More than 100 people have been arrested as supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny hold protests in some 80 cities across Russia, reports say.
They are demanding he be allowed to stand in 2018 presidential elections.
The rallies coincide with President Vladimir Putin`s 65th birthday. Most are unauthorised, including those in Moscow and St Petersburg.
Mr Navalny is currently serving 20 days in jail for repeatedly violating a law on organising public meetings.
It is the third time this year that Mr Navalny has been jailed.
Russia`s electoral authorities say he cannot stand in the March vote because of a separate suspended sentence.
In recent months he has travelled across Russia in a bid to bolster his makeshift election campaign.
Mr Navalny had been due to attend the main rally taking place on Saturday evening in St Petersburg, Mr Putin`s home city.
Several other organisers of the rally and leaders of the pro-democracy group Open Russia - sponsored by exiled former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky - were arrested in the city on Saturday, according to human rights website OVD-Info.
Meanwhile several people were arrested as hundreds rallied in Moscow`s Pushkin Square.
Protesters shouted "Russia will be free" and "Free Navalny". Others called for Mr Putin not to stand in the election.
Police urged people to disperse but have not moved to break up the rally. Some protesters marched towards the Kremlin, but were blocked by police.
Elsewhere demonstrations ranged from a few dozen people to more than 100 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk.
Protest organisers were pre-emptively detained in Smolensk, Tver, Stavropol, Irkutsk, Yakutsk and Perm, media reports say.
Participants were also reportedly arrested in Pskov, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Samara, Izhevsk, Saratov and Yekaterinburg.
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