Trying to Build Democracy in a Hellish Russian Village Called Paradise - Daily Beast
RAI, Russia—The central square of Vokhma town, in the Kostroma region of central Russia, looked like a scene from some brutal documentary about post-Soviet decay: an abandoned diner called Pelmeni, or Dumplings, on the corner. and a few crooked houses along crumbling asphalt roads. And Vokhma town was the last outpost of civilization—a few grocery stores, hairdressers, a clinic and gas stations—on the road to this village with the sad name of Rai, or Paradise. Last month, for the first time in many years, the opposition RPR-Parnas party ran primaries in three Russian provincial regions: Kostroma, Novosibirsk and Kaluga, where not many people knew what the word “primaries” meant. A few slow hours on a wildly bumpy, muddy road, and here we were in the half- abandoned village of Paradise, with black, crooked houses, a heavy-drinking population, and everybody depressed and angry with Kostroma and Moscow authorities. Paradise seemed forgotten among the fields covered in wild grass, the beginning of the taiga that stretches like an enormous blanket over the vast lands of Siberia and beyond. Next to Paradise is a village called Jerusalem. Kostroma region has lived for a long time on the. Source: www.thedailybeast.com
