Translated material
10 - candidate notes
The author The New Times tried to become a deputy
How was it - a single voting day in the comments of local bloggers, candidates for deputies and authors of The New Time
If the candidate is me. The author of The New Times, an independent candidate for deputies of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Parliament in a single -mandate district, decided to run for the Legislative Assembly. Here is his story.
The district was chosen consciously - in the Soviet district of Nizhny there are many activists of various democratic movements, I lived for a long time and worked here, I know the local problems well, it is in this area that most relatives and friends live. And the deputy of the regional parliament from Fair Russia Alexander Kosovsky has been elected from this district for 13 years, and during this time the area has turned into one of the most abandoned and groomed. Although the main business of Mr. Kosovsky is just the management of the housing stock, construction and contract work. 
The election commander was quite loyal, although not everyone was accepted due to various formal nit-men, and in the end I had only secondary education and not the Nizhny Novgorod registration. In order not to substitute employees and counterparties for various kinds of inspection organizations, I had to become temporarily unemployed. The collection of signatures cost only the cost of printing signature sheets - a little more than 300 rubles. Activists helped by an experienced foreman. Strictly speaking, with activists and support from volunteers, it was simply lucky. They not only saved several hundred thousand rubles, but also helped to conduct a campaign as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The main opponent - the deputy of the Kosovsky sensed something was amiss. His people were not tried on the tooth submitted to the election and documents. Even the thesis was put forward that such a person - Baranovsky Konstantin Borisovich - physically does not exist. But even the chairman of the election commission could not stand here. And she offered not to engage in nonsense.
By the way, in Nizhny Novgorod there is no rigid censorship: it is simply not needed. For several years, political talk shows disappeared from the screens, and in the fall of 2010 they quietly closed the last program “The Fourth Power” on the TC “Kremlin”, where it was customary to invite experts with a variety of points of view. Printed media publish opinions and comments a little freer. There is a Nizhny Novgorod press club, people read few existing opposition publications, blogs. There are discussion sites of Polit-Nn.ru and APN-NN.ru. In a word, there is an opportunity for media activity.
Voters
After registering and receiving a certificate of a candidate for deputies, I recount opponents. There are six of us in the district: Socialist-Revolutionary, United Russia (rector of NSU), Zhirinovets, a communist, someone’s technical candidate and independent (your author) is the only registered candidate from an extra-parliamentary opposition. All formalities with a candidate account in Sberbank are held quickly and easily. At meetings with voters, a clear relationship between the number of those who came and the presence of problems is noticeable. Where more or less normal, seven people come. Mostly pensioners, for them it is just the opportunity to talk in the fresh air. Where the problems are more serious - and more people come. Questions ask hard, clear, waiting for direct answers. There are no indifferent. There are no supporters of United Russia. At least did not meet. At first they look at an independent candidate with distrust. After exchanging remarks, they are closer closer, begin to complain about life or put forward sentences.
Technologies
I immediately “cut” the district into sectors - taking into account opinions about the situation of activists and friends. The main part of the district was walking through - through. Sometimes a friend was brought to “Lada Kalina”.
He emitted the election newspapers - tough, with proven numbers, facts, including those that candidates spread to themselves. The main blow is on the current deputy from the district of Socialist -Revolutionary Kosovsky. There are not many resources, so I beat the leader. Moreover, there is something. The texture is brought by the residents of the district themselves. 
We do not use free areas in the official media - there are too many fuss with the execution of contracts with a minimum exhaust. We try to glow more on the Internet, on the main city website of NN.ru, on several forums at once. Not without provocations and watering. Of the latter, the issue is supposedly on my behalf of counterfeit leaflets with violations of elected law. If it were not for the activists who warned in time, one could fly off the distance. However, there was no visit to the police. After a three -hour conversation, which went extremely correctly and professionally, was released. By the way, the version that law enforcement agencies support exclusively “United Russia” is an exaggeration.
Realities
Several times they crossed with the main opponent at meetings with the people. After the direct controversy of Kosovsky, he began to avoid such meetings. Even a couple of times in the literal sense of the word I escaped. His people tried to provoke a fight, threatened with physical reprisal. There are a lot of provocations. But after this election campaign, I can say: protest moods in the widest masses are not a myth, but a reality. People are ready to listen to an alternative point of view, and they need to go with this opinion. In any way and path. Distribution of 100 newspapers is more efficiently unexplored. And if there are several tens of thousands of thousands of them? Nobody will give the first TV channel. No need to wait for him. As practice showed, the people who went to the people were not as idiots as they were drawn by history textbooks. The conversation face to face is a hard thing, but it works. Elections are not such an expensive thing, if you do not steal and not scatter the bills right and right. It is important - to know the texture, to be able to answer questions. Not about democracy and Putin. About current pipes, icicles, flooded for shit, lack of parking lots and playgrounds, traffic jams, low salaries, pensions and expensive food. Then you can win. Not today. But in the future. The near future.
In Orenburg, a month before the one day of voting, a real election war unfolded
The war, originally doomed to be unsuccessful. Because everyone already knows: the victory of United Russia is not provided by voters of voters, but by the dexterity of officials. But the party is scary, and the party decided to give fight to the rivals.
Back in November, when the election campaign from the municipal flowed into the regional one, the party in power lost three deputies in the Legislative Assembly who left the faction. And with them - and the qualified majority in the regional parliament: 16 out of 47 deputies were already the opposition. The largest party loss was the chairman of the Committee on Property, Nature Management and Construction Sergey Katasonov, who replenished the ranks of the LDPR. And then, picking up the Blogger’s campaign Alexei Navalny, Osen’s opponents adorned the streets of Orenburg with billboards with the slogan “Stop a batch of crooks and thieves”. 
Literally until the very last day, the United Russia reached the compilation of the general party list for regional elections - in some districts, potential candidates refused to go flatly. The Orenburg region was flooded by visiting PR teams. The peak of the work of one of these brigades was the placement on hundreds of huge banners throughout the region of the photo of the governor with almost to the very eyebrows and without a right ear next to the spiritual inscription “Orenburg region. Strategy-2015 ".
United Russia, a group of a group of a hundred people, to fight the former one -party, a newly -made member of the LDPR Katasonov. In every apartment building, they recruited a “cuckoo” man. Their function was monotonous, but simple: every two hours walk around the porches and tear it off, if it will appear, all enemy visual agitation. Formed mobile brigades for disruption of meetings with voters. Plus, a merciless ironing of directors of schools, hospitals, social workers, the leaders of the few or less large municipal enterprises.
Another opponent of the Party of Government, Doctor of Medical Sciences, the chief Phthian of the region Valery Sazykin, candidate from Fair Russia, has been wrapped in recent months with unscheduled inspections of the regional Ministry of Health. Only in the last month on behalf of the allegedly Sazykin himself and the team of the dispensary he headed by him from an incomprehensible email address, two “open letters” were sent to dozens of medical facilities: now Sazykin knows refutations and gives explanations on the instances.
Occupational letters, false newspapers and fake leaflets-all as one on opponents of United Russia-covered the Orenburgers in recent days in industrial quantities. Once - and seven banners of the candidate from Fair Russia Vladimir Frolov are covered with black paint. Replaced. But in black trains, new seven banners. And non -existent people in colorful newspapers of unknown origin with the name “Patriot of Russia” accuse Frolov of non -existent sins.
The victory of United Russia, as in any other elections, was predetermined. Maybe not with an overwhelming advantage, but still. However, the party in the authorities chose to pour the mud of opponents, apparently not realizing that this mud splates her first.