In May, the “Control Walk” campaign was held in Moscow for the first time. The procession was organized by a group of writers, including Grigory Chkhartishvili (Boris Akunin), Dmitry Bykov, Lyudmila Ulitskaya and others.
In early May 2012, writer Grigory Chkhartishvili, known to the general public under the pseudonym Boris Akunin, published in his blog in LiveJournal an appeal for Muscovites and city guests to go on a "Control Walk". According to the author of the idea, after numerous political rallies and pickets that took place in the capital in autumn and winter, and subsequent clashes between the opposition and the riot police, it should have been established whether the townspeople could move en masse through their hometown without fear of consequences.
Akunin-Chkhartishvili's appeal was drawn up in a half-joking tone: everyone was invited, at their own risk and peril, to join the protesters who, "shaking with fear", were going to take a leisurely stroll from the monument to Pushkin, located on Pushkin Square, to the monument to Abai Kunanbayev on Chistykh ponds.
Among those who declared for the "Test Walk" were mainly writers: poets Dmitry Bykov and Sergei Gandlevsky, prose writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya, detective Yulia Latynina, author of "Pokrovsky Gates" Leonid Zorin and many others. The musicians were represented by Andrey Makarevich and Alexey Kortnev. A deputy of the State Duma was also present at the event.
According to the GUMVD of the city of Moscow, about two thousand people took part in the action. However, independent experts, in particular media correspondents covering the event, published figures several times higher than the official one. According to the organizers of the Control Walk, on May 13, about ten thousand people were walking in the center of Moscow.
Having gathered at noon on Pushkinskaya Square, the promenade walked along the Boulevard Ring, without any slogans or agitation. Car traffic along the route of the action was temporarily stopped. From time to time, the protesters stopped and applauded some of the writers, who gave interviews to numerous TV channels during the course. Not a single clash with representatives of law enforcement officers during the "Walk" happened.
