Russia Boy On Bike: Moscow's Tiananmen Photo Moment

Right time, right place; Julia Ioffe, Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker and Foreign Policy, had the wherewithal to capture a potentially iconic moment with her iPhone yesterday as a young boy approached Russian police on his bicycle, according to ABC News.

A photo shows a child bicycling toward Russian police. (@IOFFEINMOSCOW/TWITTER)

Ioffe tweeted the photo with the caption "Russia's Tianamen [sic] image," which was promptly retweeted by hoards of Twitter followers:

@ioffeinmoscow
Julia Ioffe

Russia's Tianamen image. http://t.co/k7trGKVd

May 6, 2012 4:22 pm via Twitter for iPhone Reply Retweet Favorite

Despite riding on training wheels, the boy and his bike faced Russian police in the midst of a crackdown on anti-Putin protesters in Moscow. Ioffe's caption alludes to the "Tank Man" photo taken in China's Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. The iconic image shows an anonymous man halting a fleet of tanks after protesters had been removed from the Beijing square:

A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Cangan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. The man, calling for an end to the recent violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)

Protests in Moscow began on Sunday in anticipation of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration the following day. Protests roiled Russia ahead of Putin's election, but this week's crackdown on the opposition came in response to the largest protests since Putin took power for the first time in 2000, according to Reuters. Hundreds have been detained in the course of this week's protests, including opposition leaders Sergai Udaltsov and Alexei Navalny.

Ioffe's fellow journalist Olaf Koens reportedly pointed out the boy on his bicycle while the two were walking. Koens told ABC News in an email:

This little boy just showed up. His parents were somewhere in the crowd, there was no immediate danger, and the kid just kind of peddled [sic] up to the police, probably out of curiosity.

Ioffe herself said in a Foreign Policy article published on the Putin inauguration, "In the era of Twitter and Facebook" images "become instantly iconic."

The pantheon of icons, then, can thank determined reporting, timing and an iPhone for this particular addition.

Related on HuffPost:

Loading Slideshow

• Russian soldiers march on the Red Square, during the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

• Russian paratroopers march on the Red Square, during the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

• Russian President Vladimir Putin, center left, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, center right, and a group of Russian WWII veterans watch the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

• Russian soldiers march on the Red Square, during the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

• Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with a WWII veteran on the Red Square, during the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Government Press Service)

• Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, addresses the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012, with the St. Basil Cathedral in the background. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

• Russian soldiers march during the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany, on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

• Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system transporters roll down the Red Square, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012, during the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

• Russian heavy weapons roll down the Red Square, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012, during the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

• Russian soldiers march during the Victory Day Parade, which commemorates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany, on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Comments

[conci]

09:32 PM on 07/14/2012

It isn't like the Tiananmen square guy, but it is still a powerful image. I can't get the correct words right now, but shows how destructive humans become as they mature and how our innocence is lost. Destruction and mayhem since to be the answer to our problems, no matter if we are playing for the right or the left.

[bosd]

05:41 AM on 05/10/2012

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/behind-the-scenes-a-new-angle-on-history/

[Susan Shaffer]

12:29 AM on 05/10/2012

Different thinking to Australia
On Australia Day we had ferry races in Sydney Harbour, World Music concert, Children's concert put on by government TV station, Aboriginal dance performances, fireworks displays in the night. Not a gun in sight, no missiles.
I realise the russians are celebrating a great victory but comparing that to Anzac day (equivalent to Veterans Day), there is a parade of soldiers past and present and then shrimp meal at the RSL club and a beer and a two-up game.

[SamEllison]

11:35 PM on 05/09/2012

The riot police were this kids age
when Putin first was president.

[hema333]

12:56 AM on 05/10/2012

it looks like that Putin was, is and will be the president... !!! !!! !!!

[firewired]

10:19 PM on 05/09/2012

Suggested caption: "Before he knew about fear" Or, "Innocence lost." Which one?

[epochme]

10:10 PM on 05/09/2012

Reminds me of America. Protest, it's the newest casualty in the war of terror.

[stemloop]

04:40 AM on 05/10/2012

fail

[AnotherAndy]

09:59 PM on 05/09/2012

The picture reminded me of the little girl with the red coat in Schindler's list.
http://www.shelfabuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/schindlerslist.jpg

[hellothereandhere]

09:45 PM on 05/09/2012

Cute !
but not any Tiananmen square moment there !

[gerorem]

10:16 PM on 05/09/2012

Picky, picky. It is a symbol, an icon, to raise the question:
How safe and free will his--or our---world be?

[bosd]

03:47 AM on 05/10/2012

What the Tank Man did was a conscious decision. Did that little boy think he was making a conscious decision to resist a police state, or what have you?

It's understood that it is a symbol, but maybe some wish it was steeped in some accuracy when comparing a truly iconic moment in time to some pic that some journalist proclaimed was Russia's Tiananmen moment. Seriously, I would hope that journalist understood what happened to the Tank Man before she tweeted that her pic of the little boy was similar in scope.

[groucho42]

09:45 PM on 05/09/2012

Do the editors of the HP really think there's a valid analogy between an adult weighing the issues and standing in front of tanks and a little kid out riding his tricycle? Pitiful.

[gerorem]

10:13 PM on 05/09/2012

It's an icon, dummy. A symbolic representation of what is at stake:
A world peaceful enough for a child (or college student) or not.

[groucho42]

08:29 AM on 05/10/2012

Wow, you show your ignorance yet call me a dummy? Sad.
 
Try night school. Attempt to find a class in reading comprehension. Study analogies. Then take a course in logic. Study "false". You may yet still learn something.

[firewired]

10:14 PM on 05/09/2012

It's the photo! It compels one to react, one way or another. Not all pics do that. It presents a stark contrast to the subjective viewer.

[Susan Shaffer]

12:30 AM on 05/10/2012

I wondered if it had been photoshopped.

[groucho42]

08:30 AM on 05/10/2012

Nope, the only reaction I get is "somebody stuck their child in front of soldiers. Where's social services when you need it?"
 
One thing you're right about, there is a stark contrast, and I pointed that out.

[allejandro]

09:17 PM on 05/09/2012

Not to defend Putin's new police state, but, by contrast, if that was Damascus and Assad's security forces, that little boy would have been arrested and tortured until his parents gave up the names of any neighbors expressing opposition sympathies. Just saying.

[I think I think]

09:03 PM on 05/09/2012

Well you gotta love this little kid!

[gerorem]

10:17 PM on 05/09/2012

"And a child will lead them..."

[firewired]

10:58 PM on 05/09/2012

My thoughts exactly! FanNDNFavD!

[reinenVernunft]

09:02 PM on 05/09/2012

Dear Russian people,

I am writing you to tell you how I wish you could enjoy the freedom and democracy that we possess daily here in the good old US of A.
In Russia, a boy cannot even ride his bicycle in the vecinity of a police barricade without having his picture taken.
This is because Vladimir Putin is not a democratic man and has been especially mean to those wonderful entrepreneurs known as oligarchs, who are the epitome of virtue and an illustration of the wonders of free market privateering and resource looting.
In America, this would never happen- the boy would not have gotten near the police, because we Americans know that the police are the guardians of freedom and democracy for our own beloved financiers and usurers.
No patriotic American boy would go near the heroes' barricade here in the United States , because he would rightly be tazed or pepper sprayed,just like those enemies of freedom and democracy women at Occupy Wall Street.
We in America know better. We appreciate our mega-wealthy.
So dear Russian people, please make sure your voices are heard, so that your oligarchs, just like our oligarchs, may enjoy peace and security in all their kleptocratic endeavors.

Sincerely,

John Q. Citizen
Anytown, USA

[gerorem]

10:19 PM on 05/09/2012

B- A little less verbiage would have made your irony clearer. :)

[reinenVernunft]

11:20 PM on 05/09/2012

In retrospect, yes. Prosaic elegance is the first casualty of spontaneus indignation.

[PeterNPaul]

08:18 PM on 05/09/2012

Coming soon to a city near you.

[psuffield]

09:55 PM on 05/09/2012

Why because you want to turn Russia into another homosexual state and disbandment for conservative beliefs?

[Telemachus]

12:57 AM on 05/10/2012

In English please.

[firewired]

08:12 PM on 05/09/2012

Все, что мы говорим, это дать миру шанс!

[RichVAman]

09:30 PM on 05/09/2012

Translation: All that we say, this is to give peace a chance!

[firewired]

10:11 PM on 05/09/2012

Bingo! From one Richmonder to another.....FanNDNFavD! Like ur bio too.

[firewired]

08:04 PM on 05/09/2012

PRICELESS!