Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center

Kaliningrad has always been an odd little place, tucked away over there between Poland and Lithuania like a painful reminder of past Soviet empire. But lately the piece of Europe that Russia forgot (or vice versa) has attained celebrity status with a series of anti-Putin protests and general rumblings of discontent, making it the darling exclave of the always-dreaming opposition.

The city formerly known as Königsberg (later renamed after Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin in 1946) first attracted the world's attention with a 10,000-person strong protest in the final days of January (the biggest in the history of the Vladimir Putin era), which set in motion a series of confusing reactions from the Kremlin, followed by subsequent unrest.

Depending upon whom you ask, the most recent Kaliningrad protests have either represented a significant growth in discontent, or just a fizzle and flop, successfully divided and conquered (and frequently blocked) by the Kremlin. But few would argue with the creativity recently displayed: on March 20 about 5,000 people took to streets in Kaliningrad, all carrying big bags of tangerines - evidently a sign of rejection of their regional governor Grigory Boos, known for his unearthly orange glowing tan on television.

A new generation of civil society leaders, bloggers, and journalists are seizing a voice, which has many minds in Kaliningrad flirting with the idea of separating from Russia to pursue what they believe is a more European (obviously in theory, more prosperous) national identity. "I would like to bring Königsberg back to Europe," Rustam Vasiliev, a local activist, told The New York Times. "I've got no Kremlin in my head."

The discontent in this privileged area of the Russian Federation shows that the economic malaise of recent years is beginning to leak beyond the silent inner regions of Russia. Nikolai Petrov of the Moscow Carnegie Center commented to The Financial Times that "Now the crisis is coming to regions which didn't feel it a year ago...The famous Putin social contract, political passivity in exchange for a rising standard of living, is coming to an end."

These developments so far remain modest, but given Kaliningrad's position, we are already observing a very nervous reaction from Moscow. There appears to be a growing sense of civic ownership over political events at least in this one part of Russia, which may hopefully function as an organizational laboratory, to see what works and what does not for all the rest.

Moscow's answer has been to fire some local authorities and to send over Oleg Matveichev - whose main claim is that all the protests are fake, and that any media about the events there that they have not suppressed or blocked is just the machinations of a constantly plotting, evil West. Such arguments seem openly preposterous coming from the people who organized the Potemkin opposition Just Russia party and its false disputes with the government.

But taken altogether, it is hard to deny the cumulative impact of these protests, whether we are talking about Kaliningrad or Moscow or Irkutsk - and it is truly an impressive feat considering the potential punishment, official barriers, and barricaded media these participants are working under. Today we have protests accompanied by props of fruit - the collective creation of just one symbol for one day to communicate something to a wider audience. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

By James Kimer, Guest Commentator to the Khodorkovsky and Lebedev Communications Center