Seems like the last post on this blog was exactly a month ago. Right now the three of us are in Novosibirsk until middle of March for Mum's 60th birthday. Today Dad, Mum and I went to vote. I even got an Открепительный Талон (a piece of paper that says I can vote anywhere without registration) from my local Russian embassy in Berlin (an amusing and usually painful process that took about an hour of my life) as I am not registered in Russia and don't have a local inside passport. Russia has a silly two passport system, which is a leftover from the good old Soviet days, with the local passport being used for things like pension, work, registration and the outside passport used to travel abroad.
So with my outside passport and this special piece of paper I went in the election poll to try and get a ballot paper. The woman at the poll doesn't want to give it to me as I give her my outside passport. The following conversation occurs:
she nodding her head - "You need an inside passport to vote"
me - "Look at the piece of paper - it's from a Russian embassy in Berlin"
she - "Yeah ok, but ... hmm... what citizenship do you have?"
me - "You're holding my passport - it's a passport of a citizen of Russian Federation"
she - "Yeah... hmmm... hold on, I need to get the chairwoman"
..... chairwoman arrives and takes a look at my passport...
chairwoman - "You can't vote with an outside passport"
me - "Look at the piece of paper - it's from the Russian embassy in Berlin"
chairwoman - "Oh ok. Hmmm... why didn't you vote there?"
me - questioning look
chairwoman - "Oh right - you're here right now for the election. Hmm... that is a bit of a stupid question, right?"
me - confirming look
Then they issued me the ballot paper. As Putin promised the election poll had a webcam installed and the urns were transparent. Dad said that all the ballots he could see inside the urn were for Putin. No surprise there. According to his official propaganda he only has a mere 17 million roubles in the banks. And according to exit polls he's getting about 60% of votes already. *sigh*
"And according to exit polls he's getting about 60% of votes already"
ReplyDeleteа ведь таки случилось.. значит каждый народ заслудивает своего правителя.
А за кого же проголосовала Полина?))
Kacha
I voted for Mironov. None of the other people appealed to me. I can't bring myself to vote for the communists or liberals and Prohorov is a puppet opposition figure. At the same time I didn't want to make my ballot paper invalid, as that didn't make sense. That's the main problem - lack of a good opposition leader. Navalni got arrested - hope he'll be ok!
ReplyDeleteМногие из моих знакомых голосовали за Путина, мотивируя отсутствием выбора. Вот такая позиция мне вообще непонятна.. Ситуация неоднозначная, но никто не обещал нам легкой жизни? )) Kacha
ReplyDelete