Translated material
Afterword to the elections in Zhukovsky
The results of the mayoral elections in Zhukovsky did not suggest any sensations. 11 candidates is a “conversation for the poor” performed by one of the structures of the vertical power called the electoral commission. All sane Zhukovites understood perfectly well that there were only three real contenders for the post of head of the city: Andrey Voytyuk, Igor Novikov and Alexander Anikanov. With some stretch, someone included Sergei Knyshov among this trinity, based on the fact that, unlike obvious spoilers, he is at least a Zhukovsky resident and is directly related to aviation.
Nevertheless, the Aeroflot pilot and son of Hero of Russia Anatoly Knyshov was unable to provide real competition to the leaders, although, it must be admitted, he played a completely independent role.
In the end, as many advanced analysts expected, Andrei Voytyuk, colonel of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, won the victory, who received the unofficial status of the nominee of Acting Governor Andrei Vorobyov.
I have no doubt that the election campaign, which lasted just over a month, will become the subject of analysis by various experts not only in Zhukovsky. Our city has become the focus of attention of many federal media and Andrei Vorobyov's first bid for victory in the upcoming September elections for governor of the Moscow region. One of the protest science cities in the Moscow region was a kind of platform where cunning political strategists demonstrated something new, different from the old racket in the form of a primitive administrative resource. Admittedly, they did it well - Novikov and Anikanov, having together collected more than 50% of the votes of voters who came to the ballot boxes, each individually convincingly lost to Andrei Voytyuk. A huge number of observers and journalists did not sit idly by, they were very active and stopped more than one attempt at falsification. I myself still have my complaints against the chairman of precinct commission No. 649, Mr. Pavlov, who really did not want to show the voter register for home voting. We got him to comply with the requirements of the law, went to the addresses, found out that the lists turned out to be bullshit: none of the residents applied to vote at home - and returned with an empty ballot box. It is not difficult to guess who made the “fake” and why.
Nevertheless, the majority of observers who were present at the vote count at the PECs agreed that Andrei Voytyuk really won. And it's true.
There is, unfortunately, another truth that is not possible in any civilized country, where holding fair elections does not require an army of observers, and banal bribery of the population cannot be hidden behind the letter of the law.
Candidate Troitsky, nicknamed the Spider, conducted a visual experiment on Zhukovsky, who was accustomed to being proud of his intellectual potential. During the elections, he opened points where, under the guise of recruiting agitators, he bought the passport data of Zhukovsky residents for 500 rubles. Even the collectors of such an unconventional product were surprised by the lines at these points. In return, the people received a card with the name of Spider and a promise after the elections to add another 1000 rubles when returning it. But a couple of days before voting day, the cards at these points were changed to others - with the name Alexander Voityuk. It seems that he is not Andrei, and there is no specific obligation to vote, but on March 31, in the first half of the day, people flocked to the polling stations with cards for Voytyuk. Having voted and checked in with the guys with red bands at the exit, people quickly headed to the designated Spider point, where they handed out loot in the most natural way - 1000 rubles per nose. There was a line on the street that couldn't be ignored. Old people, middle-aged people and a lot of pronounced drunkenness did not hide the fact that they came to receive money using a card. And, by the way, they received it. Some in the queue reproached the astonished journalists for being too curious and even threatened to sue them: “Get off, don’t stop people from making money!” Some, on the contrary, behaved quite peacefully and calmly, without embarrassment they told what they stood for. Video footage of this political technology show appeared on almost all information resources: from Besttoday to Echo of Moscow. I won’t lie, it was painful to watch. Especially for me, because many times I convinced my colleagues, Moscow journalists, that Zhukovsky is a special city, where people value their dignity and the right to be citizens. And I also felt terribly embarrassed in front of the guys from “Golos”, “Sonar” and “Citizen Observer”, who came to Zhukovsky not for money, but for the idea of fair elections, to observe the voting process at our polling stations and to prevent swindlers and thieves steal our votes. While they were constantly standing at the polling stations, some of my fellow citizens were selling their votes to the visiting guest performer Spider.
I don’t even have any complaints against this very Spider, and even less so against Andrei Voytyuk, who categorically denied any connection with this show: he called it a provocation against himself. I also felt sad for him, and for myself, and for all of us, and for those old people who stood in line. But it was not somewhere in the city of Foolov, but in our wonderful Zhukovsky. The first thing that came to mind: “Here it is - a cherry orchard, where the forest, people and symbols are degrading, and former pride is being replaced by outrageously cynical political strategists in the form of spiders, Sedunovs, Sukovnovs and cues.” And the saddest thing is that we can’t do anything about it. Let’s just admit it honestly - they change us and our lives precisely because we allow them to do it... for a thousand rubles on the nose.