Authors join Moscow "protest" march Without their customary placards, slogans, speakers and podiums, thousands of Muscovites marched through central Moscow on Sunday in an anti Kremlin "protest" designed to get around official restrictions. The march was billed as a "writers" walk" around Moscow with celebrity authors such as Boris Akunin, Ludmilla Ulitskaya and Dmitry Bykov, all known for their strong anti Putin views. Organisers expected a few hundred people at most. But instead as many as 10,000 people thronged Moscow's picturesque boulevard ring, a series of leafy parks circling the Kremlin. Mothers pushed strollers and fathers carried toddlers on their shoulders as marchers evidently felt no fear of violence. A similar march just a week before turned into a bloody melee between police and anarchist demonstrators in which dozens were injured. Police allowed the crowd to pass without any trouble, closing intersections and arresting a handful of pro-Putin counter-demonstrators who yelled "we don't need a gay parade" in an attempt to provoke scuffles. Protesters generally obliged in not shouting slogans and carrying placards, which would have risked police intervention, and instead limited themselves to clapping spontaneously at intervals. Some marchers harassed video crews from state television channel NTV, which has run a series of anti-opposition propaganda films, shouting "shame, shame NTV!" Mr Akunin was thronged by a marchers, signing copies of his books. The attendance of opposition authors lent the proceedings an air of gravitas that other demonstrations - heavy on the masked flag waving anarchists, did not. "It turns out that thousands of people can walk in the street of their home city without help from the police" tweeted Yevgenia Albats, editor of The New Times, an opposition oriented magazine. The march showed that protest momentum in Moscow has not wholly subsided, despite Putin's inauguration, though numbers are well down from December, when 50,000-100,000 would attend. "We are not here because we think we can do anything" said Roman Laren, a marcher who travelled from St Petersburg for the "walk" with his elderly mother "we are just offended at Putin. I was an election monitor and the amount of falsification in his election was tremendous. His mother, walking next to him, chimed in "did you see, in France, they had an election. Sarkozy left power in a very dignified way. Why do our leaders have to cling on with their fingernails? Putin won Russia's March 4 elections with a resounding 63 per cent. Though the vote has been dogged by fraud claims, most recognise that he would have nonetheless won a fair election. Police had clearly rethought the draconian tactics of the previous week - for a few days after the Sunday chaotic mess they were arresting anyone wearing a white ribbon as a sign of protest against Putin's regime. Since Wednesday they have backed off, allowing a group of protesters to permanently occupy the Chisty Prudy park, a picturesque bit of Moscow around a statue dedicated to Kazakh poet Abai Kunanbaev.