Elections at very low temperatures

Correspondent :: The Taimyr capital Dudinka is a city where everything is not just close, but very close. And there are only about a hundred meters between the competing headquarters of the candidates. Here is one, and there, across the road, is the second. And both are in identical two-story houses. This is very significant, because in this campaign it is not clear whose side the administrative resource is on.

One candidate is the current head of the administration. But the other is the general director of RAO Norilsk Nickel, the plant, without which Taimyr would not exist at all. So the situation is as if the car was fighting with its own engine.

In Taimyr, back in ancient times, it was the case that the commander was not the secretary of the regional committee, but the head of the Norillag. The camp became a factory. The plant is a joint stock company. But the director's status is still sacred. Therefore, no one was surprised when the actual government decided to become political, that is, popularly elected.

Alexander Khloponin, candidate for governor of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, General Director of RAO Norilsk Nickel : When a person reaches a certain level, he needs a wider scope of activity if he feels strong. Therefore, this was my personal decision. And when we talked, say, with Potanin, I told him that, for example, I believe for myself that I am capable of doing more, better, so, excuse me, I am making this decision.

Correspondent :: Neither the wolf skin on the left nor the stuffed deer on the right belongs to Khloponin. This apartment was rented during the elections. My wife, who came from Moscow, is cooking. Khloponin, if elected, will become the youngest Russian governor. He is 36. He is a member of Vladimir Potanin's team. In 1996, control over Norilsk Nickel was gained by ONEXIM-Bank. In fact, ONEXIM then received the entire Taimyr region, because Norilsk Nickel is a regional enterprise. It forms 90% of the Taimyr budget. And the fact that Khloponin became governor is both logical and understandable, not Abaramovich and Chukotka.

When the governor was elected in Norilsk, Khloponin's victory would not be in doubt. But that’s the whole intrigue: the largest city in Taimyr is not participating in the elections. This is greetings from the Soviet government, which subordinated Norilsk directly to the Krasnoyarsk Territory. So the center of events is located in the already mentioned Dudinka, a capital town of very modest size.

Voice-over : The air temperature in our city is minus 41 degrees. Wind east, 5 meters per second.

Correspondent :: Here, in Dudinka, Khloponin met unexpected and severe resistance. From here, Taimyr has been led by Gennady Nedelin for 30 years. He was elected in 1996. He was appointed in 1992, and before that Nedelin was chairman of the executive committee. The governor was frozen into his position in an almost literal sense, which was reflected even in the cartoons. It feels like he knows all the locals by name. Note in parentheses that this would not be difficult. In the Taimyr district, which is the same size as France, there are only 27 thousand voters. The surname Nedelin has long become synonymous with the concept of “power” for them.

Gennady Nedelin - Governor of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug : For four years of my work, today I am not ashamed to look my voters in the eyes. Our life is no worse than in 1996, when I was elected governor. We began to live much better.

Correspondent : : They don’t seek good from goodness - this is the main thing that Nedelin convinces his fellow countrymen. And to be a fellow countryman here, in this tundra, is already a lot. This is a completely enclosed area. There are no roads or trains to the mainland. And the climate is such that you won’t forget it. Siberia is in the south. The feeling of isolation and specialness in Taimyr is much stronger than in some Tobolsk or, say, Saransk.

Sometimes it seems that life has completely stopped here. Or rather, it has reached a dead end. In the capital Dudinka there is not a single cinema and not a single bathhouse. But vodka consumption is ≈ 4 liters per person per month. In the rest of Russia ≈ less than 1 liter. And Dudinka is not yet the edge of civilization. There are still half-forgotten villages that can only be reached by helicopter, and they don’t fly. Outsiders are surprised and frightened by all this. And in the tundra they don’t like strangers, in their hearts they consider them the culprits of troubles: drunkenness, poverty, melancholy. Nedelin is one of his own. And he thinks the same. The governor has repeatedly attacked both young reformers and Moscow oligarchs.

Gennady Nedelin : The President of our Russian Federation pushed aside the oligarchs at the federal level. And they were forced to go where today? To the regions. And not only in Taimyr. And not only in Chukotka. They went to many other regions. Somehow we can still get closer to federal structures through the regions.

Alexander Khloponin : Assuming that this is a trend, right? That this is really suddenly something new in Russia ≈ a new phenomenon ≈ that business has gone into politics, and not from armchairs in Moscow to Moscow ≈ yes? ≈ and just from the center I went into the territory. Well, I think that deserves respect.

Correspondent :: Khloponin is alien to Nedelin even aesthetically. In the Khloponin headquarters, where there are many Muscovites, Mandelstam’s poems are on the wall. And the propaganda “Taimyr Telegraph” is designed exactly like the capital’s “Kommersant” - the flagship of liberalism. Khloponin speaks cheerfully and sarcastically to voters. If we continue to live as we have lived, he explains, there will be a second Primorye here.

Alexander Khloponin : Give us a year. Now, if in a year we don’t do what we say: either it gets worse, or even so, nothing will change - so we write a statement and leave. I can’t give you any other guarantees, believe me.

Correspondent :: Khloponin in the eyes of Taimyr residents is like Luzhkov in the eyes of the Moscow region. In general, Norilsk is the local Moscow. The salaries are much higher there, there are cinemas, supermarkets and even striptease. And that’s why the residents of Nenaryl have an ambivalent attitude towards Khloponin. On the one hand, respect. On the other hand, jealousy and suspicion. Like, what methods did you achieve this by?

The last consideration is in favor of Governor Nedelin. He constantly hints that the owners of Norilsk Nickel are dishonest.

Gennady Nedelin : Berezovsky was at the federal level. Today we can draw this analogy: Khloponin at the regional level.

Correspondent :: Alexander Khloponin also uses comparisons: Norilsk is only a hundred kilometers away, but what a convincing difference!

Alexander Khloponin : The most interesting thing is that people themselves go from here to Norilsk, buy food, because prices there are lower than here. Although this is nonsense, right? The goods move according to the pattern: Dixon-Dudinka-Norilsk, and prices rise in the opposite direction: Norilsk-Dudinka-Dixon.

Correspondent :: For 63-year-old Nedelin, the past campaign was the first real election campaign. For Khloponin, however, too. Frozen Taimyr has never seen such passions or such technologies. In the city of Dudinka, the most fashionable expression now is “black PR”.

The governor's headquarters is discussing the broadcast of Norilsk television.

Woman in the frame : And from 7 am there was only Dudinka. It is shown from all angles: the port, the city, all the enterprises, and all sorts of diagrams are drawn, so terribly interesting. I think, well, how good...

Gennady Nedelin : Well, these are ordinary “horror stories” that Sergei Dorenko once told.

Correspondent :: At the end of the campaign, Norilsk Nickel deployed heavy artillery. 4 former directors of the plant came to support Khloponin. Each of them at one time was a god in Taimyr.

Vladimir Dolgikh was also a member of the Politburo. The directors sat down next to the candidate. And this meant that he was a successor and heir to traditions. For Taimyr this is a very strong argument.

Khloponin, however, turned out to be the heir of Zavenyagin, who headed the Norilsk camp in 1937. Then the plant was named after him.

Everything has become very mixed up, both in traditions in Taimyr and in these elections, where there was no obvious favorite. The name of the winner will be announced this night. It is determined by a simple majority of votes, and elections take place in one round.

Alexey Pivovarov, Dudinka, Taimyr, NTV.