Sochi layout

Without exaggeration, we can say that the main political event of this spring is the elections in Sochi. Political in that meaning forgotten in Russia, when what is important and essential is fought not by two wings of one bureaucratic monster and not by two legs of a Golem molded in the Presidential Administration, but by two real opponents. And even though the authorities hold marked cards of administrative resources in their hands, the opposition in this fight is far from doomed. Because on her side is the moral advantage of not being involved in all the crimes that are happening today on Sochi soil and the obvious support from the victims of these big corruption games, slyly called the Olympic Games.

The opposition has repeatedly said that elections in Putin's Russia are a farce. Solidarity would never have gotten involved in the election race if we had not realized that in this case there was a chance to achieve a result. And this result is not only and not so much in the final analysis of the Sochi vote - here, of course, not everything will depend on our efforts and the electoral preferences of the Sochi residents themselves, but also in the election campaign itself, which is already becoming unambiguously acute. Sochi becomes the first center of real resistance. A challenge was thrown at the authorities, and the authorities accepted this challenge. In our cemented times - already quite a lot.

The Kremlin’s serious reaction to these seemingly insignificant local elections is quite understandable. Sochi is not just a city that will host the next Winter Olympics back in 2014. That is, for the rest of the world, perhaps this is exactly the case. For us, citizens of Russia, today's Sochi is the symbolic capital of Putinism, undoubtedly one of the most important, global projects of the current Russian government.

A dream city is what Sochi is for the inflamed chauvinistic imagination of Vladimir Putin, who dreams of a large Stalin-Brezhnev construction project. To subjugate not only society, but also nature to his despotic will: to build a capital in a swamp, to build a garden city in permafrost, to turn Siberian rivers to the south, to organize winter games in the subtropics - these are tasks worthy of a monarch of such a scale. “I don’t want to be a free queen, but I want to be the mistress of the sea”

But this is for the thunderer. For smaller fish, the tasks are more prosaic. For various kinds of officials and businessmen close to power, Sochi is, first of all, a feeding city. Their Olympic City of Kitezh is a city in which sports palaces and highways remain virtual, and the money allocated for them from the Russian budget turns out to be quite real and ends up as a pleasant burden in the “necessary” bottomless pockets.

But today's Sochi is also a tragic city. A tragedy for ordinary citizens. Like any totalitarian construction on bones, this Olympic adventure turned into innumerable troubles for Sochi residents: the implementation of Putin’s large-scale plans threatens many residents with eviction from their homes without providing any adequate compensation, destruction of the unique nature of the nature reserves surrounding Sochi, desecration of graves (the old cemetery in Imeretinskaya valley should become part of the Olympic village).

And yet, before Solidarity and Boris Nemtsov rushed into this fight, the elections in Sochi, despite all the importance of this city for Putin’s Russia, were an ordinary, unremarkable, and most importantly, not a political event at all. Despite the fact that recently such events have been held with enviable regularity.

But this time everything happened differently. Boris Nemtsov has thrown down the gauntlet. And she didn’t just end up in some faceless face, devoid of individual features, of another United Russia member being pushed by the system to the post of mayor. The glove hit Putin’s face, distorted with anger. What turned the elections in Sochi not just into a rivalry between two iconic politicians, but into a confrontation between two principles, into a choice between the present and the future. Not only for Sochi - for all of Russia.

Nemtsov and Putin are the two main characters in this drama. All the rest are extras or, better said, corps de ballet (for nothing, perhaps, among the contenders is such a political heavyweight as Anastasia Volochkova). The corps de ballet, who came on tour, as soon as it became clear that the results would result in a good engagement - for whom the favor of the authorities is guaranteed, for others the long-awaited senatorial seat, for others it’s just free PR.

But it seems that Sochi residents already understand that the mayor is, first of all, the person who respects the interests of the citizens, and not his own or anyone else’s - the top brass, the oligarchs, the international community. Transforming the Olympics from a disaster into a useful endeavor for Sochi and its residents is the mayor’s main task. And the residents of Sochi, having had their fill of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Krasnodar ambitions, want to find a defender of their interests in the mayor. People understand perfectly well that only a courageous politician who is in no way dependent on the vertical of power and is ready to enter into any conflicts to protect their interests can cope with such a task.

Boris Nemtsov is not only a competent politician and a brave opponent of the authorities. He is also a native Sochi resident and is personally interested in the well-being of his hometown. But most importantly, Nemtsov already has a plan to save both the city and the country’s prestige: by decentralizing the Olympics, Russia will be able to solve both problems at once, and also save funds that are melting in the era of crisis.

Which other registered candidates have sufficient management experience combined with independent thinking and sincere interest in the fate of ordinary citizens?

We'll immediately leave the corps de ballet to the hussars. With the candidate from United Russia, Mr. Pakhomov, who has grown up to the top of the vertical of power, everything is also obvious. I will dwell only on the most prominent figures who do not formally belong to the party in power.

Another way to phrase this question is: “Does the government have a real opponent other than Nemtsov?”

Maybe this is the leader of the local branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Yuri Dzagania, whose party has long adopted the Olympic principle: the main thing is not victory, the main thing is participation? That is why he was the sparring partner of the authorities in all previous mayoral elections and received approximately the same 10 percent each time.

Or, perhaps, the Kremlin is opposed in this battle by the Just Russia candidate Viktor Kurpitko? The same one who fired the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Delovoy Sochi, which he owned, for writing a letter in support of Nemtsov?

Of course, the first person Nemtsov is compared to in this election race is Alexander Lebedev: a billionaire in jeans, as they usually call him in the press, a “former” FSB officer and owner of Novaya Gazeta. But is he ready to enter into a tough conflict with Moscow on issues of principle? His entire previous biography says no. Was it not he who suddenly abandoned the fight against Luzhkov? Was it not he who, after a shout from the Kremlin, closed the newspaper he owned, which dared to become interested in Putin’s personal life?

And as his last interview on Gazeta.Ru showed, Lebedev, unlike the native Sochi resident Nemtsov, in general does not know what to do with this main Russian resort, with the Olympics, with the problems of ordinary people who live there.

And these people are driven to despair. For them, Sochi is not a symbol of Russian world prestige, not a place where business interests intersect, not a funny anecdote from provincial life, as for Moscow bosses, businessmen and various glamorous characters.. For them, Sochi is their homeland, their home, their past and future. Broken destinies, trampled history, destroyed nature - are we ready to pay such a price so that sports fans from journalism, such as Vasily Utkin or Anton Oreh, can enjoy the “triumph of Russia”, which in fact will turn into its shame?

The outcome of the battle is not yet predetermined, contrary to the statements of various sympathetic spiteful critics. The authorities clearly do not know how to get out of the dangerous situation in which they have found themselves: hence the provocations with ammonia, with foreign money appearing from nowhere, with the interruption of already concluded advertising contracts. But despite all this, Nemtsov was still registered. All Sochi residents suffer from the aggressive pressure of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kuban: police officers, judges, and members of election commissions. Now that they have someone to fight for, it remains to be seen whether that same notorious administrative resource will work or whether Sochi will become the first city where this corruption machine, oiled by money, fear and mutual responsibility, will fail for the first time.