Inching Election-Ward

As Russian elections inch closer, the atmosphere in the country becomes increasingly neurotic. As state officials and businessmen tread blindly towards the parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections in March, they are on the lookout for any sign of which way the wind blows. Will Putin be the chosen candidate for the new six-year term? Will Medvedev? Will it be a totally new person?

Both leaders have stubbornly refused to say anything about their re-election intentions and, in the calm before this electoral storm, even the silliest political statements and campaign manifestations are unleashing political squalls.

Which creates a perfect environment for artists and pranksters. They can capitalize on the anxiety, fear and uncertainty (despite leaders’ assurances that everything is business as usual) to promote themselves and add a bit of spark to Russia’s political life. Or maybe this is all part of a larger plot, where street art and cartoons are being used to facilitate someone’s Kremlin power-grab.

How would we know? Should we even care?

Exhibit A: superputin.ru

Vladimir Putin is cast as an enlightened martial arts superhero in this comic strip inaugurated in May by a group of Russian artists (with captions offered in Russian, English, German, French, German and Polish, in case you needed any hint at the real audience). Medvedev is his sidekick, and his powers include transforming himself into a bear and commanding hi-tech gadgets (his four-legged iPad locates a bomb beneath a bus). The strip is called “Super Putin, A Man Like Any Other.” At the end of the first episode, Super Putin and Medvedev face a crowd of zombies that scream oppositional demands (in addition to “BRRRAINS!”) and wear blue buckets on their heads, mocking the grass roots movement that opposes the use of the flashing blue lights (migalkas) on officials’ cars. “Migalkas are empty, they have no soul,” Sergei Kalenik, one of the strip’s creators, told Russian Life. “And Putin is man like any other, but he is torn apart by internal contradictions.”

Exhibit B: monolog.tv

A rather more controversial send-up of the Dynamic Duo appeared on billboards and advertising posters this spring. The illustration showed Putin and Medvedev posing in fancy tennis whites, looking like overgrown prep school students. Hung near TsUM, Moscow’s most expensive department store, the posters advertised TsUM and were the creation of the strange poster-art website monolog.tv. “What I do is street art, art that demonstrates my view of what is happening...,” the author told BBC Russian Services when contacted through his website. “In the case of the TsUM posters, I took the two most famous people in our country who, despite the fact that we live in a consumerist society, are completely removed from the world of fashion and showbusiness.”

Exhibit C: Begi Za Mnoi

A prankster created a spoof fitness website zamnoi.org promoting the pro-Kremlin movement Nashi’s healthy lifestyle maxims, then posted an update that the movement was inviting Charlie Sheen to visit the Seliger summer camp. The annual camp attracts thousands of youth to the shores of Lake Seliger for several days of questionable patriotic workshops (one year the camp had an installation that showed the heads of Russian rights activists and opposition politicians on sticks and wearing Nazi uniforms). The website creator posed as a spokesman for a program called Begi Za Mnoi (Run After Me), saying that Russia’s State Youth Agency had obtained Sheen’s agreement to take part in a workshop to help form healthful habits. “As someone who sunk so low and was able to pull himself up, Charlie Sheen is the perfect role model,” the mock site said.

Kristina Potupchik, Nashi’s real spokesperson, swiftly jumped on her Livejournal blog and called the website a “provocation.” The individual behind the fake website was never found, and The Moscow Times quipped that Nashi, which has been implicated in everything from hacker attacks to smear campaigns against opposition politicians, “got a taste of their own medicine.” Meanwhile, the real website of Begi Za Mnoy (zamnoy.org) is so appalling and offensive that one can only applaud the hacker for making Nashi into a laughing stock.