Press Release, 29.06.2021

Photo by Petr Kovalev / TASS

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov turned to he Public Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov with a demand to identify and punish those who took the decision to conduct in St.Petersburg a gala party Scarlet Sails for students finishing school in the midst of the epidemic.

According to the St. Petersburg Committee on Education, more than 40,000 people took part in the event. Numerous photos and video materials of the media indicate that social distancing and masking were not observed at the Scarlet Sails party.

Nikolai Rybakov noted that the decision of the Russian Federal State Agency for Health and Consumer Rights (Rospotrebnadzor) to agree on the excess number of people participating in the event (at present events exceeding 500 people in St.Petersburg require a permission from the Agency), as well as the decision of the government of St. Petersburg to hold the Scarlet Sails gala party in its traditional format were unlawful.

In his letter to the Public Prosecutor General, Nikolai Rybakov noted that, according to the regional operational headquarters for the fight against coronavirus, there has been an increase in the number of cases of COVID-19 in the city after the Scarlet Sails: 1,143 cases of infection were recorded as of June 24, and there were already 1,374 such cases on June 29. In addition, mortality from COVID-19 in St.Petersburg increased: 99 people died on June 24, and 121 people died on June 29.

“For any person with even minimal knowledge about mass street festivals, it is obvious that the implementation of protective measures was deliberately impossible in this format,” Nikolai Rybakov said.