Tennis Lessons at a Polling Station

As it turns out, the place Romchyk and Maya have tennis lessons on Saturday nights, in Nyvky, is a polling station. The corridor on the way to the courts is lined with posters for what seems like 100 meters. At the end of the hall two police officers are guarding the door to where the voting booths have been set up and the ‘vybortcha komisia’ is scurrying around getting ready for tomorrow’s elections.  The posters of right side of the corridor are all identical in format.
The name of the party, mug shots of the top five deputy candidates on the list followed by a text description of the party’s platform.  On the left, the posters have the name of the party at the top and a list of the all deputies on that party’s ticket.  It is pretty sickening to see the former head of the CEC, Kivalov, among others, high up on the Regions list. To add to the fun, underneath the posters are A4 black and white sheets for each Kyiv mayoral candidate. There’s a lot of text up there on the walls. It would take hours to read it all.  

Cousin D is in town from New York and now in Dnipropetrovsk observing the election. Cousin M, affectionately known as “Uncle Buck” due to his random appearances, is in from Chicago observing in Odesa.

Romchyk has quite a forehand, Maya just drank a bottle of Bonaqua water (no-gas). I’m off-line (no wireless at the polling station/tennis center) and wondering what is happening in Minsk where things were heating up when we left.   CNN showed footage of large quantities of militia forming…it was an ugly sight.