“I am ready to be shot if it comes to it,” said Sergei Ivanchenko, who is 27 years old and who is employed by a workers' rights organization. “I understand the possible consequences.”

With the country held under Putin’s tight grip for so long, Ivanchenko said, Russia has no future. And while he did not believe the protests would amount to much — the latest polls show Putin with 66 percent of the vote, far ahead of his rivals — he still felt that Russians deserved to have a voice.

“Governments only work for the people if they are held accountable,” he said.

ADDENDUM: the way one Redditor puts it about the Russian political system struck a chord, so I'm sharing it here as well:

Russia really lacks basic political culture based on competition and citizen responsibility because there is no competition if one guy plans to be in charge till his death and there is no responsibility if there is no real choice.