Raffi Aftandelian of maaskva: nashimi glazami writes (in English and in Russian, as always) about an American who went to the polling station instead of her apolitical Russian friend and voted for Grigoriy Yavlinsky: “I think even if given the chance I would never have voted for Yavlinsky. I was rather troubled by how the Yabloko Party chose to respond to the bombing of Chechnya in 1999 (they supported it). I also think that when we choose to consistently badmouth the people in power, we are unwittingly discrediting ourselves and end up helping the people in power to continue the abuses they are engaging in.”