Moscow will test its electronic voting system on August 28 through a public ballot on relocating a statue of Alexander Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard.
The announcement on the official website of the Moscow Mayor's office states that voting will take place from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. Voters across all districts of the Russian capital will be able to cast their ballots either remotely online or in person at local polling stations.
Prominent film director Nikita Mikhalkov proposed returning the bronze monument of Pushkin, Russia's celebrated 19th-century national poet, to its original historical site. Prior to 1950, the monument stood at the start of Tverskoy Boulevard, the oldest thoroughfare on Moscow's Boulevard Ring, where it faced the historic Strastnoy Monastery.
Soviet authorities later moved the sculpture to the opposite side of Tverskaya Street, placing it on the site of a demolished bell tower and turning the figure 180 degrees. Mikhalkov said that returning the monument to its original location would restore historical justice and allow the soul of the great genius to rest in peace.
City officials selected the question of relocating the statue to test the capital's remote electronic voting system, known as DEG, prior to major upcoming parliamentary and local contests.
State Duma elections and municipal vote
Elections for deputies to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, are scheduled to take place from September 18 to September 20. Municipal deputy elections for the Shchukino district in northwestern Moscow will be held during the same three-day period.
Stolen Pushkin monument in Germany
The public testing in Moscow follows a recent incident in Germany, where another bronze statue of Pushkin was stolen from the city of Hemer. Sculptor Grigory Pototsky created that statue, which was presented to the German municipality by its Russian twin city of Shchelkovo, located in the Moscow region.
