"The people are trampled up"

Paraplan Navalny, Sobchak’s bus, “ringing cedars” - an amazed voter does not have time for the flight of the fantasy of candidates

A little more than a month remained before the presidential election. The process that has begun is entertaining. Especially in regions where candidates and officials who are afraid not to please the higher authorities show themselves without embarrassment of the framework of the capital's decency.

The run -in

A day before the rally of striking voters, the embankment of Saratov was blocked by metal lattices for all three tiers. The next morning, several buses with frames and old desks arrived - they are supposed to lay out things for inspection. The buses stood across the roadway. You will not often see such an impressive preparation for a mass event in Saratov often.

“We have a rally,” the policeman girl with densely painted eyelashes explains strictly and pokes a metal detector in my handbag. A black uniform jacket with artificial fur on a collar creaks in the cold. The cordon costs for three hours, the rally has not yet begun, and employees come to the most gloomy mood.

There are a lot of police officers-five to seven people are on duty at each staircase, walking patrols walk along the alleys. It seems that the leadership of the Internal Affairs Directorate, indeed, was waiting for the declared 4 thousand participants. Gathered about ten times less.

"Look, the authorities could not even clean the territory from the snow!" -the coordinator of the Saratov headquarters of Navalny Mikhail Murygin is indignant, standing on the platform with the motto of the strike (the scene is designed exactly like at the events of the United Russia, only without a bear). The platform in front of the Rotonda, which the city hall proposed for the rally, indeed, remained the only groomed place on the embankment - the rest of the alleys to icy splendor was cut off the day before.

"Pay attention, we continue to distribute balls!" - Under the vigorous background music, as at the opening of a supermarket, activists with bunch of inflatable symbols call.

“Do you want to give out 50 grams? " - a solid man from the public is interested in, expressing the opinion of a significant part of those present. Many participants are closed by scarves - it is very cold on the banks of the Volga. “The hydrometeorological center reports that today is minus 17, but, according to the sensations, everything is minus 25”, the host from the stage hints that we are being deceived even in the weather forecast, and sympathetically adds: “The people are trampled. You jump there! "

The audience is older today than at previous headquarters, perhaps because the embankment in Saratov is not a “political” place. Moms and dads with sleds, a lady with a dwarf poodle in a red overalls, come to look at the move, a fisherman rises from the ice in huge boots with galoshes. “I categorically do not support it. I’m standing and indignant, ”says a pensioner in a knitted hat and an artificial short fur coat with a brooch. - The youth came here out of curiosity. They have never been in the election. And I definitely go. Putin is Putin and there can be no one else. Everything is against us in the world, and he holds them back. In the 1990s, Russia was in the last place, and now they began to reckon with us. ” I ask about pension and utility bills. Quite unexpectedly, the interlocutor declares: "Navalny is, of course, a very difficult question." And he argues whether these figures will be able to work, "the oligarchs are all for Putin, whether they will support Navalny."

Local bloggers and city philosophers with beards rise to the microphone one after another. The next speaker has four pages. The nuclear audience in narrow jeans melts. The police come closer, and after an hour and a half people in uniform find themselves under the scene - except for journalists and volunteers, there is almost no one left on the patch.

The most frost-resistant gets a bonus-due to the rotunda, a motorplant rises, painted in a tricolor. The headquarters explains that it was supposed to attach an anti -Putin slogan to paraglider, but it did not work. Therefore, it is simple - for beauty. The buzz, like Carlson, a miracle with a motor removes towards the bridge over the Volga.

The depth of fear

The depth of the fear of regional officials before the Demars of voters and the disapproval of the higher authorities is noticeable not only by the number of police officers at street events. Saratovites, showing political activity, risk parting with the place of work or study.

At the end of last year, a third-year student Julia Bizyaeva was expelled from the socio-economic institute. According to a former student, the reason was her "political position and a desire to fight for her rights."

Julia was preparing to become a translator from English and German, studied without triples, was the head of the group. I was not interested in politics, but last spring before the promotion, March 26, I saw an invitation to the rally and decided to study the topic. “A huge amount of information fell upon me. That evening, I first campaigned to join the protest. It hurt me so much, I could not understand why many are so indifferent to that mess and arbitrariness that the authorities do. I was ashamed to sit and think that someone else would go and will demand compliance with my rights. ”

During the year, Julia participated in many political actions, was an observer from the Yabloko party in the governor's election. Going to classes after the sick leave, Bizyaeva found out that her - a student of a commercial department with good performance, who did not have complaints from the teachers - are deducted for passing lectures. As Julia suggests, the university administration did not like her cooperation with Yabloko. At the PEC, located in the institute building, observers from this party achieved an honest counting of turnout (235 people voted from more than 2000 registered voters), and the indicators were many times less than the declared medium -trained 54.8 percent. “I think for the rector of Sergei Naumov, who is a member of United Russia, it was a little unpleasant,” said Julia.

Grigory Grishin lost his job and apple -fichest. During the election of the governor, he organized the “Positive Boycot” campaign. As already said, the “new”, the participants in the action carried out their ballots with the Pretense, and then checked whether the loss of voice in the final protocols would be reflected. Twelve Saratovs filed a lawsuit with lawsuits to recalculate the votes. According to activists, the commission did not take into account the disappearance of the ballots, because they did not count the voice at all, entering the given figure into the table. For half the appeals, the court refused, the rest are still under consideration.

Three days after the release of the article in Novaya Gazeta, Gregory called from work (he headed the educational and production television laboratory in one of the Saratov universities) and reported an unexpected audit from Moscow. “As I was told, the whole leadership at that moment was left on vacation or on business trips. Therefore, I have to prepare for the auditors a certain number of papers and take on material liability. In particular, to make sure that all objects on which there are no inventory numbers disappear from the premises, or there are numbers, but they look doubtful. When the conversation reached the phrase: “Gregory, could you attribute this TV to your car,” I said, they say, guys, I understood everything, and wrote a statement of my own free will, ”recalls Grishin. - No one gave me directly that I spoke too much for the newspaper. But if the publication went on Wednesday, and on Friday it became more fun, the coincidence makes you think. ”

The organizers of the "positive boycott" intend to continue the action in the presidential election. Apparently, the nasty side is also preparing, honing the dexterity of the hands. At the end of January, the Law Academy on the initiative of the Oblazbirkom was presented with a model site: in the presence of journalists, members of the conventional PEC had to work out various procedural moments. During the model of the vote, the correspondents of the Saratov Open Canal unexpectedly noticed the theft of the ballot: one of the commission members pulled the ballot from the table and carried it out of the premises. After the plot was released, the chairman of the Oblazbarkom Vladimir Pisaryuk explained to the agency Free News that the theft was specially conceived to train the vigilance of the press and observers.

Ringing cedars and first cones

There were no large scandals related to the collection of signatures and agitation for self -nominated Vladimir Putin in the Saratov region. In early January, a message appeared on the website of the Balakovo district administration about the collection of signatures indicating the place and time of the event. Journalists turned to the regional election room, and the invitation was deleted 15 minutes later.

The most active supplier of scandalous news can be called the local headquarters of Ksenia Sobchak. Someone constantly threatens the candidate and its regional supporters. In December, before the opening of the headquarters, unknown people painted the asphalt with chalk near the building, expressing an unflattering opinion about the TV presenter. In January, collectors of signatures for Sobchak tried to drive out of the premises of the shopping center. The headquarters even had to increase the fertilizers of the "infantry": they promised to pay up to 6 thousand rubles per day of work.

The coordinator of the headquarters of Anastasia Moskaleva received a message from the Civil Patrol Consumer Protection Fund. The organization that had not previously had wide fame in Saratov recalled that the Moscow prosecutor’s office is checking for signs of extremism in Sobchak’s statements about Crimea, and invited the headquarters to stop working and prevent sponsors about possible responsibility for “financing extremist activity”. In reality, the prosecutor’s check mentioned in the message was completed in the fall.

Today, the last, among the persecutors of Sobchak, was the video blogger Evgeny Shirmanov, who previously removed traffic police violations by traffic police officers, and now drew attention to the jeep of one of the staff parked on the sidewalk. Regional supporters of Sobchak call blogger claims a provocation.

The candidate herself visited Saratov during the New Year holidays. I went through the city center in a wheelchair, proving the inappropriate streets for people with special needs. I went to the Perekrestok hypermarket, but not for purchases: Sobchak tried to help the former employee of the store, who was not returned after dismissal. The attempt was unsuccessful: the administrator on duty explained that the personnel officer solves such issues, and she has a day off.

In total, 2500 signatures were collected for Sobchak in Saratov. As noted in the local headquarters, this is more initial plan.

Saratov is known as the birthplace of many outstanding political characters, and this collection threatens to replenish.

Presidential ambitions were announced by the representative of the Moving Cedar of Russia Movement Marina Kopenkina.

As indicated in the autobiography, she worked in Saratov’s commercial banks for 23 years. In 2011, she replaced the field of activity, having completed training at a “specialist in the field of food hygiene”. Kopenkina said that she needs a presidential post to create generic estates in the country. According to the woman, each Russian one should give one hectare of land without the right to sell, where there will be “his house, his pond, forest with berries and mushrooms” at the disposal of the citizen.

“We had a very interesting conversation, very sincere people,” a member of the CEC Evgeny Shevchenko shared his impressions of the Saratov presidential chair. The commission did not record Kopenkin due to documentary violations. Apparently, the followers of the “ringing cedars” should not lose hope. “These are always the first cones. I wish you success, ”said the head of the CEC Ella Pamfilova.