Thousands on the streets: G7 go to hell! We love Putin!

Thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday in the German town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen against the meeting of G7 leaders, which begins on Sunday in a nearby luxury castle hotel Elmau, reports the news agency Patria.

Carrying banners such as "G7 go to hell! I love Putin", demonstrators gathered at the train station in this picturesque town at the foot of Germany's highest mountain, Zugspitze.

Police say there were 2,000 of them, while organizers claim twice as many gathered. The demonstrators provoked the police, of whom there were many more than demonstrators, but there was no violence.

- I am demonstrating because large financial corporations have too much influence over politicians, said Thomas Schmidbauer (50) dressed in traditional Bavarian lederhosen.

- Nobody is dealing with solving poverty. It is unfair. Our economy could be organized much better, he added.

More than 17,000 police officers will guard the summit of the Group of Seven (G7) most industrialized countries in the world, which begins on Sunday.

The leaders of the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, France, Japan, and Germany will discuss a range of issues at the two-day meeting, chaired by German Chancellor Angela Merkel: from the current state of the global economy, through terrorism and poverty, to climate change.