On earth, in heaven and on the river

Candidate for mayor of Moscow from the New People party, Vice Speaker of the State Duma Vladislav Davankov on Wednesday summed up the preliminary results of his election campaign. He believes that he held it “brightly” and in a light form conveyed to people the problems in the capital. For example, with TV presenter Elena Letuchaya, he was looking for garbage at the bottom of the Moscow River, jumping from a ten-meter tower with Olympic champion Ilya Zakharov, riding a Moskvich journalist Ksenia Sobchak and inspecting the availability of bike lanes on an electric scooter. Mr. Davankov considers almost three dozen bills submitted to the State Duma to be the main result of his campaign, on which he promises to continue work regardless of the results of the upcoming elections.

To sum up the results of the campaign, as well as to start it, Vladislav Davankov again preferred an informal atmosphere, inviting journalists, political scientists and members of his headquarters for a boat trip along the Moscow River. Recall that the conference on his nomination for mayor was held in Serebryany Bor in the format of a picnic with barbecue, which the vice-speaker prepared personally.

Right before the river walk, Mr. Davankov inspected the infrastructure of the capital’s bike paths on a rental electric scooter, reporting the results on his social networks. True, the deputy personally did not manage the ship, although in a recent video interview with Ksenia Sobchak he himself steered the Moskvich, which he took for a test drive to prepare a bill on transplanting officials and deputies to domestic cars.

The location on the Moskva River was probably not chosen by chance: this is how Vladislav Davankov drew attention to the situation with places for fishing and swimming. According to him, in recent years their number in the capital has decreased from 16 to 10, although the candidate himself is sure that the Moscow River, if desired, can be cleared to a state where it will be possible to swim in it. During his campaign, he even, together with the famous TV presenter Elena Letuchaya, dived for garbage to the bottom of the Moscow River and eventually fished out a whole scooter from there. Based on the results of the summer eco-action, Mr. Davankov promised, together with experts, to develop a comprehensive program for cleaning up the Moscow River, which he did not forget to mention at the final press conference. According to him, he has already analyzed documents with regulations on the use of the river and knows how to tighten them.

But the main results of his campaign candidate of “New People” considers meetings with Muscovites in 116 districts of the capital and 25 bills submitted to the Duma. He does not intend to stop at the last figure and promises to submit several more projects in the days remaining before the elections. For example, amendments are scheduled for September 7 to give municipal deputies the right to veto infill development if the construction project impairs people’s access to social facilities or their quality of life in general. In addition, the deputy plans to introduce a bill on the ability of residents to evaluate the work of officials and, in case of dissatisfaction with it, initiate consideration of this issue at the site of the City Duma.

As Kommersant previously reported, Vladislav Davankov has become one of the leaders in terms of the number of legislative initiatives submitted to the Duma during the current parliamentary recess. In particular, he single-handedly prepared amendments limiting the increase in parking fees to the growth rate of the average monthly salary in the corresponding constituent entity of the Russian Federation, and together with his colleagues in the faction, he introduced bills on deferment from the army for young fathers and on the possibility of introducing mandatory requirements for school uniforms only with the consent of more half of the parents.

Meetings of Mr. Davankov with Muscovites, according to him, will form the basis of a “handbook” for the mayor of any Russian city, which is scheduled to be released in March 2024. And the problems and proposals of Muscovites, voiced during these meetings, have already become the basis of the election program of the candidate from the New People, presented on August 29.

In general, Vladislav Davankov considers his election campaign approaching the final to be “bright”. “We tried to talk about existing problems in an easy way,” he explained. “You can drive around the districts a thousand times and talk about what a cool sport is diving. And you can jump once, and the number of people who want to enroll in the section will increase many times over.” During the campaign, the vice-speaker, together with Olympic diving champion Ilya Zakharov, jumped from a ten-meter tower in the capital’s Chaika swimming pool, thus taking part in a project aimed at popularizing a healthy lifestyle.

In a conversation with reporters, Mr. Davankov admitted that he hopes to take second place in the elections, which will be held from September 8 to 10 (after the current mayor Sergei Sobyanin). But the vice speaker did not speak openly about his participation in the future presidential campaign, as discussed by anonymous Telegram channels: “We usually discuss this issue in the party, and this is the decision of our central council. We plan that such a central council will be held in October, and then we will already decide on a candidate.”

Elena Rozhkova