The Elections (for mayor of Samara) - 10/29/06

[this poster reads: "The City Against Corruption, a Societal Action. Corruption, it's poverty; Corruption, it's lawlessness; Corruption, it's a crime. -- Note that there is no indication anywhere on this poster about what activities this organization does or how anyone can get involved. It is probably just a concerted effort by one or more of the incumbent's opponents to agitate discontent within the city.]

Hello dear readers. I’m back, and ready to write again. I’ve gotten very busy with my project, with a trip to Moscow, with applications to medical schools. All this time, I’ve been meaning to write about the local mayoral elections here in Samara, and now they have already happened... well, I will give a brief description anyway. I’ll even try to build suspense before telling you who won.

What was most fascinating to me about the elections (especially given the entrenchment of my political thinking in the American two-party system) was the number of well-funded candidates. There were supposedly more than twenty candidates on the ballot, and at least five or six had huge, ubiquitous campaigns. What was fascinating about this was not that so many people or parties would think they have a chance at the mayorship, but that they would have funding to do so. No one I know here donates money to or even vocally supports a political party. Most young people seem not to care the slightest bit, and the people I have talked to who do care about politics (mostly people above college age) don’t seem to believe it makes any difference who wins (I asked my friend what kind of platforms people were running on. He said “I think their only platform is corruption, all of them”).

My friend Misha, a doctor here in Samara, gave me a rundown of the election. Almost all of the money in this election, he said, comes from oligarchs and the mafia. The oligarchs want to keep their names out of the papers and so they prop up shadow candidates. Some oligarchs even have a handful of candidates that they are propping up. He told me that this is partly evident in the biases of the different media outlets that are owned by various oligarchs or mafia fronts (he even made me a chart, which I have since lost, unfortunately).

The campaigns themselves seemed to me to clearly reflect this assessment. The campaign of Evgeniy Grigoriev, for example, was a clear response to the pervasiveness of the mafia and oligarchs. His motto [see right] was, Pora Navesti Poryadok Bez Vorov I Oligarkhov, meaning It's Time to Bring Order without Criminals and Oligarchs! Misha told me that he knows Grigoriev through friends of friends and that he was, in fact, a former KGB agent who lived in Western Europe during the Soviet Era. He speaks all European languages perfectly and, “probably was responsible for the destruction of much American property in Europe.”

On the surface, most of the campaigns resembled American grassroots campaigns with one important difference: there were no grassroots. There were young people everywhere, wearing colors, passing out fliers, waving flags, chanting chants and marching down the streets [see left]. However, all held a look on their face of complete and utter indifference. They were all just working to get some extra cash. A friend of mine worked on one campaign. I asked, “do you care if your candidate wins?” She said, “To tell the truth, it doesn’t make a difference to me.” My personal favorite youth movement mimicry, of those that I saw, was an aktsia, in which a marschrutka (mini-bus) dropped six or seven cheerleaders off by a busy bus stop, all dressed in pink shirts reading “Belashev No 1." They walked passively up to the bus stop and then began chanting, “Belashev Nomer Odin!” “Belashev Nomer Odin!” and pumping their pompons into the air. They were followed by a young man, wearing the same shirt and passing out fliers. They walked about 20 meters chanting and then got back into the marschrutka and went off.

Belashev’s “youth movement” also included pro-Belashev graffiti [see below]. It was not the only campaign to do so, but again I was impressed by their 'youthfulness' (that graffiti says “We Believe in You” “You’re Super”).
I assume the anti-Semitic graffiti on this poster for Matveev [see below] was actually self-motivated and not a part of anyone else’s campaign [the detail below says Kandidat na post Glavy Samary, or "Candidate for the post of Head of Samara," someone has added ot zhidov, meaning "of the kykes"].

I asked most of my college-aged friends what they thought about the elections and it was hard to get an opinion. Most seemed to think it did not matter. I did get one of my friends, a college graduate, to explain that she was in favor of the current mayor (because of something having to do with new orphanages; I didn’t quite understand), but a couple of my other friends leaned over to me and said that everything she was saying was pure bullshit, that I shouldn’t listen.

One friend said specifically that it did "not matter because no matter what, the current mayor will continue to be mayor." He has been mayor for ten years, was his reasoning, and people don’t care enough to change things. Indeed, this opinion is backed up by the fact that Limanskiy, the incumbent was the candidate of United Russia. Indeed, all over Russia, United Russia is rapidly entrenching its role in the government through a combination of political machine/patronage-type tactics, gaining control over the media and limiting the movements of opposition party organs.

The power of United Russia was evident when after the first round of elections, Limanskiy did not come in first. Because Russian law requires a majority vote and not just a plurality, a run-off election was required between Limanskiy and Tarkhov the candidate who received the most votes in the first election. Suddenly posters everywhere showed Limanskiy with various celebrities from Moscow. The governor of Samara Oblast’, who had previously been at odds with Limanskiy, was now featured shaking hands with Limanskiy in huge billboards all across the city. At one point, I was in a car with a friend who explained that there were increased numbers of police checkpoints around the city to ensure control of the huge number of Muscovites that drove into town to help bring Limanskiy back to power.

Samara, indeed, is important (though by no means key) to United Russia. I have been told that the highest concentration of rich people (by percentage) is actually in Samara, not Moscow or St. Pete. I’ve also been told that Samara has the third highest cost of living in Russia) and that nearby Togliatti has the highest concentration of mafia. Indeed Samara region is an important industrial region. One of the world's largest fabricated aluminum operations (owned and operated by Alcoa) is in Samara. There is also at least one oil and gas company centered here and Togliatti is the center of the automobile industry in Russia.

So it will be interesting to see what happens, now that Limanskiy and, by extension, United Russia, lost the mayorship of Samara.

Yes, last week Limanskiy lost to Tarkhov, a politician who either briefly was the governor of Samara oblast’ for a brief period or merely ran for governor many years ago, depending on who you ask (this was during the chaos around the 1991 putsch). His campaign was a relatively less visible one, though it was certainly there. His signs said simply, Tol'ko Tarkhov, meaning "Only Tarkhov." It is popular opinion that Tarkhov was elected merely because people were sick of the corruption of Limanskiy and think that new blood is better than nothing. Indeed, Tarkhov has even said publicly said something to that effect, that people did not vote for him, so much as they voted against Limanskiy.

The fact that United Russia, despite all its efforts to consolidate power, lost this election should give pause to all the Russia cynics out there. Indeed, the headlines are bad, and getting worse, it seems. The Moscow Times reported today that proposed ammendments to a law on extremism "[expand] the definition of extremist activity to include public slander of a government official related to his duties." Yet another way for United Russia to clamp down on dissent. But the people of Samara have had enough and decided to replace their government, and no one made them do it nor prevented them from doing it. I do believe that this is what we call real democracy, and people here seem encouraged. My Russian teacher, who says she doesn't like to talk about politics, was excited when the subject came up. She agrees, something new is afoot.

Now that the elections are over, the people who hang posters in this city can go back to advertising things like this new album by the band “Drugly Cats.” It's called, “Blowjob Mother Fucker Sex Machine.”