris Yeltsin's potential successor. Nemtsov was also a long time leader of the liberal opposition party Union of Right Forces.