MOSCOW (AP) – Chess champion Garry Kasparov and allies in Russia’s most vocal opposition movement held their latest showdown Monday with President Putin’s government, keeping up their frequent protests with a demonstration in central Moscow.

Some 2,000 people gathered in a square blocked off by metal barriers and ringed by troops and police. Protesters waved opposition group flags and chanted slogans such as “Russia without Putin!” and “Our fight continues!”

The protest came two days after a peaceful march and rally in St. Petersburg – the first time that a demonstration led by Kasparov and his allies in a major Russian city has ended without police violence or interference.

Police have forcefully dispersed several of the protests – called Dissenters’ Marches – held since December by Kasparov’s United Civil Front and others in the Other Russia movement who accuse Putin of stifling democracy ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections in the coming year.

Addressing the crowd, Mr Kasparov said the sunshine was a good sign and that with each rally, the various opponents of what he called “Putin’s regime” find they have more in common.

“It is not important how many people decided to come today. We are concerned about our future, about the future of Russia,” he said.

“We need a different Russia,” demonstrators chanted.

The St. Petersburg march Friday took place as foreign executives attended a business forum and met with Putin in the same city, raising speculation that police held off to avoid embarrassment as Russian leaders seek to speed the flow of investment dollars into the thriving economy.

Last month, Mr. Kasparov and other activists were detained for hours at a Moscow airport to keep them away from a march in the Volga River city of Samara that coincided with a Russia-European Union summit nearby – a move that drew sharp criticism of Putin from EU leaders over his government’s treatment of critics.

At the most recent Moscow protest, in April, police beat demonstrators with truncheons and detained dozens including Kasparov, who was grabbed before he reached the site of a rally that had not been authorized by police.

Monday’s atmosphere was less tense as the demonstration got under way, with the square surrounded by troops without helmets or visible batons, instead of helmeted riot police. Ekho Moskvy radio said Mr. Kasparov was stopped for a document check, but he was allowed into the square.

A white truck repeatedly drove by the square blaring maniacal laughter that sometimes drowned out those addressing the crowd. At one point, people on a nearby rooftop unfurled a banner labeling the demonstrators “paid prostitutes” – echoing authorities’ claims that opponents pay people to protest and that Kremlin critics have support from the West.

Moscow authorities had granted organizers permission to protest at the site Monday but not to parade down a main street, as they requested, raising the possibility of a police crackdown if demonstrators were to seek to march from the square.

City authorities also stipulated that no more than 500 people could attend the rally, in a square in front of a McDonald’s restaurant and across the main Tverskaya Street from a statue of the poet Alexander Pushkin. But the authorities took no immediate action despite the larger crowd.

The same limit was in place for Friday’s march and rally in St. Petersburg, but police took no action against a crowd that reached about 1,500.

The head of a group that is part of Other Russia, Red Youth Vanguard leader Sergei Udaltsov, told Ekho Moskvy he was detained by police near his home to prevent him from reaching the rally.

Monday was an official holiday in Russia.