
At the metro stations and in the shopping centers of St. Petersburg, young people in baseball caps with the inscription "Alexander Beglov" appeared. They collect the signatures of Petersburgers in support of the participation of the acting governor in the elections.
In exchange for signatures, the townspeople are given leaflets: on one side there is a portrait of Alexander Beglov, on the opposite - his biography, entitled “Labor Path”, as well as a list of achievements of the acting acting “for the benefit of Petersburgers”. The collectors informed the correspondent of Novaya in St. Petersburg that they work on a volunteer basis.
Signatures are needed by Alexander Beglov, since he goes to the elections by a self -nominated, without the support of United Russia. After last year's governor’s elections, when several candidates from the party of the authorities could not win the first round, many temporarily acting heads of regions began to be advanced without the support of the party in power. Self -nomination is a technically more complex procedure than the nomination from the party. It is enough party candidates to collect the signatures of municipal deputies so that the election commander registered them. Self -nominated people need to not only go through the municipal filter, but also in a month to collect signatures of 76 thousand voters in order to be admitted to the elections.
The administration of the St. Petersburg metro is known that in the lobby of stations they campaign for Alexander Beglov, Yulia Shavel, press secretary of the metro, told the “new”. The collectors work there “under the contract” with the subway, she said, without specifying whether a commercial agreement is or gratuitous.
To the question of whether the metro administration is ready to put signatures for other candidates-nominates in the lobby of collectors, the press secretary could not answer.
“The issues of conducting the election campaign are not the competence of the St. Petersburg Metro GUP,” she summed up, adding that the metro administration “strictly complies with laws and by -laws”. At the same time, the rules for using the metro published on the official website say that on the territory of the subway "it is forbidden to carry out any agitation activity."

However, according to two acquaintances with the process of collecting signatures of the interlocutors of the New in St. Petersburg, the volunteers are by no means the main participants in the signature campaign.
The bulk of the signatures necessary for the registration of Alexander Beglov is collected in budgetary institutions, controlled by the city administration. The director of one of the schools of the Central District in May warned the employees that they had to subscribe to the acting governor. This was confirmed by the “new” teacher of the school, clarifying that there was no talk of compulsion. She said that signature sheets with the names of employees and their passport data are the leadership of the school, and only the date and autograph are required from the signatories themselves. This detail indirectly confirms the fact that
Alexander Beglov will submit to the election commission exactly those sheets that are collected in budgetary institutions.
Typically, the collectors themselves fill out all the data for voters to avoid mistakes and corrections: because of the blots, the election can reject the signature. The collectors who work in the subway allow Petersburgers to independently fill out all the columns.
The law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights” prohibits collecting signatures for candidates at the place of work, it also prohibits civil servants in the election campaign. Nevertheless, in the same way, according to the New in St. Petersburg, the city on the Neva organized the collection of signatures in support of the nomination for the presidential election of Vladimir Putin. The “front” part of the signature campaign was carried out by collectors hired by United Russia - they also stood in shopping centers behind the racks. The real signatures passed in the Central Election Commission were collected along the administrative line in subordinate Smolny Institutions.
Despite the fact that the official headquarters of the acting governor does not exist yet, a large team of political strategists works for Alexander Beglov from the very beginning of his stay. For the collection of signatures - both demonstrative in the subway, and real in budgetary institutions - is responsible for Alexander Seravin, and the new sources in the informal election headquarters confirmed the new in St. Petersburg. Alexander Seravin is a political strategist close to the head of the Presidential Directorate to ensure the activities of the State Council Alexander Kharichev. In the current campaign, Seravin is responsible for field work - it coordinates the actions of the staff of the headquarters in areas and municipalities. By the way, it was he who was the chief political technology of the Presidential Headquarters in St. Petersburg last year.
Alexander Seravin himself refused to comment on involvement in the collection of signatures. The press secretary of the acting governor Inna Karpushin could not comment on the situation: she said that the legislation does not allow her as a civil servant to “touch the topic” of the collection of signatures.
PS
On the evening of June 4, Alexander Beglov announced the creation of an official campaign headquarters. However, pickets with collectors appeared in the subway before the headquarters was established.