And now, the news of the election campaign. All regional campaign offices of Vladimir Putin have finally been established. There are 85 of them, one office in every region. The candidates themselves are continuing to meet their voters.
Evgeny Rozhkov with the details.
Gentlemen in waistcoats and tunics, ladies in poofy dresses. The leader of LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky is a bright mantle. He's both a professor and a founding father of the Institute of World Civilizations. On Tatiana's Day, he addresses the most important things — love and friendship and sings about life.
Zhirinovsky's advice is based on his personal experience.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, LDPR candidate: "Superstitions justify the failure. "Oh, I had to do that oh, I didn't set the alarm clock." Don't trust in superstitions trust in knowledge".
Zhirinovsky also drank a traditional cup of mead, the alcohol-free one and shared his presidential plans. His first decrees would rejuvenate the government and ban foreign words.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky: "A Decree on Protection of the Russian Language Sometimes, even I get confused. All those cryptocurrencies, mining, blockchain. How can a village kid decipher them? Not a single Russian word. We must protect the language. "Zakusochnaya" instead of" bar". "Gradonachalnik" instead of "mayor".
On the same day, Pavel Grudinin visited Samara. This morning, he danced with the students of the State Institute of Culture And then, together with his comrades, he descended into Stalin's Bunker a unique construction built in 1942 37 meters underground. It had everything the USSR leadership needed in case it got evacuated. Stalin had never been here but the Bunker is still an A-list object. And an A-list subject for Grudinin is the development of the regions.
Pavel Grudinin, KPRF candidate: "We need money to develop our territories. It stands in our platform, that no less than 50% of all regional revenue must remain there. The regions must not starve".
The recently discovered offshore in Tbilisi was mentioned at the conference. It owns the major part of the shares of Lenin Sovkhoz that is run by Pavel Grudinin.
Here's his response: "If a shareholder wants to hide behind an offshore we can't stop them from doing that. But I have my own capital, 44% of the shares and I'm sitting right here. The system works like this: My lead specialists, you'll see their names later work in the Sovkhoz and monitor everything. But shareholders have every right to do what they want. I can't stop them".
There's been a new twist in the story of Sergey Udaltsov. Recently, he and his wife have become Grudinin's official agents. Today, Udaltsov refused, saying that he'd like to represent the whole party and not particularly Grudinin. He referred to his wrong appointment a technical error but asked his comrades to process the documents more attentively or else, I quote: "It almost feels like the part of the KPRF leadership is cheating to prevent the allies of the campaign from taking part in the process".
Another leftist candidate Maxim Suraykin also lectured students about order. He mentioned Stalin a lot spoke about building socialism and even shared his view of the future.
Maxim Suraykin, Communists of Russia candidate: "Communists of Russia is the only Russian party whose main objective... If I win, of course, if people support us. ...is to return to the socialist way. Unfortunately, we're now living under capitalism a savage kind of capitalism. All our troubles are caused by our economic system".
Ksenia Sobchak is in Vladimir today. After discussing the future with the journalists she decided to see how the ones affected by the cold the most live. She visited a homeless shelter next to a bus station. It's a private one called "the Sun House." Sobchak is sure that the government must help these people.
Ksenia Sobchak, Civil Initiative candidate: "When I become the President I'll make it a state-run program. There are a lot of people in Russia who fell in trouble. In every city, the government must organize special places where a person can eat and rest when he is in trouble and they must be free".
Public defender Boris Titov spent the whole day wearing a lab coat. He was in the holiest place — a pharmacology laboratory of St. Petersburg's Technopark where all necessary and useful medicine is developed. From here, the medicine is distributed across the country.
Boris Titov, Party of Growth candidate: "We're searching for the way to make basic and complex medicine more accessible. In order to do that, we shouldn't import the molecule the substance from which medications are made but produce it in Russia. There are some serious investments in this sphere but we must provide our support".
Another candidate Sergey Baburin decided to speak on the eternal topic of good and evil. During the Christmas Readings, he addressed historical truth the topic which is especially acute today.
Sergey Baburin, Russian All-People's Union candidate: "We must formalize the historical mission of the Orthodox church without which our state wouldn't exist. We must understand the necessity to take politics seriously in order to create a basis of our fight for the spiritual purity of our society".
Today, Grigory Yavlinsky listened to and read poetry: "He wasn't afraid of a word or a bullet and never tried to conform...".
The lines from Vysotsky. The poet, actor, and bard would have celebrated his 80th birthday today. Gogolevsky Boulevard presented 80 documentary photographs of his career and life. We knew him as a citizen and a rebel.
Grigory Yavlinsky, Yabloko candidate: "I think this exhibition is consistent with the spirit of Vysotsky. It's sincere, modest, and honest. He was a real human being. He taught us how to live.
A campaign office of Vladimir Putin has opened in Oryol. The locals have been standing in queues to sign up to be volunteers mostly young people.
Vadim Bagrintsev, head of the regional campaign office: "We've gathered 12,000 signatures and sent the best 6000 to Moscow. I'm pleased to note that our Oblast is one of the best. No signature was returned and all papers were accepted on the first try".
A new Putin's reception center has been opened at Gorky Street 37. The volunteers of Putin's public support office in Kamchatka have a much harder time. The distances are huge. Most districts like Olutorsky, Penjinsky, or Karaginsky could only be accessed with a helicopter. The local offices are working exclusively on a voluntary basis.
Evgeny Rozhkov, Dmitry Petrov Maxim Shipilov, and Ilgiz Hakimov Vesti
