As you know, Strelchenko, the mayor of Khimki just outside Moscow, whose administration became notorious for solving its problems by allegedly ordering people to be beaten with baseball bats, has finally been removed from office. What’s unclear, by the way, is why he was merely removed rather than put on trial. The election for a new mayor will take place on October 14. Yesterday, in the Khimki Forest (where else?), a meeting was held at which Yevgenia Chirikova was nominated as the “people’s candidate” for the post.
Personally, I’m absolutely delighted that Zhenya is running, and I support her in every possible way. Without any political party or “support from above,” she built a genuine grassroots environmental movement. She has proven herself an effective politician and organizer by forcing the issue of the Khimki Forest onto the national agenda. She wore down that thug Strelchenko and got him removed from office. She fought fearlessly and continues to fight, despite the very real danger faced by her and her supporters. One need only recall the “Beketov case,” the “Fetisov case,” and the numerous attacks on the camp in the Khimki Forest. She is a public figure with support from across the ideological spectrum: both the far left and nationalists spoke at the “Anti-Seliger” and “Last Autumn” events she organized. In the previous election, when she was still virtually unknown, and without spending almost a kopeck on campaigning, she immediately won 15% of the vote. No matter how many approaches were made to her to “settle the forest issue,” she never once gave in to offers of money or positions. She is a “protest political activist” capable of running on an entirely constructive platform. She has the experience, knowledge, and education to understand urban problems and manage a city’s municipal services. She certainly won’t look any worse than those figures who were put in charge of a city of 12 million and first slapped dedicated traffic lanes everywhere without proper planning, and now will spend 52 million of our money to paint them over. At the end of the day, everyone in Khimki knows her and supports her. The fight will not be easy: Khimki is the second-largest city in Moscow Region, one of the richest cities in the country, and occupies an extremely important position. Land there is insanely expensive, and so on. It appears that Chirikova’s main rival, and the candidate from the Party of Crooks and Thieves (a derogatory nickname for United Russia), will be Oleg Shakhov, brought in from Tula Region and representing the interests of the Rotenberg brothers, some of the most influential Kremlin-connected crooks. All right then. Let Chirikova take on the Rotenbergs now too. She needs help doing it.