by Nadezhda Banchik
- USA -

On December 3rd, Russia had yet another parliamentary election. Here in the US elections are a normal part of a citizen’s life and changes in power aren’t extraordinary, “revolutionary” events. Here no leader of a party who calls his opponents “enemies like hungry jackals seek[ing] money from foreign embassies” would even get elected; instead he would be regarded as crazy and dangerous.

• Massive banners declaring, "Moscow Votes with Putin!" were posted throughout the city's most trafficked areas during the elections. Photograph by Dusdin. •

Younger generations who didn’t live through the Cold War might not understand how damning the President’s message is.

I am from the Ukraine. I was raised during the Brezhnev era, when Russia and the Ukraine were unified; that Soviet Union was also deaf to dissenting voices. Then during Gorbachev’s turbulent Perestroyka (or “Rebuilding”), I witnessed new independent states emerging from the ashes of the old communist empire. I watched as the difficult but seemingly peaceful birth of the new Russian Federation unfolded. We hoped that it would not draw us into another apocalypse. I held my breath happily during the coup in August 1991 that eradicated what we hoped would be the last attempt of the old regime to regain power. And Boris Yeltsin reigned victorious as President of a new Russia. However, before long any opponent of his administration, whether at the local level or at the very top, was considered an “enemy” of the state who should be arrested. And “elections” only offered a single candidate who “ran” unopposed.