The protest movement, which followed the Duma and presidential elections (December 2011 and March 2012, respectively), has been presented both in public and academic debates as the largest wave of discontent in the post-Soviet Russia and the greatest challenge to Vladimir Putin's rule. It is therefore worth mentioning - as Robert Horvath does in his detailed monograph - that Putin had been subjected to an equally serious test not long after his successful re-election in 2004. Just as the most recent Russian protests have unfolded in the wake of the Arab Revolutions (termed, as it now turns out somewhat hastily, the fourth wave of democratization), the 2005-6 protests had been overshadowed by the 'colour revolutions' embracing the former Soviet republics.
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