Well, the campaign headquarters was opened in Volgograd. Definitely something to remember.
There are a lot of volunteers here, it’s a great city, but it is in a terrible condition — industry has collapsed. Volgograd’s roads are legendary for how badly damaged they are, and they consistentlytop rankings of the worst and most dangerous roads.
The authorities, fully aware of all this — and also aware that they have nothing to counter us with (after all, you can’t “fix” roads overnight) — decided to go with their usual fallback theme: “they insulted the veterans.”
For this, they used a rather inappropriate photo collage posted in our public page. It came after the brilliant green incident, when the face of the Motherland Calls monument was colored green.
We deleted that post fairly quickly and published an apology post.
But United Russia realized this was their chance. At first, they flat-out lied, saying that “Navalny’s campaign office painted and desecrated the monument.”
Then they realized the lie was too absurd, and switched to “desecrating a photograph.”
Solovyov was screaming on the radio so hard it sounded like his stomach was about to burst. The “offensive image” was printed in huge quantities and handed out around the city. All the local media outlets controlled by the authorities also went into hysterics.
The street where the office is located was blocked off with municipal vehicles. In the middle of a weekday! The federal leader of Young Guard of United Russia came and tried to stage a big “rally of the offended.”
There were no genuinely offended people to be found, so the “outraged residents of Volgograd” were represented by some “House of Friendship of Peoples”—basically a united association of Caucasian diaspora groups. With a small addition of Cossacks, who, to be fair, behaved rather indifferently.
They gathered at the entrance and chanted, “Come out, come out.”
So I went out. They’re grown men. Caucasians. You’d think they’d have at least some code of conduct.
I said: if you want to talk, I’m all for it. Come past the cordon.
These disgraceful clowns said, “Yes, yes,” and when I let them through, they grabbed my legs and started dragging me toward their side. The volunteers, naturally, grabbed my arms and started pulling me back.
I think the Caucasian communities of Volgograd must have been ashamed today of how these characters behaved.
It was all quite a peculiar sensation. I kept thinking: are they going to tear off my leg or my arm?
It’s hard to show in a photo, but somewhere in there I look like the cat from Tom and Jerry getting caught in an elevator door.
In the end, the volunteers won, and to my surprise, even my shoes stayed on.
The whole thing was being directed by some guy on the scene whom local journalists identified as Volgograd city manager Likhachyov. In other words, they weren’t even trying to hide it.
At some point, it escalated into outright hooligan brawling and a real assault. An ambulance had to be called for two people. The police standing nearby, realizing there was about to be a full-on fight involving around 200 people, simply brought in OMON riot police.
And after that, as usual, all the paid “protesters” lost interest and went off to collect their 300 rubles (about $3–4).
We started meeting with the volunteers: there were so many of them that we had to do it in two rounds.
They’re all fantastic, and seeing that kind of trash only made them want to work even harder.
And I’m also really glad I managed to visit the monument before the meeting. It was my first time in Volgograd, and I’d never seen it before.
I took some photos myself, and took pictures for tourists when they asked.
It really is an awe-inspiring sight.
The only thing is, you can’t get close to the pedestal. The country’s main victory monument has been in dangerous disrepair for years. Pieces of concrete break off and fall at its base.
According to the local authorities and United Russia, that does not insult veterans.
And that’s exactly the difference between us. We consider the state of the local roads, wages, and the monument itself to be offensive.
Putin finds it offensive that we have volunteers, while he has nothing but paid thugs.
This is going to be a great campaign.
The office is open from Monday, 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., at 6 Mira Street.
P.S. On the 26th, everyone to the rally. We’ll get back the money stolen by Medvedev and restore the Motherland Calls monument.