[russian election] just came home from voting

BBC:

Civil servants have been ordered by their managers to vote, and there are reports that police and teachers are under similar pressure, our correspondent says.

This much is true. Why not? Aren't all westerners urged to turn out and vote by the powers that be?

There has been very little scrutiny of voting by Western election observers ...

I'd say none - the west simply does not want to know the truth.

There are already reports of irregularities.

OK - the best way to check this is to go there and see for myself. There are two polling stations near me - one I should really go to, according to my chit and the other - my old school where I stand a better chance of being recognized.

I decide to take a chance on my old school which raises the question - should I go along as a foreign observer or as a Russian?

I decide to go as a Russian, gather the documents, dress in my regulation black and head out into the slushy +1 degree with wet snow lightly falling.

As I approach the school, there are no how-to-vote cards, no one at all except for one lone militsia sitting on a chair at the top of the school steps and looking bored as I go in. Once inside I know my way about and immediately run into my old colleagues, which I think reassures the two militz over by the wall.

Slight difficulty when the militz on the door asks which number in my street I live at ... Oh no, you have the wrong school ... Er - how stupid of me ...

So I go to the other side of the foyer and on the wall, alongside the rogue's gallery of teaching staff [I notice my photo is no longer there] is a metre by metre poster of the four candidates and their blurbs.

Can't help feeling Zhuganov and Zhirinovsky are looking a bit old these days.

So to the voting room, long and thin before me.

To the left is a honey in uniform and I will her, with my eyes, to detain me and interrogate me for a couple of hours but she just looks bored. So I think I'll stir it up a bit by talking to her, pulling out my Electoral Commission "invitation to vote" and show it to her.

Took a bit of doing to get her to smile but now she laughs that I've come to the wrong school. Only she looks a bit puzzled by my accent but my docs are at the ready.

The Vice-Director of the school now comes through, recognizes me and starts chatting about her daughter and the new grandchild - the militz honey sits down again, still puzzled.

I'm urged to have a cup of tea and to come back and teach at the school next semester and now I'm given the guided tour of the polling station.

Up front I ask where the ballot boxes are, worried that they're beside the registration trestle tables down the right wall [the booths are over by the left wall].

At those trestle tables are a member of the commission and various civilians. I tell my host straight away that I'm observing as the west should have done and that I plan to write it up and post it.

The Vice-Director, in answer to my question, points to two large white upright boxes in the centre of the end wall, well away from either booths or registration tables. Locals who've voted stand about chatting then go home.

I go home and write this to you.

It may well be that there are bombs in the south and irregularities - how can I say? They're always stirring things up against Russia down there. But irregularities here in our neck of the woods?

This is absolute rubbish. Why, oh why, couldn't the west send in observers to see what really is going down?

Answer - they don't want to be forced to see that an election is taking place today and to have to admit that Medvedev is legit.