PINE NUTS: She Cleaned City Hall Until She Became Mayor
In Russia’s managed democracy of this 21st century, sometimes, though not often, an underdog candidate will actually win an election. It’s rare as hens’ teeth, but it happened a couple years ago in the tiny village of Povalikhino. The incombent mayor was in desperate need of an opponent to fill out his official looking ballot, but everybody knew the odds, and nobody would step-up. So the mayor asked city hall janitor, Marina Udgodskaya, if she might be willing to place her good name on the ballot as his opponent. Marina must have rolled her eyes and thought, “Oh well, what the hell!” Because she acceded, and amazingly, she won.
Marina suddenly found herself to be the honorable mayor of Povalikhino, and of course her first order of business was to hire a reliable replacement to clean city hall, then the good mayor took to procuring streetlights for the village. Such an anomaly can happen in a small Russian village, but in cities or national elections…Nyet.
