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A ‘field of wonders’ for campaign season The Kremlin’s latest housing and travel giveaway just happens to coincide with Putin’s reelection bid

Source: Meduza

As Russia’s next presidential election approaches, the Putin administration has been busy manipulating the candidate list and preparing to use electronic voting machines to control the final count. But even with the official results a foregone conclusion, the Kremlin still wants to ensure that voters are feeling as warmly as possible towards their leader of 23 years when they go to the polls. To this end, the government is holding a nationwide family-values-themed event called “It Runs in the Family,” in which ordinary Russian families will compete in various challenges for chances to win prizes such as travel and housing. Meduza’s special correspondent Andrey Pertsev explains who’s organizing the event, how it will look, and what purpose it will serve as Putin gets ready for his fifth term in office.

The Kremlin is putting on a nationwide competition called “It Runs in the Family” as part of its efforts to maximize Vladimir Putin’s popularity in the run-up to the country’s March 2024 presidential election. Prizes will purportedly include 30 housing certificates worth five million rubles ($53,000) each, 300 trips around the country, and various “other rewards.” The initiative is being run by the nonprofit organization Russia — Land of Opportunity, which also puts on the Putin administration’s Leaders of Russia management competition and helps organize most of the country’s pro-Kremlin youth forums. According to its designers, “It Runs in the Family” is intended to “create a positive backdrop for the campaign at a complicated time” — referring, according to Meduza’s sources, to the ongoing rise in consumer prices amid sanctions and an appreciating currency exchange rate.

Officially, “It Runs in the Family” has no connection to the election, but its main stages are set to overlap with Vladimir Putin’s presidential campaign. For example, the competition officially begins on November 4 — the same day as the opening of the “Russia” forum, one of the key events of Putin’s campaign. As Meduza reported in July, the forum is intended to serve as an exhibition of achievements made by regional governments and government-linked businesses under the president’s rule; all of the country’s regional governments and state-linked businesses have been instructed to prepare presentations.

Meduza’s sources also said in July that Putin’s campaign would resemble a “series of holidays.” “The competition among families could be considered one of these ‘holidays,’” a political strategist close to the president’s administration said. To bolster the “festive” mood, Russia — Land of Opportunity plans to start giving out prizes to participants while the competition is still underway: after the intermediate stage, families will receive the aforementioned “other rewards.”

Russia’s federal media outlets have been told to cover the competition. “It’s going to be a ‘field of wonders,’ in the good sense,” Meduza’s source said. Kremlin-backed media has already written about the event, devoting articles to surveys conducted by its organizers on topics like “sociological portraits of Russian family members” (Headline: “35 percent of Russians associate their moms with love and warmth”) and “interests of the daughters and sons of Russia” (Headline: “Russians hope to see their kids become doctors and IT professionals). From October 2023 to January 2024, competition participants will complete various tasks online. The semifinals will be held in the capitals of the country’s federal districts, and the finals will be held in Moscow in the spring, after the election.

To succeed in the online stages, players will have to do homemaking tasks, such as cooking a meal according to video instructions from a pop musician and his family; perform a song; do an act that benefits others; and create a virtual family archive. Families from the Russian-annexed territories in Ukraine will compete in a separate category.

The competition’s organizing committee is led by Kremlin First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko, while the event is being managed by the head of the Kremlin’s Public Projects Department, Sergey Novikov. The advisory board includes pop musicians Dmitry Malikov and Sergey Zhukov, saxophonist Igor Butman, Black Star music label CEO Pavel Kuryanov, and cardiac surgeon Leo Bokeria. The event’s partners include state corporations such as Rosatom, Roscosmos, and RusHydro.

According to several officials and United Russia officials who spoke to Meduza, Russia’s regional governments have not yet received instructions from the Kremlin for how to cover the competition in local media or how to help its participants. Two sources close to the Putin administration, however, said that presidential envoys have given regional authorities a general overview of the event, explained its connections to the election, and warned that the administration may need assistance with promoting the competition and procuring prizes.

Russia’s regional governments have long been organizing lotteries and competitions in the lead-ups to elections. The largest of these initiatives have come from the Moscow Mayor’s Office: during the 2020 referendum on amending the Constitution and the 2021 State Duma elections, users of the city’s online Active Citizen service were given chances to win apartments and cars.

“It’s logical that they would have a centralized federal event [in the leadup to the presidential elections], especially with the emphasis on family values,” a source close to the Putin administration emphasized to Meduza. “This isn’t just an effect to attract [voters] using material resources; it's also patriotic work.”

According to the source, while competition participants do have to register online, this doesn’t mean the authorities will use their data for voter mobilization. “These [participants] are already loyal people — active [supporters] who believe [in the government],” he said.

At the same time, the source added, the players may act as “voluntary campaigners,” praising the authorities in conversations with their friends and loved ones. The event’s organizers say that more than 400,000 people (about 70,000 families) have applied to take part in the competition. “We hope that by the time registration ends [on November 4], there will be 500,000 participants — that’s a nice number,” said a source close to the Putin administration.

The deputy head of one of United Russia’s regional branches, two high-ranking regional officials, and one person close to the Putin administration told Meduza that “It Runs in the Family” is a “background project” of the presidential campaign whose goal is to “increase social optimism.” A political strategist who works with the Kremlin said that these kinds of campaign “background projects” are necessary so the administration can avoid being subject to campaign finance laws.

Another political strategist added: “[Say, for example,] an acting governor announces the start of a local beautification program called ‘One thousand courtyards.’ Formally, that’s not campaigning, but people associate the renovations with the image of the leader.”

Still, the first political strategist said he believes the competition’s organizers are primarily aiming to please Vladimir Putin himself rather than to influence the election results. “The emphasis on family values is clearly designed for the president, who’s constantly talking about them. [In this sense], the competition is a bureaucratic effort to earn the top leader’s favor.”