Even as the protest was underway came the news that Lyubov Sobol, who had been the most prominent opposition candidate still free, was detained at her election headquarters by police.

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More than 1,500 people have been detained during the protests over the past month, but nearly all were later released. At least 17 opposition figures remain held, including nine on felony charges.

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On Saturday, more than 100 people were detained in Moscow, about 80 in St. Petersburg and 10 in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, according to the Meduza news website from local police reports.

The summer of discontent has posed a challenge not only to city authorities but also to President Vladimir Putin. A harsh police and prosecutorial crackdown the previous two weeks has failed to deter the protesters, and some have portrayed it as a sign of weakness on the part of the government.

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An organization called White Counter put Saturday’s turnout at 47,000. Police reported 20,000. A chilly rain that fell all morning probably dissuaded some demonstrators from showing up. The rain tapered off at 2 p.m. as the protest got underway.

Unlike the two previous rallies, this one had a legal permit. Although the police presence was heavy, the protest proceeded peacefully. Police said they detained at least one organizer for urging participants to begin a march toward the center of the city.

Several hundred people later headed toward a neighborhood adjacent to Red Square and containing the offices of the presidential administration. They were met by police who began taking some into custody.

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The permitted gathering filled a wide, curving street named after Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet physicist and dissident. People waved signs and banners, socialist flags, communist flags, Russian imperial flags.

The crowd was in a generally good mood. At one point, as hundreds coming from the nearest subway station squeezed together under a narrow railroad bridge, a group of women to one side tried to hand out fliers denouncing the “betrayal” of Russia in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

This led to friendly arguments with the largely liberal protesters. When one of the women suggested that the demonstration had been whipped up by foreign powers, an argument the government has also made, a young man in the thick of the crush yelled back, jokingly, in Russian, “Yeah, we’re all Americans!”

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Though prosecutors have threatened to take from custody a child who was brought to an earlier protest, Tatiana Ostapovich came Saturday with her daughter and 5-year-old grandson, Platon, and said they were unafraid.

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“We’re here to support those who’ve been arrested,” she said — a more pressing issue for her than the question of who gets on the ballot.

“I’m glad so many people came,” said a 42-year-old woman who gave her name only as Katya. “But I wish there had been more.”

Russia is undergoing a “crisis of authority,” she said. “It’s not just about the elections. The elections are a signal.”

She mentioned corruption, pension cutbacks and the inadequate response to forest fires in Siberia as all indicative of the problems facing Russians. She said she was determined to join the demonstrations but pessimistic that they will solve those issues.

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