The Elections. The Hypnotic Polling Station of Grozny

Previously: blinded cameras, self-effacing ink, downtown parking and another bomb threat.

Social networks are somewhat tired of endless infringement suspicions, especially since nothing much changes because of these messages.

But Gazeta.ru got lucky – they managed to put a stop to a ‘carousel’.

Gazeta.ru reporters, jointly with Navalny’s RosAgit activists, found and stopped a ‘carousel’ organized at a polling station at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport. According to journalists, carousel coordinators were offering people 2,000 rubles in exchange for voting for one of the candidates.

The observers recorded on video the actual handing over of the money.

The participants met with a Mikhail Nazarov, who said he was a student of sociological department of Moscow State University. The meeting point was inside the “Yugo-Zapadnaya” underground station. All participants of the ‘carousel’ were divided into groups of four; the reporter estimates that there were about five such groups. The reporter infiltrated one of them.

Once the small teams were formed, they were sent to cars. The second reporter of Gazeta.ru, watching the events from the RosAgit activist’s car, followed the carousel participants to the Vnukovo airport.

“The first voting took place at the airport PS; they were voting according to the lists of ‘Mosstroy 12’ construction company,” the reporters say.

Some participants voted for the same candidate twice.

After the voting at the airport was over, the cars took the people to PS No. 2325, near the village of Vnukovo.

The observers detained the organizers and some of the participants of the ‘carousel’ once they arrived at “Yugo-Zapadnaya”. Mikhail Nazarov and others are currently making statements at the police station.

Foreign reporters scattered all around Moscow have sprung to life. The media expert of The New York Times David Carr is twitting about the sudden appearance of policemen near the National hotel: “Voting day in Moscow. Police suddenly guarding hotel”.

In our regular column, “Come to vote and let people know”, singer Filipp Kirkorov.

First, our reporters Vladimir Afonsky and Elena Brodach moved in a column of 150 people from Kitai-Gorod to Gostiny Dvor. The column contained of young people who had registered on the site Massovki.ru (for film and TV extras) and had no idea where and why they were marching. The young people claimed they were supposed to earn 450 rubles with this walk.

Having reached Gostiny Dvor, everyone received a playing card. Vladimir Afonsky was given the king of spades, whatever it means.

We’ll keep you posted.

On the Web Elections site, at one of the PS in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, a truly hypnotic event is happening. Very loud music is playing, and from off-screen some people suddenly emerge. They dance lezginka, the national Caucasian dance.

Denis Bochkaryov, observer:

“Urgent! Observers beaten up in Zheleznodorozhny near Moscow, according to the mobile team of reporters and observers that includes Elizaveta Klepikova and Danila Sukharev. After they were illegally removed from PS No. 530, they went to file a complaint at the District Electoral Commission. They people who came out of DEC beat them up really hard, took their cameras, all in the presence of road policemen who did not react. Elizaveta and Danila ran away, pursued by DEC bandits. Two more observers (probably from “Citizen Observer”), also illegally removed, were beaten up “as if they wanted to kill them”. When Elizaveta and Danila were running away, those two guys were being dragged somewhere. The names of the kidnapped are Anton Ivashchenko and Ildar Daden (they are most likely residents of Zheleznodorozhny).”

Ilya Krasilshchik, observer:

“Weeeeell. There’s a discrepancy between Station Election Commission count and the observers’. Three observers counted 100 fewer voters than the CEC.”

Elena Racheva, observer / journalist (Openspace.ru):

“A scandal is brewing at PS No. 2090. The disabled old lady waited for the polling box that never came. So she came herself, in a wheelchair, but couldn’t get up the stairs, and, shouting ‘Who wanted to steal my vote?!’, put the ballot in the box that was taken down to her.

I caught up with her:

‘You’re against Putin, aren’t you?’

The old lady, indignantly:

‘I’ve been waiting for ten years to have a wheelchair lift installed in my house, until I called Putin’s hot line. And ten years later, it was installed! How can I be AGAINST him?”

Coming next: what’s happening at Gostiny Dvor, the sultry Dayneko and her songs, Web Elections and its endless amusements.