Russia’s president-elect Vladimir Putin joined Tuesday over 100,000 people in a Soviet-style march through Moscow to celebrate Labor Day and underline public support ahead of his inauguration.

Russia's president-elect Vladimir Putin joined Tuesday over 100,000 people in a Soviet-style march through Moscow to celebrate Labor Day and underline public support ahead of his inauguration.

Putin and outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev led the march through a central Moscow avenue, in an event that took on a larger scale then previous years.

Police said around 120,000 people took part in the "Holiday of Labor and Spring" march in Moscow, where marchers clutched multi-colored balloons and unfurled huge banners proclaiming the names of their factories and unions.

"The Union of Machine Builders! Hurray!" declaimed the announcer as another workers group filed past the town hall on Moscow's Tverskaya Avenue.

It was the first time for years that Russia's rulers had joined the May Day rally which had been a key day in the calendar in the Communist Soviet Union.

The last such appearance is believed to have been by Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s.

Putin, wearing a suit without a tie under the bright spring sky, is due to be inaugurated as president in a May 7 ceremony after his March 4 election victory which the opposition claims was de-legitimized by fraud.