‘We are Russians, and God is with us!’

‘We’ll win again now’

Before I’ve even left the metro, I spot a priest making the sign of the cross over a group of passengers in the station. As the stream of people nears the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, where organisers set the meeting point, the surrounding space becomes filled with religious and patriotic symbols.

A group of tense-looking men carries flags bearing a portrait of 14th-century prince Dmitry Donskoy and the slogan “We won at Kulikovo Field, we’ll win again now” — a reference to a 1380 battle in which a coalition of forces from Russian principalities defeated Tatar forces. A middle-aged woman in a blue-and-white headscarf explains that her small Orthodox movement chose Dmitry Donskoy as its patron saint long before the discovery of his relics made him “trendy”.

“Our leader, Andrey Yuryevich, says people might think we planned this out. But we didn’t plan anything — it’s simply that the Lord sees all and governs all,” she says.

A small bottleneck forms at the metal detectors, where police search the march participants. A man in knee-high boots and swamp-green pants cinched with a large tasseled sash struggles to manoeuvre a child’s stroller through the narrow frames. He blocks the way for many people, but sympathy for the young father clearly outweighs any irritation.

“Now that’s a proper family — traditional values,” remarks a man in a T-shirt that reads “Russian Community”, the name of a prominent far-right nationalist group.

When the line grows restless, someone shouts, “Christ is risen!” and a chorus of voices responds, “Truly he is risen!” It’s strange to hear an Easter greeting in September, but I realise this is how the crowd expresses solidarity given the authorities’ ban on political chants.

“We are Orthodox, and God is with us!” an elderly woman in a mesh headscarf exclaims. A man nearby adds: “And if anyone doesn’t understand that, the Russian Community will explain it to them.”

Past the metal detectors, a police officer urges people over a loudspeaker to keep moving without stopping, and the crowd slowly files beneath the bridge toward the Kremlin. Volunteers hand out bottled water and pamphlets explaining the meaning of the event and offering QR codes to download a prayer book, learn more about Orthodoxy, or find a nearby church.

A priest in his fifties, in a threadbare cassock, clutches a large photograph of a dilapidated church in the Moscow region, the restoration for which he’s been raising money for years. A stern-faced woman carries a placard for the “Orthodox Entrepreneurs” association. A pensioner with a backpack from Moscow Mayor Sobyanin’s “Active Longevity” programme has a small icon tucked into the fold of her headscarf.

The dominant colour in the crowd is black, thanks to the shirts and banners of the “Russian Community” and its fellow far-right group “Northern Man”. There’s also the red of the ultra-Orthodox group Sorok Sorokov, Cossacks, and military cadets; the lemon-yellow vests of the far-right Union of the Russian People; and the green of military uniforms glinting with gold and silver combat decorations.

‘Some people believe in Putin more than God’

The domes of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour gleam against the overcast Moscow sky as the crowd inches toward them. But after barely a kilometre, the movement grinds to a complete halt.

Screens in front of the crowd begin broadcasting the patriarch’s liturgy live from the cathedral. We hear the service and a sermon in which Patriarch Kirill urges parents “not to spare their children” when they want to pray and take part in religious processions. People cross themselves. A light rain begins to fall.

When the broadcast ends, there’s a long stretch when nothing happens. My section of the procession stands frozen for 10 minutes, then 20. Someone tries to push forward, causing a scuffle. A woman ahead of me angrily complains that “pushy types” have no respect for anyone around them, then launches into how badly organised this year’s march is compared to last year’s.

Someone shouts from further back, “We are Russians, and God is with us!” — probably the 20th time I’ve heard it today. The overtly nationalist edge of this chant clearly unsettles an elderly woman in a patterned raincoat walking near me.

“But so many Tatars are Orthodox these days,” she says, puzzled, to her friend. “And Armenians too, aren’t they? So does that make Tatars and Armenians all Russian now?”

A bearded, middle-aged man carrying an icon of the 13th-century prince Alexander Nevsky, dressed in embroidered baggy trousers and looking like a character from a Slavic folk tale, tells an acquaintance about patriotic summer camps that supposedly draw people “from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad”. There, he says, women look after small children and discuss psychology while men and teenagers practice tactical coordination by playing with airsoft guns. Afterward everyone goes to the banya together and puts on amateur theatre.

The crowd presses in so tightly that all I can do is watch the banners waving ahead. Right at the centre is a flag from the pro-Kremlin National Liberation Movement bearing the image of a youthful Putin and the words “For the Motherland! For Sovereignty! For Putin!” The Virgin Mary and various depictions of Christ surround the Russian president from every side, and I’m clearly not the only one who finds this a bit much.

“Honestly, what does Putin have to do with any of this,” a woman of about 35 in a cat-print headscarf laughs quietly to her friend. “If you ask me, some people around here believe in Putin more than they believe in God.”

The rain turns into a downpour. Many open umbrellas and offer to share them with neighbours. Along with the woman in the cat headscarf and her friend, I watch a livestream of the procession on my phone via the Tsargrad website; apparently the marchers further ahead have had better luck and are actually moving.

At the head of the procession are the patriarch and senior clergy, and just behind them, six priests carrying on their shoulders a golden reliquary bearing the remains of Dmitry Donskoy. The relics were supposedly found by chance this summer in a sarcophagus during restoration work in the Kremlin’s Archangel Cathedral.

The discovery caused a sensation. Putin called the find miraculous, Patriarch Kirill declared it a sign, and now the prince’s remains are set to be taken to the front line in the war against Ukraine to boost the morale of Russian troops. During the citywide procession, the relic fragment was carried alongside two other venerated icons before being returned to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, where it was put on display for veneration.

Sadly, I couldn’t get so much as a glimpse of the reliquary, either in person or on a livestream, thanks to the signal jammers and the rain streaming down my phone screen.

When the procession starts moving again, well after noon, I catch myself thinking that the last time I saw this many people on Moscow’s streets was at mass opposition rallies.