Posted Sunday, March 7, 2004; 14.48GMT
Something strange was going on in Khabarovsk. Army conscripts, braving a fierce late-February blizzard, swept snow from the steps outside the Platinum Forum, a new sports complex in this city of 580,000 in Russia's far east — 6,500 km from Moscow, just 32 km from the Chinese border. Elsewhere, municipal workers were carefully trimming snow-covered trees on the city's main streets. And the TV weatherman warned of traffic jams, though not because of snow drifts. "You will be having a very high visitor," he predicted, but he wouldn't say who — and neither would the newspapers.
A news blackout is an odd way to kick off a presidential campaign swing, but almost everything about Vladimir Putin's re-election effort — which is expected to carry him to a landslide victory next week — seems odd. When Putin arrived in Khabarovsk, for instance, he didn't even pretend to be enjoying his time on the stump. His presidential motorcade swept straight from the airport to the edge of the city, where Putin presided at a tightly scripted ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of a transport bridge (even though it had been in use for a year). He posed with some workers but didn't chat, headed into town for a brisk meeting with regional governors and sped back to the airport.
As his cortege sailed down Amur Boulevard, commuters at a bus stop watched in silence. Putin wasn't looking out the window, and no one in the crowd waved or even smiled — though virtually all of those who bother to vote will cast their ballots for him. A young office worker named Nastya Khristenko was scathing about the secrecy that enveloped Putin's visit, but said she would "definitely" vote for him. "We voted Yeltsin for two terms, and we'll do the same for Putin," she explained. "Nothing good came of Yeltsin, and nothing good will come from him. But we don't know anyone else."
The presidential campaign swing through Khabarovsk is a handy snapshot of the parallel worlds that make up Putin's Russia on the eve of the March 14 election. The numbers say Putin is wildly popular, with approval ratings in the upper 70s and polls suggesting he'll get between 64% and 80% of the vote. But it's hard to find anyone who is truly excited about him. Most credible opponents declined to run after pro-Putin parties won parliamentary elections in December that were widely judged unfair. Those candidates still in the race are barely serious opponents, like Sergei Mironov, whose campaign motto amounts to "Re-elect Putin."
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