Tver anomaly

From Moscow to Tver - 167 km, only 2.5 hours by train. However, the party of power has lost here for the third year in a row - loses to the Communists. The forecast for December 4 - United Russia will not gain more than 40–45%. “With all the stuffing,” one of the interlocutors comments. A week before the vote, the party of the Party of power here was around 18–20%. How the Antiputine Popular Front was formed - on the spot he studied The New Times
The cafe was called the "library", on the pediment - the well -known profile of the young Pushkin, inside, on the walls - portraits of Gogol, Yesenin, Akhmatova, around the perimeter of the hall, almost under the ceiling - wooden regiments with books. Together, this resembles the famous Moscow cafe "apartment 44", well, perhaps without pathos and more victorious. Well, the name of the street was also like specially - the street of free Novgorod. Why in the very center of the nearly 900-year-old Tver, in Soviet times, the name of the All-Union Elder of Grandfather Kalinin, 500 meters from the building where the governor’s apparatus is located, a street with the same name is located-this is a question for local historians. But the surroundings for meeting with the Tver opposition are it.

Outside the system of Alice, Yura and Maxim - all three students. Alice and Yura Suzetin - he is the only one who allowed to mention his last name with the words “I will no longer help me,” - 20, Maxim only 18. All three are Alexander Blinov’s friends, photographs of which are now filled with the Internet. The 20-year-old Blinov, a 2nd year student of the Tver State University, is the main local opposition. For a year now, Blinov has been holding all sorts of promotions in the city, and not only political: he collected, for example, people in search of missing people. And on November 4, he and his friends were going to take part in the “Russian Mileage” campaign - a marathon in honor of the Day of National Unity. The guys wanted to run in T -shirts with the slogan "United Russia - a Party of Crooks and Thieves." In the place where the mileage was supposed to begin, Blinova with friends met the police, who demanded to remove T -shirts from them. A video of Blinov’s conversation with Lieutenant Colonel Ivanov Andrei Eduardovich is now posted on the Internet. It was shot by another Tver oppositionist - Evgeny Marinushkin, whom the New Times correspondent met in the same cafe "Library".

Alexander Blinov is now in a special -reception: he was convicted for 12 days on charges of violation of paragraph 3 of Article 19 of the Code of Administrative Offenses - “Disocation of the legal order of a police officer”. His disobedience was that on November 19, during a rally against the growth of gas prices, he distributed all the same slogan against Pzhiv on the street of ribbons: he was then detained, but a few hours later released. And when a week later, November 25, Blinov came to court to take the materials of his case, he was arrested on the street, on the way home. As Blinov says: “People in civilian clothes came up, pushed into a car” - these were the employees of the Zavolzhsky police department, took him to the department, where he was already charged with article 20.1 - “petty hooliganism”: supposedly he walked along the street and cursed obscenities. This article implies administrative arrest up to 15 days. Blinova and “closed”. In short, it will be released only on December 6th.

Yura (1) and Maxim (4)-friends and associates of the leader of the Tverskaya non-systemic opposition of 20-year-old Alexander Blinov (2). Member of the Tver "solidarity" Evgeny Marinushkin (3) with pleasure helps young people in their activities in the struggle against Pzhiv Alice works in a local newspaper, in any party or movement it is not a member. Yura Suetin is a member of the Libertarian Party: He used to go to opposition rallies to Moscow, and in the summer he found that, it turns out, there was a protest in his native Tver, and joined Blinov and Co. 18-year-old Maxim is a spilled Gogol on the face, only without a mustache. He says: “I did not want to climb into politics until I will become an adult. In March of this year, I first heard the Echo of Moscow - and for me it was a big discovery. I decided that I need to start doing something. ” And in the summer he began to participate in promotions, in the fall along with others to make leaflets and put them around the city. You notice these leaflets in Tver right away: for example, they are pasted on the urns - a sheet of white paper A4, on which it is written in large red letters: “Send Eskro to the garbage bucket.” Maxim, as a realist, does not apply about himself: he fears that civic activity will turn into problems at the university. He does not belong to any party, like Alice. Political self -identification: "I'm just with everyone."

The oldest of this group is Evgeny Marinushkin, he is 44. The classic intellectual is with a neat beard, with glasses. On the jacket - the icon "Against United Russia - a party of crooks and thieves." Once I was in the ATP, now in "Solidarity".

To the question of what and for what they are fighting, they answer: to prevent the monopoly of one party - that is, they are all in principle supporters of Navalny's strategy. But they also speak hotly about the troubles of the city: the authorities are reducing the Tramva and buses Park, "although Tver was architecturally planned as a city for public transport!" - says Alice. Old factories stall. “Only the wagon buildings have finally appeared from Russian Railways,” Yura inserts. In a terrible state of housing and communal services. “Some areas of Tver this year were 6 months without hot water,” Maxim is indignant. In general, no worse than everywhere.

What does the party of power interfere with him and the city? “The point is not that it is“ United Russia ”that does something bad in the city. People are tired of this power, from the regime. And we fight against the EP, as against the symbol of this regime, ”says Alice. There are few people like these guys in Tver, 30 people are coordinated mainly through the VKontakte social network.

True, political events are increasingly difficult: according to them, the former governor Dmitry Zelenin (he was resigned by the President in June 2011) and allowed the shares and did not particularly try to throw for United Russia in the elections. Businessman Zelenin was replaced by Andrei Shevelev, a former vice-governor of the Ryazan region, a paratrooper, a participant in the first Chechen war and a hero of Russia: under Shevelev, the guys say, they did not authorize a single rally, and now they are also grabbing the activists. “Behind our new governor from Ryazan reached out a nickname,” Eugene smiles. “And his deputy Dudukin is proud of his nickname Ryazan Goebbels,” adds Alice.

Secretary of the Tver regional committee of the Communist Party Andrei Istomin (left) is sure that the opposition should fight the monopoly EP together

The People’s Front in the City Duma elections in 2009 was won by the Communists. But almost immediately they encountered opportunists in their own ranks. As a result, the Communist Party now has 13 deputies, and 14 of United Russia has 14. However, the minority unanimously allows the Communists to block amendments to the city charter, without which the budget law cannot be held for the next year. And this is already a platform for trading: the Communists in this way, as they say, are trying to return the elections of the head of the city, which were canceled by the efforts of United Russia back in 2008. In short, if the party in the authorities does not manage to agree with the “red” colleagues, then in December the Duma will be dissolved. According to local journalists, this situation in many respects collapsed the ratings of the party in power - the data of closed polls show that the rating of United Russia in Tver fell to 18%.

The Tver regional committee of the Communist Party huddles in two small adjacent rooms on Moskovskaya Street. On the wall is a huge red and white poster: sickle, hammer, Communist Party. To the left of the poster there is a modern flat TV, on the right on a high cabinet - a giant bust of Lenin and a tiny vase with flowers.

“You see, we are fighting for democratic freedoms that people took away the power in the person of United Russia. For example, we advocate the election of the head of the city, ”explains the success of the party in Tver Andrei Istomin, the secretary of the regional committee and member of the Legislative Assembly of the Tver region, a thin mustachioed man of about 40 years.“ We had a lot of work directly with voters. There is no particular access to television. Even in the elections to the City Duma in 2009, it was helped by the fact that they managed to close all the plots by observers and prevent several attempts to throw. ”

Istomin also deserves to himself and his colleagues in the Communist Party of the Governor of Zelenin: "He was removed precisely because he allowed our victories." True, this victory came out more sideways: the governor-paratrooper is distinguished by a harsh temper.

“Under the last governor, an administrative resource was widely used during the election campaigns, but there was no force pressure,” says Istomin. “With the current one, everything is already in full.”

In the battle against the Party of Power, the Tver Communists are ready to act in conjunction with an unsystematic opposition, that is, with the very Alexander Plinov and his comrades: “We can say that the sprouts of not formal, but a real Popular Front, are emerging,” says Istomin. - Navalny is very popular. We support his supporters who distribute the leaflets “vote for any other party” in the city, and even help them financially. ”

The guys from the Blinov group confirm the words of Istomin: “Yes, we work together. When Sasha was taken, Istomin wrote a deputy request, the LDPR lawyers helped us to write a statement, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries are not averse to attracting us as observers in the elections from their party. ” By the way, the Moscow opposition helps them - and not only campaign materials: Vladimir Milov and Alexei Navalny immediately undertook to help with lawyers for the arrested Belov.

I believe I do not believe the 20 people interviewed by the New Times on the 19th Street, they said they would go to the polls. Only a security guard in the governor’s administration was going to ignore the elections. “I don’t vote for 10 years, because I don’t believe anyone,” he said. Most of those with whom they managed to talk during this impromptu survey - 15 people have not yet decided which party they would vote for. For example, an elderly woman, who walked with the grandson next to the monument to the liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster, said: “I will vote for some, which is not“ United Russia ”, because there should be opposition in parliament. And in the spring, of course, I will vote for the president. That is, for Putin. " Of the 20 respondents, only two - a young girl of about 20 years old and the old woman, whom the author encountered Putin’s public reception, said they would definitely cast their votes for United Russia. By the way, the grandmother to the question of how she was helped in the public reception, the prime minister, she answered quite irritably: “If they helped, I would not go for the fifth time.” But at the same time she said, she would vote anyway for United Russia, “because the Party of Power”. As the voices in Tver count - we will find out very soon.