Putin loves using “locomotives” in elections. These are special figures placed on United Russia party lists who spend the entire campaign pretending they are actually running for office. Then, once the election is over, they give up their seats and hand the mandates to the people below them on the list—unknown crooked United Russia loyalists who will be the ones sitting in the State Duma for the next five years. The names of the main “locomotives” are well known: Shoigu and Lavrov. But there are also regional “locomotives”—governors who head United Russia’s lists in their own regions. Today we’re dissecting one of them. This is about Alexander Evstifeev, who heads the Mari El Republic and has spent his entire career in government service. That did not stop him from amassing property worth 1 billion rubles in Russia and the Czech Republic. Georgy Alburov @alburov explains.