Several thousand rally in Moscow and other demonstrations in St Petersburg, Kazan and Irkutsk on Unity Day

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Several thousand Russian nationalists rallied in Moscow on Monday against migrants whom they accuse of pushing up the crime rate and taking their jobs.

The protest took place on Unity Day, a national holiday established in 2005 to replace commemorations of the Bolshevik revolution. Many demonstrators carried Russian imperial flags. One group displayed a banner reading "Young People Against Tolerance".

Nationalist rallies were also held in other Russian cities, including St Petersburg, Kazan and Irkutsk.

There is animosity among nationalists towards migrants from the former Soviet Central Asian republics and non-Slavs from the largely Muslim Russian Caucasus region. Central Asian migrants are widely employed in big cities in construction and other low-paid jobs that Russians are not eager to do.

While some onlookers in south-east Moscow were displeased, others said they supported the march because of the number of migrants they had seen in their neighbourhoods.

Yelena Yermakova, 56, who was taking a walk with her daughter and two grandchildren, said there were too many migrants in Moscow and they were "getting cheeky".

Three weeks ago rioters targeted a vegetable warehouse where they believed a migrant alleged to have killed an ethnic Russian man was working. Police later rounded up more than 1,000 migrants working at the warehouse.

Some demonstrators on Monday praised the riot and suggested it was backed by the state. "People received a signal that if they engage in such pogroms, there will be progress," said Yevgeny Morgunov, a 37-year-old researcher at the Russian National Academy of Sciences.

He said he did not support the radical exclusionary sentiment reflected in the nationalist slogan "Russia for Russians", but said "if Russians feel good, the other people of Russia will feel it too".

About 30 people were detained at the rally for using Nazi slogans and symbols, and other misdemeanours, Moscow police said.

A UN report in September said Russia had about 11 million migrants. Russia is visa-free for all Central Asian republics, so most of the migrant workers are in Russia legally.