If you chose emigration, no questions. But if you stayed and refuse to make peace with the reality around you, then there is a question, and it is this: can life change for the better without your personal contribution?
My answer is: no, it cannot. Or at least it will change more slowly than I would like.
That is why I am making my own personal contribution.
Over the past two days, I have traveled to the towns of Sharya, Nerekhta, and Volgorechensk. Today I went to Buy and Galich, where I spoke to local residents. And this evening I will speak again in Kostroma.
I am campaigning for RPR-PARNAS, even though I am not a member of that party—not even because we are in a coalition, but because this election campaign is the first in many years in which a genuinely opposition party is taking part. So in a sense I am campaigning for myself, campaigning for the right ideas.
That is my contribution.
My meetings are being organized by volunteers from Kostroma, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and all across the rest of the country. They are making their contribution too.
So you should contribute too. No kindly little gnomes are going to build a bright future for you. We are in the final and decisive week of an election campaign that lasts only three weeks in total.
We need campaigners, we need volunteers. We need you to come and make your contribution.
Today, in the town of Buy, 170 people came to meet with me—that is a lot for a town of that size. And the reason is simple: the town is run by a real mafia, like something out of a movie. I will write more about it soon—it is a real Leviathan (a reference to the Russian film about corruption and abuse of power).
It matters, and it genuinely changes the political situation, when 3 or 4 people come to a place like Buy and campaign in the streets. You just have to go there and say out loud the words that everyone keeps in their head but is afraid to speak.
People need to see that there are political forces ready to challenge both the Buy mafia and the Kremlin’s.
But if you do not make your contribution and do not come, then the local United Russia (the ruling pro-Kremlin party—essentially the mafia) will continue to rule unchecked.
My call to action for the day:
Come to the campaign headquarters and put in a strong final week of work. Travel, accommodation, and meals are officially paid for from the election fund. Good company and a worthwhile cause are guaranteed.
Sign up to be an election observer.
Make a donation—we still have time to print and distribute a great deal more material.