By Denis Pinchuk
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Thousands of peopleprotested against rising food prices across Russia on Thursday,highlighting one of the biggest challenges that will faceDmitry Medvedev when he takes over as president next week.
The cost of everything from bread to fuel and apartments issoaring as record prices for oil -- Russia's biggest export --flood the country with petro-dollars.
Some analysts have warned that popular discontent overaccelerating inflation could quickly spiral into a majorpolitical problem for Medvedev, who will be sworn in on May 7to replace his mentor Vladimir Putin.
Around one and a half thousand people gathered on NevskyProspect, the main drag of Russia's second city St Petersburg,shouting "No to high prices!" and "Putin's plan means highprices".
"The rise in prices comes from our government's massivespending ... We have started to pay an inflation 'tax',"Putin's former economic advisor Andrei Illarionov told Reutersat the protest in St Petersburg, which is also Putin'shometown.
On the Pacific island of Sakhalin, whose southern tip is ashort boat trip from Japan, 3,500 people demanded thegovernment intervene to keep food and fuel prices down.
The islanders gathered in the main city Yuzhno-Sakhalinskalso asked for a raise in pensions and public-sector wages,said Svetlana Klyuzhina, a representative for the Federation ofTrade Unions in Russia's Far East region.
The protests were part of countrywide marches to markLabour Day, an annual public holiday that traditionallyattracts large crowds demanding better treatment for workers.
SCEPTICAL
Price rises are the main headache for the government as theeconomy booms for a 10th straight year.
Government figures put inflation at 6 percent in the yearto April 21, setting the government a difficult task if it isto meet its target of 9.5 percent inflation for the year,
Many people are sceptical of official forecasts and sayprices are rising much faster than the government admits.
For decades under Communist rule prices for nearly allgoods and services were set by the state. Today's governmentsays it is committed to the market economy but is coming underincreasing pressure to reinstate price controls.
In some regions officials have agreed with producers andsuppliers to cap prices on certain products.
In Moscow, thousands of trade union members held flowersand waved blue and white flags as they marched through the citycentre under sunny skies.
"We have low stipends and we have nothing to eat. We areall for freezing prices on food products," said Maria, astudent at a local university who declined to give her lastname.
"I am here so that the trade union will take care of us andto ask for our salaries to go up and become sufficient," saidRaisa Vladimirovna, a Moscow university professor who gave onlyher first name and patronymic.
Protests against high food prices were also held in dozensof towns across Russia, the far eastern port of Vladivostok,the Caucasus city of Vladikavkaz and Stavropol in southernRussia.
Earlier this week, train drivers at two depots near Moscowwent on strike over wages, causing disruption to commuterservices. They threatened further industrial action. Strikes bypublic sector workers are extremely rare in Russia.
(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk in St Petersburg, AlexeiDovbysh in Vladivostok and Mikhail Antonov in Moscow; Writingby Amie Ferris-Rotman, edited by Richard Meares)
