Parliamentary elections will be held in Russia in mid-September. Five years ago, elections erupted into a series of demonstrations and civic activism increased surprisingly. Today Russian voters have no illusions. DN followed the campaign of independent candidate Maria Baronova.

The skyscrapers of Moscow City shine and sparkle. At arm's length from them is a block of ugly concrete high-rise buildings. On the cracked asphalt next to one of them there is a string orchestra of three young women playing the Argentine tango “Por una cabeza”.

People quickly gather at the entrance, mostly women, many with children.

"How beautiful! Is it someone's birthday?" - one of them asks.

It's no one's birthday. This is a pre-election event. On September 18, there will be parliamentary elections in Russia, in which 32-year-old Maria Baronova is participating. She spent the whole summer collecting 15 thousand signatures to gain the opportunity to become an independent candidate from one of the Moscow single-mandate constituencies. Nowhere else did she receive as many signatures as here, so this concrete house became the starting point of her election campaign.

A chamber concert is one way to attract the attention of citizens. Nothing hinders the opposition more than the feeling of apathy and passivity that has gripped Russian voters today. The scattered opposition is doing everything to gather strength. The most famous candidates are on Yabloko's lists, including Dmitry Gudkov and Vladimir Ryzhkov, who are not members of this party. Russian experts contacted by DN believe that the opposition will probably win a few seats, but overall it is swimming against the tide.

“The Kremlin's goal is to achieve low voter turnout. That is why the elections will be held in September (and the last parliamentary elections were in December 2011). In August, when almost all election campaigns take place, most voters are on vacation. Fewer people will vote than usual, and this means that there will be more organized voters in proportion,” says political scientist Ekaterina Shulman, associate professor at the Russian Presidential Academy.

“Organized voters” are civil servants, military personnel and anyone who works for the state and municipality, such as police officers and teachers. They are expected to all vote for the ruling party. The lower the turnout, the higher the proportion of organized voters and, therefore, the less need for fraud. This became an unexpected problem for the Kremlin in the last State Duma elections in 2011, when a new class of conscientious and critical voters exposed fraud, setting off a series of demonstrations against Putin's rule. Now the protest movement has been silenced.

Context

Russian elections are more important than American ones

Putin's party is losing support

The asymmetry of Putin's power

But at the same time, the ability to detect deception is limited.

“Only one person from a party can be present at a polling station as an observer. Before there were many more of them. The Kremlin simply hopes that the elections will take place as quietly as possible, with as few voters as possible voting and the debates being virtually ignored. This way you can get the desired result without resorting to the grossest falsifications.”

And Ekaterina Shulman points out that it will not be easy to convince regional governors to abandon fraud.

“The authorities in the regions are nervous. They will falsify the results just in case. And I’m not talking about such areas as the North Caucasus and Chechnya. The turnout there is always almost 100%, because local leaders want to demonstrate loyalty to Putin.”

Maria Baronova is the complete opposite of the official authorities; she belongs to a group of active and educated city residents who are tired of corruption and abuse. She gained fame as one of the leading activists who came to the defense of the so-called Bolotnaya prisoners - about 30 participants in anti-Putin demonstrations in May 2014, who were put on trial for rioting and vandalism. Charges were also brought against her, but the case was closed. The police broke into and searched her home, social services threatened to take her son away from her, and her life was threatened several times.

She's not a particularly anxious person, but she starts to get nervous when the Deutsche Welle cameraman shows up. Propaganda on state television hammers into people’s heads that all opposition candidates are a “fifth column” with Western funding. Foreign cameras at a campaign meeting may make people suspicious.

“People are now afraid of the foreign press. “Don’t talk to them under any circumstances while I’m here,” she hisses to reporters.

As Maria Baronova steps up to the microphone and begins to speak, I notice that the audience consists entirely of women, with the exception of two drunken men - the only ones who raise their hands when Baronova concludes her short speech and invites questions.

“The residents of this house have been on a waiting list for housing for 26 years. What will you do to help them? - asks one of the men.

“I could promise that I will solve all your problems, but it will be the same song as the current government. But I want to change the system. I want to develop the country, but I need help. How many of you are going to vote?” - Baronova asks a counter question.

Only a few hands go up.

“If everyone is passive, nothing will change. You are citizens of the country only if you exercise your civil rights,” Baronova replies.

“Give us a place to live,” shouts a woman from the crowd.

“All I can promise you is hard work. At first, no changes will be visible. But we all must learn to demand from the authorities, this is hard and thankless work that must be done every day,” says Baronova.

The public doesn't like this answer at all.

“Come see how we live. Look how we live,” the woman shouts.

Maria Baronova disappears into the house, accompanied by a group of residents. Journalists are not allowed there. Like many other Russian voters, residents of this building look to Baronova as a solution—in this case, to a housing problem. Most of the apartments in this house are former communal apartments, that is, old Soviet housing, in which entire families were crammed into one room, and kitchens and bathrooms were shared.

21-year-old Alexey Kalitvinov studies at one of the most prestigious Moscow universities - the Higher School of Economics. He voluntarily helps Maria Baronova. He says that most pre-election meetings come down to simply convincing people to go and vote.

“But you have to be careful. Many people become angry when they are told they must vote. They are tired of politicians who are not interested in their problems, they see no way out. It can be difficult to find a common language with them. We need to make them believe that we really want to do something good.”

Valentina, 44, was among those who raised her hand when Maria Baronova asked who would vote. She managed to persuade the candidate to come into the house and see how she lived: a twelve-meter room in a long corridor.

“I’ve been living here with my son for ten years now. There is no place for a thirteen-year-old son to do his homework! Management companies change all the time. The city promises us new housing, but nothing happens,” says Valentina, who does not want to give her last name.

But she is still glad that she managed to get Baronova, a well-connected man, to look at the room. Maybe this will help. And she is not interested in elections.

It's dark and warm on an August night. Behind the trees glimmers Moscow City, a consumer paradise of shining skyscrapers.

The video belongs to the channel of Evgeniy Volnov https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA--CSselU0qtyQTjSTa5Ug Support the channel - LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpcmsqsEnn59ufzz1b5gnhg Affiliate program for YouTube channel http://join.air.io/maxmail Channel of Vyacheslav Maltsev https://www.youtube.com/user/artpodgotovka/featured Spare channel of Vyacheslav Maltsev https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6MZXJIIwSrwP4wFJg2mlsg For those who first entered our group dedicated to Vyacheslav Maltsev, 51117 and his YouTube channel "ARTPODGOTOVKA" and at this stage Maltsev's elections to the State Duma 📗 1 Vyacheslav Maltsev - politician, professional revolutionary, ex-deputy chairman of the Saratov Regional Duma in three convocations . Read Maltsev's biography at the link https://vk.com/topic-47122274_29552934📗 2 Maltsev gained popularity thanks to his information and analytical program “Bad News” on YouTube. 📗 3 Vyacheslav Maltsev goes to the State Duma from PARNAS (People's Freedom Party), because this was the only opportunity to take part in the primaries and become a leader, taking second place in the federal party list in the State Duma elections. And also declare your plans for full power from the television screen. 📗4 The PARNAS party is the only anti-Putin party represented in the State Duma vote on September 18. Everyone else is supported by the government (with money stolen from the people). PARNAS exists with the money of supporters. The reality is this: either you vote for Maltsev, for PARNAS or for the “Putin Party” (United Russia, LDPR, Communist Party of the Russian Federation, A Just Russia, Yabloko and so on, they are all the same - pro-Putin) 📗 5 The first thing is that Maltsev and the entire PARNAS faction are nominated for urgent consideration in the State Duma means the immediate removal of Putin from power (impeachment), the repeal of anti-people laws, the immediate end of all wars in which the Russian military takes part, the abolition of Article 282 of the anti-Russian Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and an amnesty for all political prisoners. This is the official position of PARNAS. 📗 6 Maltsev and hundreds of thousands of his like-minded people want to build real Democracy in Russia in the near future, namely Direct Democracy. In the 21st information age and in the richest country in the world, this is possible. 📗 7 To build Direct Democracy in Russia and the advent of the New Historical Epoch, it is necessary to immediately remove from power and condemn Putin and all his entourage, who illegally hold power. This is exactly what will happen according to Maltsev’s forecasts on November 5, 2017. 📗 8 Vote for PARNAS on September 18th if you want all of the above and you like Maltsev’s ideas. 📗 9 In every city there are PARNAS election headquarters with active supporters of Maltsev, link to groups - https://vk.com/topic-47122274_34198510 If you have the opportunity, join the volunteers, help us convey the goals of PARNAS and Maltsev to as many people as possible, agitate people on the Internet. This will bring great benefits to us, the residents of Russia, in the near future. 📗 10 Answers to frequently asked questions for Vyacheslav are available at the link

After the opening of polling stations for the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation, traditional reports of violations began to arrive in the form of “carousels” - mass transportation of voters to voting stations. Disproportions and queues of “active citizens” are filmed. but the head of the public monitoring headquarters, Alexey Venediktov (editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy), considers this unlikely, since it should take hours to process groups of people voting using absentee certificates, according to his calculations. Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Valery Rashkin posts on his Twitter a photo of the bus on which, according to his suspicion, the “carousel workers” were brought. This is what one of the polling stations in the Central Administrative District looks like inside after a massive influx of voters of the same type. Single-mandate candidate Yulia Galyamina claims that there are a lot of absentee voters in the Northern Administrative District. According to her, the “carousel drivers” “arrive not in Gazelles, but in five or six cars and drive off.”

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Democracy... democracy - how much meanness and lies are hidden in this word! This definition of the essence of democracy will probably surprise many! But, having learned why I gave such a definition of democracy, the reader will be even more surprised! Let's start with the very concept of DEMOCRACY!

Democracy appeared in a slave state when slave owners came together to develop a single set of rules and laws in order to better manage slaves! Yes, they came together in order to create a single code of laws and rules in order to better manage their slaves, and so that there would be no differences in this matter among individual slave owners. It is probably not worth explaining what and whose interests these laws reflected in a “free” and “democratic” slave state. And although they will immediately try to give you an explanation that the word DEMOCRACY arose from the Greek word DEMOS, which means PEOPLE! But, at the same time, as often happens with those suffering from memory loss in the right places, they will forget to add that only free people were considered DEMOS or the people in this state, the vast majority of whom were SLAVE OWNERS! And they will forget to say that the main population was made up of SLAVES, who were not even considered people! Isn't it true that little has changed since then?!

On September 18, a single voting day was held in Russia, Russians elected deputies to the State Duma according to party lists and single-mandate constituencies, as well as deputies to local government bodies. Turnout in this year's elections was a record low; based on the results of processing 93% of ballots, it was 47.81%. Rain looked into the voting results.

What happened to the State Duma

• Only four parties were able to enter the State Duma - United Russia (54.42% of the votes), the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (13.52% of the votes), LDPR (13.28% of the votes) and A Just Russia (6.17% of the votes). The LDPR almost managed to overtake the communists; the party had a chance to take a place higher than third for the first time since 1995. “A Just Russia” experienced a large drop in the number of votes cast for the party in these elections: against the backdrop of protest activity in 2011, it gained 13.24%. United Russia received a little more than 49% of the votes in the last elections.
• As a result of the voting, United Russia received 343 mandates (140 on party lists and 203 in single-mandate constituencies) and a constitutional majority in the State Duma. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation will have 42 mandates (34 on party lists, seven on single-mandate), the LDPR will have 39 mandates (34 on party lists and 5 on single-mandate), and A Just Russia will have 23 mandates (16 on party lists, seven on single-mandate). For comparison, according to the results of the elections in 2011, United Russia received 238 mandates.
• According to the law, those parties that receive 3% of the votes receive budget funding in the amount of 110 rubles, multiplied by the number of votes cast for this party. In 2011, such a party was Yabloko; the party was entitled to almost 248 million rubles. In these elections, the party was unable to repeat the previous result and received only 1.85% of the votes. The closest result to the three percent barrier was for “Communists of Russia” - 2.35% of the votes. According to the results of the draw at the Central Election Commission, they took second place in the ballot with a similar name and almost identical emblem to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which could have brought them additional votes.
• Well-known opposition candidates were never able to get into the State Duma. Dmitry Gudkov, who ran for Yabloko in Moscow in the Tushinsky district, could not beat the leader, Gennady Onishchenko. Lev Shlosberg, who also ran from Yabloko, but in the Pskov district, did not even make it into the top three. Maria Baronova, who, with the support of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ran for the Central District of Moscow, also did not make it into the top three. Her main competitor, Andrey Zubov from PARNAS, took third place in the district.

Reports of violations

• Pamfilova called these elections the most transparent, but there were reports of violations. On the map of the “Voice” movement, for example, more than 400 messages are indicated in Moscow, in St. Petersburg and Samara - more than 200, in Saratov - almost 100. The Investigative Committee has already investigated the fact of election fraud at a polling station in Rostov-on-Don, and in Dagestan there is even one of the sites.

Single-member districts

• “United Russia” won in 203 single-mandate constituencies out of 225. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation and “A Just Russia” won seven each, and the LDPR won in five constituencies. “Civic Platform” and “Rodina” each had one victory in single-member constituencies. In most cases, parties did not face competition from United Russia.
• In 18 single-mandate constituencies, United Russia did not field strong candidates. The heads of key committees and her supporters from other parties remained. United Russia vacated two seats for small parties: the leaders of Rodina and Civic Platform, Alexei Zhuravlev and Rifat Shaikhutdinov. In Adygea, Vladislav Reznik decided to run not from United Russia, but as a self-nominated candidate after the Spanish prosecutor's office put him on the international wanted list on suspicion of involvement in organized crime.

Regional elections

• Elections to 39 regional parliaments were also held on a single voting day. Most of them will have four parliamentary parties, but in some regions other political forces have also entered the legislative assemblies. Members of Yabloko entered the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and the Pskov region. Also, the “Growth Party” entered the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
• The heads of the region were also elected on September 18. In all regions, the governors who were the acting heads of the subjects won. In the Chechen region, Ramzan Kadyrov won a preliminary victory; in the Tula region, former presidential security guard Alexei Dyumin won. In Komi, Sergei Gaplikov won, in the Tver region - a native of the special services Igor Rudenya, in the Ulyanovsk region - Sergei Morozov, in Tuva - Sholban Kara-ool, in the Trans-Baikal Territory - Natalya Zhdanova.

Photo: Kirill Kallinikov / RIA Novosti