Reuters/AFP/Moscow

But many Russians are frustrated by the opposition’s failure to turn big rallies last year into a sustained challenge to Putin, and the joyous mood of the initial protests has given way to a subdued realisation that his grip on power has tightened.

One protester dressed as the Grim Reaper and held a scythe.

Others waved banners declaring “Freedom, elections, democracy, peace” on the same square where baton-wielding police broke up a protest a year ago on the eve of Putin’s inauguration.

“A year has passed and nothing has changed. The protests have diminished and the repression continues – they are jailing people,” said Roman Bryzgalov, 24. “I have friends who were jailed for the protest here a year ago – it’s personal for me.”

His defiance was typical of hardcore protesters who are determined to keep pressing for change even though Putin, now 60, has responded to none of their main demands for change and shows no sign of doing so in his third term as president.

Putin’s critics saw the use of force to break up the rally a year ago as a shift towards intimidation and repression and a turning point in the Kremlin’s tactics.

Two people have been jailed over last year’s rally and 28 are awaiting trial, while several opposition leaders face criminal charges which they say are politically motivated and could see them jailed for years.

“We are fighting for Russia, for our country, our future,” Gennady Gudkov, a protest leader and former member of parliament, told the crowd – estimated by police at 7,000 and by reporters at up to about 15,000.

“We won’t let them turn the country into another GULAG,” he said, reiterating comparisons between Putin’s methods and those of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who sent millions of opponents to their deaths in the GULAG network of labour camps. GULAG is the Russian acronym for Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies.

Political satirist Viktor Shenderovich urged demonstrators not to give up but acknowledged that the high hopes of many protesters at the initial rallies had not been fulfilled.

“It’s hard not to fear the OMON (riot police) and trials – the whole state machine they are throwing at us,” he said.

The mood was also dampened by the death of a worker crushed by sound equipment as he assembled the stage for the rally on Bolotnaya Square, across the River Moskva from the Kremlin.

The tragedy forced a last-minute shake-up of logistical plans, with organisers turning a truck into an impromptu stage at Bolotnaya Square.

After some called for the rally to be cancelled altogether, the organisers decided to go ahead with the original plan.

Anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, who is standing trial on what he says are trumped-up charges, joined a host of prominent Russians who showed up at the rally.