I tried, very politely, to speak to the presenter in the first image to find out what was going on but he ignored me but with a little help from Google I found that there was to be a visit from Vladimir Putin to meet with the Austrian President.
The group of demonstrators I saw first were actually pro Russian activists there to support President Putin and cheer him on for his actions in Crimea.
It was fun watching the TV crews preparing, interviewing people and doing their presentations to camera. The first crew was Austrian, for OETV, the next two were from Russian state TV and the final crew were from Austrian channel Servus.
There was a second demonstration taking place in Heldenplatz (see pic 4) there were from Georgia and were protesting against Putin as you will see from their placards and posters. It was interesting but unsurprising that although they were permitted to hold their protest close to where Putin would be arriving they were not on his route, unlike the pro Putin crowd. The secret service presence was also much more noticeable around these protesters too.
Later in the day after all the formalities of the visit had been conducted Putin was attending the Natural History Museum to open a new exhibition. Again security was high. I waited around to see Putin arrive amid really intense security before he was ushered inside the museum. I would like to think he would nor get the same greeting now and I think the posters of the Georgian protesters are as relevant now as they were then.
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