Following events in Belarus and supporting the people in revolt with words, actions, and money is absolutely the right thing to do. But even more important is bringing political life back to your own cities.
On September 13, elections will be held in which more than 40 million people will be eligible to take part. Smart Voting covers most of these campaigns. And let me remind you: without it, figuring out how to use your vote as effectively as possible is practically impossible. So sign up.
And the most important thing right now is to support the few brave Spartans who still managed to break through all the barriers and become candidates. That alone is a huge achievement in conditions where United Russia is so afraid of losing that it is purging candidates across the board, trying not to let anyone through at all.
Here are those brave people. The plan is very simple:
Look through the list of candidates. Send money to the campaign account of whichever candidate or candidates you like. Any Russian citizen from any city can do this. Think of acquaintances, relatives, and friends in these cities, and tell them about our candidates. In any case, sign up for Smart Voting yourself and persuade everyone you know to sign up as well. If you live in one of the cities where elections will be held in a month, sign up to be an election observer. We’re going to need a lot of observers this time!
NOVOSIBIRSK
In Novosibirsk, we have a coalition of 34 candidates led by campaign coordinator Sergei Boyko:
In 2015, Sergei ran for the Novosibirsk Region Legislative Assembly as a candidate from the Democratic Coalition. He collected signatures and ended up in intensive care after a hunger strike demanding that the opposition be allowed onto the ballot. In 2017, he joined the fight against rising housing and utility rates, becoming one of the organizers of mass protest rallies. In 2019, he came second in the Novosibirsk mayoral election, and now he has assembled an entire coalition to win a majority in the City Council and remove Lokot from the post of mayor.
All coalition candidates are listed on the website https://nsk2020.ru/
You can find your candidate by district number and support them by making a transfer using the details listed in their profile.
TOMSK
Ksenia Fadeeva (District 4: Dzerzhinka area, Tverskoy, Kartashova)
Ksenia’s campaign account details can be found here.
Andrei Fateev (District 11: the area bounded by Sibirskaya Street, Komsomolsky Avenue, Frunze Street, and Belinsky Street)
Andrei’s campaign account details can be found here.
CHEBOKSARY
Semyon Kochkin (District 17: Volzhsky-3, Raduzhny, the area around School No. 27, the Institute of Education, the medical college, and the mechanical engineering faculty of Chuvash State University)
You can support Semyon’s campaign here.
LIPETSK
Ilya Danilov (District 29: Universitetsky and Yeletsky neighborhoods)
Vladislav Zlobin (District 25: the 12th and 8th microdistricts)
The campaign account details for Ilya and Vladislav can be found here.
KOSTROMA
Alexander Zykov (District 7: Rabochie Streets, Rabochy Prospekt, Novy Byt, Katushechnaya, Lenin Street, Novo-Polyanskaya; Polyansky and Mayakovsky lanes)
You can support Alexander’s campaign here.
MOSCOW, BABUSHKINSKY DISTRICT
Anna Barvashova (Multi-member District 1)
Anna’s campaign account details can be found here.
MAGADAN
Dmitry Zhurov (District 4: the Nagayevo and Kristall microdistricts, as well as the private housing area on the hill where DOSAAF (a voluntary defense training society) is located)
You can support Dmitry’s campaign by making a transfer using the following details: Recipient: Dmitry Igorevich Zhurov Tax ID: 490911701680 Account number: 40810810036009000069 BIC: 044442607 Bank: NORTH-EASTERN BRANCH No. 8645, SBERBANK PJSC Correspondent account: 30101810300000000607
BEREZNIKI
Elena Guseva (District 3: the area from the intersection of Lenin Avenue and Mindovsky Street to the intersection of Lenin Avenue and Pyatiletki Street)
Anatoly Isakov (District 9: the area between the Gazety Zvezda and Yubileynaya Square stops)
Dmitry Goryaev (District 16: the area around the Tchaikovsky Music School and the settlement of Abramovo)
Artem Faizulin (District 17: the area bounded by Mira Street, Paris Commune Street, and Sverdlov Street)
Evgeny Voronchikhin (District 26: the left-bank part of the former Usolsky district and part of Naberezhnaya Street)
You can support the coalition in Berezniki here.
NOVGOROD REGION, BOROVICHI
Eduard Kopasov (District 3)
Eduard’s campaign account details
NOVGOROD REGION, OKULOVKA
Tatyana Rumyantseva (District 1)
Tatyana’s campaign account details
NOVGOROD REGION, OKULOVKA
Dmitry Sokolov (District 2)
Dmitry’s campaign account details
NOVGOROD REGION, OKULOVKA
Svetlana Kuznetsova (District 2)
Svetlana’s campaign account details
NOVGOROD REGION, PARFINSKOYE URBAN SETTLEMENT
Valentina Beletskikh (District 1)
Valentina’s campaign account details
ORENBURG REGION, ORSK
Gulmira Kozhmuratova (District 14: the area from Stanislavsky Street to Vasnetsov Street, between School No. 4, School No. 50, and Gymnasium No. 2)
Gulmira’s campaign account details
MOSCOW REGION, YEGORYEVSK
Natalya Kolosova (District 16: the 4th microdistrict)
Natalya’s campaign account details.
And by the way, that’s still not all of our candidates. There’s also a team in Tambov: Diana Rudakova, Anna Nefedova, Igor Slivin, and Leonid Yarygin. All of them were thrown off the ballot using an old, brazen trick — a certificate from the Federal Migration Service, with incorrect data from the signature sheets deliberately entered so that the database would show these people supposedly did not exist. Here is Diana Rudakova’s post, where she explains it in detail. Our coordinator in Nizhny Novgorod, Roman Tregubov, was first registered and then arbitrarily removed after a complaint from an LDPR member. Our candidate in Izhevsk, Ivan Eliseev, was also removed using the migration service database, while our team of candidates in Voronezh, led by coordinator Evgeny Karpov, was removed over signatures, based on a fake report by a “handwriting expert.” The most absurd registration denials came from Samara: those were elections to district councils, where candidates literally only had to collect 12 to 14 signatures to register, and even then the commission straight-facedly told them that they had supposedly forged those signatures — signatures from their own close relatives and friends. Our lawyers are working on all of these cases, we are filing appeals, and I think we will be able to get many of these candidates reinstated — the denials are just that crude and ridiculous. The point there is probably not even to keep them off the ballot, but to waste their time on court cases and appeals, and stop them from campaigning. There’s only a month left!
Support the candidates.
In the districts where we have our own candidates, vote for them. In all other districts, use Smart Voting.
Observe.
Win.
That’s the plan.