Communist Candidate Says 'No' To Debates

Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin on March 1 announced he won't participate in any more televised debates as part of the presidential campaign because they were more like talks shows than serious discussions.

"In Russia...one candidate pour obscene language all over another one while that one pours water on him," Grudinin wrote.

Grudinin was referring to the February 28 debate in which seven candidates (President Putin is not participating in debates or other campaign activities) shouted over one another, nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky called journalist Ksenia Sobchak a "whore" and a "prostitute," while Sobchak responded by flinging a glassful of water at him.

Grudinin said such debates organized by "progovernment propagandists with the aid of the Central Election Commission create a negative impression about the elections among the people."

"I refuse to participate in such 'debates,'" Grudinin wrote in a statement on the Communist Party's website, "and I insist that the suggestions we submitted to the leadership of the television channels and the Central Election Commission about who should participate and changes to the format be accepted."

Electile Dysfunction?

Our Russian Service looks at how VK has become a hotbed of electoral cheerleading as erotica and adult-oriented publishers team up.

In Russian!

Sex-tendance: How Youth Is Being Lured To The Election Through Social Media

Our Russian Service is holdling a vlog contest on the elections, encouraging readers to submit entries here:

The only condition: vlogs should be about what you or people around you think about the elections. The rules are simple: stories up to 10 minutes, and no foul language, insults, or aggression.

Novelist Akunin Endorses Election Boycott

Popular novelist and outspoken liberal Grigory Chkhartishvili (who writes under the pen name Boris Akunin) has posted on Facebook that he is "a convinced supporter of a boycott" of the March 18 presidential election.

"It doesn't matter who you vote for," he wrote. "If you go to the polling station, you have already voted -- for the legitimacy of these 'elections' and of such a government."

He expressed the hope that the democratically minded candidates who agreed to participate in this "farce" will, "having taken advantage of the campaign period, on the eve of the 'voting' will stop running around like cockroaches and call on everyone to join the boycott. Otherwise, they will never be clean again."

Opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has dismissed the election as "the reappointment of Vladimir Putin" and has called for a boycott.

Russian officials have launched a multipronged effort to encourage participation.

This Yabloko activist claims (and appears to demonstrate) that a regional state TV branch silenced his phrase "Putin must go" during his official campaign appearance.

A must-read.

Some of our Russian team annotated Putin's March 1 speech, with a particular emphasis on domestic issues (as opposed to the weapons spectacular).

Putin's 'State Of The Nation' Speech: Annotated

Our Russian Service picks up on a report asserting that students, state workers, and workers from certain companies are being ordered or lured with promises of payments of up to 500 rubles ($8.75) to attend this Saturday's pro-Putin rally at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium.

Moscow To Offer Free Cancer Screening At Polling Stations

Among the initiatives put forward in his state-of-the-nation address on March 1, President Putin called for the creation of a national anticancer campaign.

The same day, Moscow health authorities announced that free cancer screening would be offered at some city polling stations on election day.

"We decided to take advantage of the fact that Muscovites will come out to vote on the 18th and so are setting up in several school nurses offices places where we can conduct such testing," Moscow Health Department head Aleksei Khripun told journalists.

Under the plan, Muscovites can have blood drawn for free at city clinics on March 17 and receive screening at their polling station the next day.

The Kremlin reportedly is concerned that low voter turnout could tarnish the vote and has launched many initiatives designed to encourage voters to come to the polls.

Putin Promises Russian 'Victories' At Campaign Rally At Moscow Stadium

By RFE/RL

Incumbent President Vladimir Putin has held a campaign rally at a major Moscow sports arena, promising “victories” for Russia in remarks to a supportive audience 15 days before an election that seems certain to hand him a new six-year term.

"We want our country to be bright and looking to the future, for our children and grandchildren...we will do everything we can for them to be happy," Putin told the cheering crowd at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium on March 3.

"Nobody else will do this for us,” said Putin, who has frequently portrayed Russia as a country that is facing severe pressure from abroad and can rely only on itself. “And if we do this, the coming decade and the whole 21st century will be marked by our bright victories."

Ahead of the rally, media reports provided evidence that some people, including state workers, students, and private company employees, were forced, pressured, or paid to attend.

The event, given ample coverage by state media, was one of the closest things to a traditional campaign rally Putin has held since he announced in December that he would seek a fourth Kremlin term in the March 18 vote.

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'Apologies' For Attack On Candidate Sobchak

The head of the Moscow Duma has expressed "sincere apologies" to candidate Ksenia Sobchak for an attack by an "intern" in which the perpetrator pushed her and doused her with water, reportedly shouting, "For Zhirinovsky!"

Sobchak last week in one of the candidates' televised debates threw a glassful of water at ultranational candidate and provocateur-excellence Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Zhirinovsky called her a "whore" in the same exchange, for which Sobchak's campaign has reportedly filed a complaint with prosecutors.

Duma chairman Aleksei Shaposhnikov described alleged attacker Alan Dutsev's actions toward Sobchak, at an event marking Mikhail Gorbachev's 87th birthday, as a "provocation and hooliganism." Some reports had suggested Dutsev was an aide to Shaposhnikov, but the United Russia member said the man was in fact a "Moscow City Duma intern" and "not a [Duma] staff member nor my assistant."

The debates have veered toward spectacle, with the clear front-runner, incumbent Vladimir Putin, saying from the start that he would not participate. Communist candidate Pavel Grudinin participated initially but vowed to drop out, saying the debates were "a circus."