ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- An unusually large and unruly protest against the government of President Vladimir Putin ended Saturday in clashes with the police and the arrest of opposition leaders.

Rally organizers and police said more than 100 people were arrested after a mid-afternoon scuffle between marchers and riot police on the main street, Nevsky Prospekt, in the heart of the city's tourist district.
St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, is Putin's hometown.

The rally was held in advance of local elections scheduled for March 11. Opposition events typically draw no more than several hundred people, but several thousand gathered for the rally in Vosstaniya Square.

Two leaders of what is left of Russia's liberal opposition, Garry Kasparov, the former chess grandmaster, and Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister, spoke to the crowd. Then the protesters, accompanied by Kasparov, marched most of the length of the street, pushing through three police cordons as sirens wailed and Interior Ministry riot police scrambled to block their path.

The rally marked one of the higher-profile actions by Kasparov since he retired from professional chess to dedicate himself to opposition politics.

"This is our first real victory," Kasparov told the crowd using a bullhorn and surrounded by police. "I congratulate you for overcoming your fear. We will have victory when we get our Russia back. We have 364 days before the election in 2008."

Minutes after Kasparov spoke and left the area, the police broke up the crowd, first arresting Sergey Gulayev, the speaker who had taken Kasparov's place and a member of an opposition faction in the local legislature in St. Petersburg. .

"The government is afraid of the slightest wind," Gulayev told the crowd. "The government is fragile and afraid and will collapse with one push."

As he spoke, riot police shoved through the crowd and grabbed the bullhorn from his hands, smashing it against the wall of a building. A police officer put Gulayev in a headlock and dragged him into a police vehicle as members of the crowd yelled "Shame! Shame!"

A wedge of police swinging nightsticks then divided the crowd and pushed it toward the sidewalks. Some protesters fought back, and a melee erupted, lasting about a minute.

On Friday, Kasparov, Kasyanov and Eduard Limonov, head of the National Bolshevik Party, led a meeting of the United Civil Front opposition group in St. Petersburg. Limonov, who was arrested Saturday morning before the march began, said the group is close to nominating Kasyanov as its candidate for president in the 2008 elections.

The activists accuse Putin's government of cracking down on the opposition, stifling freedom of speech and eating away at democratic institutions by abolishing direct elections of provincial governors and creating an obedient parliament.
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