Russia Breaks My Brain
I don't understand this place, I just live here.
#04: Elections and other broken things
Monday, October 27, 2003
Hi folks, I guess it's been a while since you last heard from me. I know you were getting concerned, but don't worry. I'm fine. Probably much better off than my roommate, but I'll explain why later. Right now, as I approach the end of my second month in Bizarro-World, I've got a lot of things to share with everyone, which means that there may be multiple exciting emails in your inboxes this week. (Laziness in writing before = lots of writing now!) So to kick things off, I'll start with some observations on the recent elections here in St. Petersburg. I'm not sure they're as bad as what happened recently in California, but there's still some strangeness to dish up.
Like California, St. Petersburg was holding a special election to replace an official who "unexpectedly" left their office. In this case, the mayor of St. Pete, whom was not a close chum with President Putin, was given a promotion to some crappy cabinet post in the federal government, mainly to get the guy out of the way. Putin is originally from St. Pete, and there has been talk that he's interested in moving the capital of Russia back there. Of course, there's also been talk that he's connected to a German drug-smuggling ring, but that's another story...
Anyway, this special election had a whole slew of candidates, most of which seemed to have no idea to present themselves to the public. I'm talking campaign posters with photos you wouldn't even print on your driver's license, stupid slogans, etc. The whole thing seemed to have the production value of a local used car commercial on late-night television. But none of this really mattered too much, since everyone knew who would win to begin with.
The favorite candidate was a woman who had held a position in the federal government, having been placed there by Putin. She was then endorsed (semi-informally) by Putin while on national television. (They were meeting at some other function, and he told her he thought she'd be great as mayor.) This caused some outcry, as technically the president can't endorse someone here. But no legal action came of it, and in fact Putin's Pick started posting up billboards with a photo of she and Putin walking together saying "Together we can do anything." The "anything" this is referring to is "get lots of federal money shuffled through to St. Petersburg to pay for things like fixing the collapsed subway tunnel that's been caved in for over 5 years, or finish that damn road around the city promised to everyone an eternity ago." So the idea that this lady was close to Putin was sort of her only selling point.
Now, democracy in Russia has caught on enough that people weren't entirely thrilled with the idea of having Putin pick the winner like this. There was discussion on editorial pages about if this was ok, if it was part of Putin's free speech rights to say such things, etc. One candidate responded by running his whole campaign against the fact that the favored candidate was a woman, using the slogan "It's a Man's work." (He got 4th place in the end. Behind votes for "Against All Candidates") Another group took a horse downtown, dressed themselves up as clowns and held a poll in the street asking "If Putin told us to vote for a Horse, would we?" (I think the answer was yes.) Naturally, these people, and their horse, were repeatedly asked by police for their papers to see if they were allowed to hold this little demonstration.
...And somehow the horse/clown-people were ok, but people simply distributing flyers for other candidates were allegedly harassed and jailed by the police on a regular basis. Also, a mysterious non-profit organization appeared around the time of the election, basically functioning as another advertising outlet for Putin's Pick, before literally disappearing after the election. All in all though, this was considered to be a cleaner election than some had been in the past. Only "administrative" interferance was noted (the police) as opposed to out and out stuffing ballot boxes with fake ballots. (That was being saved for the Chechnyan Presidential election...)
When it came time for all this silliness to resolve though, Putin's Pick only got 48% of the vote, which meant that there would be a run off. (She needed 50%) (And saying 48% isn't really that many people: voter turnout was only 30% for each election for reasons as "the weather was nice so people went out to pick mushrooms instead" and "My vote doesn't matter." So aside from the mushroom thing, it was very similar to the US.) For the run-off, all the other candidates banded behind the woman in second place, although in the end it didn't matter. Putin's Pick is now in office, and is already proving to be awesome.
Aside from claiming St. Pete as her hometown when she's actually from Ukraine, she's been appointing people with reputations for being lame. One example would be her Communications Minister. This woman was a former newspaper editor who became famous for censoring her writers' negative comments about a mayoral candidate in exchange for getting discounted apartment in the middle of town. When her writers complained, she fired them. But she may not be needed, as photographers have already been wrestled to the ground and had their film confiscated during a press conference. (Ok, not completely out of the blue- a protester had slapped the mayor in the face with a flower [Don't ask, I don't know either], and nobody wanted those images to get out in public.)
So democracy seems to be in at least as good shape here as in the US. The big difference is that here you can collect notebooks, posters, etc. featuring Putin a la "Dawson's Creek Trapper Keeper,"and the last time I was home I couldn't find any educational materials with pictures of Dubya smiling all over it. Clearly we have a lot to learn from the Russians on these matters.
Ok, thanks for putting up with my extended report on the elections. As a treat, here's just a random piece of trivia from this morning: I found out one of my language teachers had dreamt of being a janitor when she was little. Not really a janitor though, specifically someone who sweeps, since that's what she'd see when she was just a "malinkii dyevooshka" (little girl) looking out her apartment window. She told us that when she was older she decided she wanted to be a stewardess, then a cop in the subways, then finally settled on the idea that, alright, she'd become a teacher in the university. I know just what she means. If only I hadn't flunked the damn entrance exam for Baggage Handler School.
And that's it for this installment. But there's been quite a bit more going on, such as snow, a trip to Moscow and Kristin's birthday party. So maybe go get some snacks now or something, but don't go too far from your email 'cause Bizarro-World has yet to provide a dull moment. At least for me anyway.
Paka,
-Angry Giant
Hi folks, I guess it's been a while since you last heard from me. I know you were getting concerned, but don't worry. I'm fine. Probably much better off than my roommate, but I'll explain why later. Right now, as I approach the end of my second month in Bizarro-World, I've got a lot of things to share with everyone, which means that there may be multiple exciting emails in your inboxes this week. (Laziness in writing before = lots of writing now!) So to kick things off, I'll start with some observations on the recent elections here in St. Petersburg. I'm not sure they're as bad as what happened recently in California, but there's still some strangeness to dish up.
Like California, St. Petersburg was holding a special election to replace an official who "unexpectedly" left their office. In this case, the mayor of St. Pete, whom was not a close chum with President Putin, was given a promotion to some crappy cabinet post in the federal government, mainly to get the guy out of the way. Putin is originally from St. Pete, and there has been talk that he's interested in moving the capital of Russia back there. Of course, there's also been talk that he's connected to a German drug-smuggling ring, but that's another story...
Anyway, this special election had a whole slew of candidates, most of which seemed to have no idea to present themselves to the public. I'm talking campaign posters with photos you wouldn't even print on your driver's license, stupid slogans, etc. The whole thing seemed to have the production value of a local used car commercial on late-night television. But none of this really mattered too much, since everyone knew who would win to begin with.
The favorite candidate was a woman who had held a position in the federal government, having been placed there by Putin. She was then endorsed (semi-informally) by Putin while on national television. (They were meeting at some other function, and he told her he thought she'd be great as mayor.) This caused some outcry, as technically the president can't endorse someone here. But no legal action came of it, and in fact Putin's Pick started posting up billboards with a photo of she and Putin walking together saying "Together we can do anything." The "anything" this is referring to is "get lots of federal money shuffled through to St. Petersburg to pay for things like fixing the collapsed subway tunnel that's been caved in for over 5 years, or finish that damn road around the city promised to everyone an eternity ago." So the idea that this lady was close to Putin was sort of her only selling point.
Now, democracy in Russia has caught on enough that people weren't entirely thrilled with the idea of having Putin pick the winner like this. There was discussion on editorial pages about if this was ok, if it was part of Putin's free speech rights to say such things, etc. One candidate responded by running his whole campaign against the fact that the favored candidate was a woman, using the slogan "It's a Man's work." (He got 4th place in the end. Behind votes for "Against All Candidates") Another group took a horse downtown, dressed themselves up as clowns and held a poll in the street asking "If Putin told us to vote for a Horse, would we?" (I think the answer was yes.) Naturally, these people, and their horse, were repeatedly asked by police for their papers to see if they were allowed to hold this little demonstration.
...And somehow the horse/clown-people were ok, but people simply distributing flyers for other candidates were allegedly harassed and jailed by the police on a regular basis. Also, a mysterious non-profit organization appeared around the time of the election, basically functioning as another advertising outlet for Putin's Pick, before literally disappearing after the election. All in all though, this was considered to be a cleaner election than some had been in the past. Only "administrative" interferance was noted (the police) as opposed to out and out stuffing ballot boxes with fake ballots. (That was being saved for the Chechnyan Presidential election...)
When it came time for all this silliness to resolve though, Putin's Pick only got 48% of the vote, which meant that there would be a run off. (She needed 50%) (And saying 48% isn't really that many people: voter turnout was only 30% for each election for reasons as "the weather was nice so people went out to pick mushrooms instead" and "My vote doesn't matter." So aside from the mushroom thing, it was very similar to the US.) For the run-off, all the other candidates banded behind the woman in second place, although in the end it didn't matter. Putin's Pick is now in office, and is already proving to be awesome.
Aside from claiming St. Pete as her hometown when she's actually from Ukraine, she's been appointing people with reputations for being lame. One example would be her Communications Minister. This woman was a former newspaper editor who became famous for censoring her writers' negative comments about a mayoral candidate in exchange for getting discounted apartment in the middle of town. When her writers complained, she fired them. But she may not be needed, as photographers have already been wrestled to the ground and had their film confiscated during a press conference. (Ok, not completely out of the blue- a protester had slapped the mayor in the face with a flower [Don't ask, I don't know either], and nobody wanted those images to get out in public.)
So democracy seems to be in at least as good shape here as in the US. The big difference is that here you can collect notebooks, posters, etc. featuring Putin a la "Dawson's Creek Trapper Keeper,"and the last time I was home I couldn't find any educational materials with pictures of Dubya smiling all over it. Clearly we have a lot to learn from the Russians on these matters.
Ok, thanks for putting up with my extended report on the elections. As a treat, here's just a random piece of trivia from this morning: I found out one of my language teachers had dreamt of being a janitor when she was little. Not really a janitor though, specifically someone who sweeps, since that's what she'd see when she was just a "malinkii dyevooshka" (little girl) looking out her apartment window. She told us that when she was older she decided she wanted to be a stewardess, then a cop in the subways, then finally settled on the idea that, alright, she'd become a teacher in the university. I know just what she means. If only I hadn't flunked the damn entrance exam for Baggage Handler School.
And that's it for this installment. But there's been quite a bit more going on, such as snow, a trip to Moscow and Kristin's birthday party. So maybe go get some snacks now or something, but don't go too far from your email 'cause Bizarro-World has yet to provide a dull moment. At least for me anyway.
Paka,
-Angry Giant