Hundreds of thousands gathered for Labour Day rallies across Russia.
In central Moscow several hundred Russian nationalists with the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) rallied on Sunday afternoon chanting nationalist and May Day slogans such as 'Peace! Work! May! Migrant workers go away!'
The DPNI group was banned as extremist by a Moscow court in April, but is still operating pending an appeal.
DPNI Ex-Chairman, Vladimir Yermolaev, said that the marchers were there to protest the ban on their group.
"Today we see people who are sincerely worried, who want to express their protest against government politicians. And we're saying today that you can't ban Russians.
The Russian people are, have been, and will be, and the authorities, as a result, must respect and fulfill the will of the Russian people.
That's our position," Yermolaev said. In St. Petersburg demonstrators from various movements and political parties marched parade-style down the city's main Nevsky Prospekt to St.
Isaac's Square. Groups of marchers included representatives from the pro-Kremlin 'United Russia' party, Communists, nationalists and a mix of other movements.
Opposition protesters rallying under the title 'Dissenters' March' said they had applied for permission to form their own independent demonstration away from the Nevsky Prospekt rallies but were denied by city authorities.
The group showed up to the rally on Sunday anyway, and were allowed to join a anti-Kremlin group uniting Solidarity opposition movement, United Civil Front and other protesters.
Dissenters' March activist, Sergei Gulyaev said that his movement would have gathered many more people on Sunday if the authorities had sanctioned the demonstration.
He accused the city of wanting to ban his movement's action by any means possible as the protesters intended to demand the resignation of city mayor Valentina Matviyenko.
"If the 1/8mayor's legal and security 3/8 committee had agreed to our demonstration we also would have come to this square.
There just wouldn't have been all these court meetings, no one would have been deceived, and there of course would have been a lot more people today.
This is what they 1/8authorities 3/8 are afraid more than anything.
So they want to ban us under any pretense. Notice that they let everyone come - nationalists, anti-fascists, they allowed everyone to meet here on St. Isaac's Square, except for the Dissenter Party - just because we had the slogan 'Matviyenko Should Resign' they didn't let us march in an independent column," Gulyaev said.
The Nevsky Prospekt marches were conducted smoothly with many demonstrators bringing children, and others playing music from loudspeakers or on drums.
In another part of St. Petersburg, however, Russian riot police arrested dozens of unsanctioned protesters, some of them holding anarchist flags.
Russian news agencies reported that the unsanctioned group, who were part of an anarchist movement, had tried to cut off a column of United Russia demonstrators, stopping the march for several minutes.
In the Soviet era May 1st was one of the most celebrated holidays known as International Workers' Day. In 1992 the national holiday was changed to Spring and Labor Day.
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