Bratsk and Irkutsk are cities of special significance to us. The business career of one of our favorite characters, Dmitry Medvedev, began at Ilim Pulp, the owner of the Bratsk Timber Processing Complex. Another old friend of the ACF, Yury Chaika, studied at the law institute in Irkutsk together with the prosecutor from Kushchyovskaya (a village notorious for a brutal organized-crime massacre), Korzhinek. The mayor of Irkutsk, Dmitry Berdnikov, is the son of Albina Kovaleva, the “godmother” of the Chaika clan. Verkhnelensk River Shipping Company and Tyret Salt Mine, both owned by Artyom Chaika, are all here in Irkutsk Region.
Perhaps that is exactly why the efforts to block the opening of campaign offices in the region were so openly gangster-like. The son of the landlord renting space to the Irkutsk office was beaten right inside the office. In Bratsk, windows were smashed at the office, at the coordinator’s home, and at his brother’s home. And yesterday, a young man approached the coordinator’s mother on the street and said: “The most important people in our city asked me to pass along the message that there will be no Navalny office in Bratsk. Think about the future of your children and grandchildren.” We have probably never seen anything like this in any other region; clearly, the Chaikas’ way of doing business is alive and thriving.
But the real “most important people” in Bratsk and Irkutsk are not the local thugs at all. They are our wonderful volunteers. And they have decided otherwise: the office will open.
Onward we go: tomorrow, Navalny’s campaign will open its 49th office in the last remaining city of over one million people not yet covered by our network—Omsk.