Thousands march in Moscow to mark May Day holiday

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Thousands march in Moscow to mark May Day holiday
Eds: UPDATES in grafs 6-7 with message from Putin to trade
unionists
AP Photos MOSB101-103
  MOSCOW (AP) - Thousands of trade unionists gathered in
downtown Moscow on Wednesday to celebrate the traditional
May Day holiday while communists marked the occasion at a
separate rally.
  Organizers of the trade unionists' rally said at least
140,000 people had gathered behind St. Basil's cathedral
near Red Square by midmorning. Another 100,000 people met
at the separate communist rally at Karl Marx Square in
front of the Bolshoi Theater several blocks from Red
Square, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
  Participants in the trade union rally criticized
government policy toward labor, but praised the leadership
of President Vladimir Putin.
  Andrei Isayev, deputy chairman of Federation of Trade
Unions, said Russia was being led by "a person we are not
ashamed of before the whole world: a sober, reasonable and
rational politician."
  But, he said, Russia was not developing dynamically
because Putin's policy was becoming stuck "in the stagnant
bureaucratic apparatus of those who do not want to work and
cannot work."
  Putin sent a message to the trade unionists that was read
to the crowd over a loudspeaker.
  "The main task of the government and all constructive
forces in society is to make Russia a wealthy, prospering
country," Putin's message said. "I believe that the joint
rally by representatives from the Federation of Trade
Unions will help achieve this goal."
  Some 4,000 police officers and traffic police were
deployed in the city center to control the crowds
celebrating May Day, once one of the most important
holidays in the former Soviet Union, ITAR-Tass said.
  Leading the communist rally, party leader Gennady Zyuganov
noted that more young people were taking part in the May
Day celebration. "The participants have increased by four
or five times (over recent years), and many of them are
young people," he said.
  Elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, rallies were planned
in about 500 cities and towns.