James writes this about the mayoral election in Sochi at Robert Amsterdam's blog: “It can be tough work to continue coming up with new ways to fake the democratic process … after a while, the voters seem to wonder ‘why bother?'” Russia! reports on the detention of journalist Keith Gessen by riot police in Sochi and his subsequent release : “Gessen's friend wrote in an email: ‘I just talked to him and he's fine. He was like ‘yeah I got arrested no big deal’.'” Two pre-election posts at RFE/RL's The Power Vertical – here and here.