Tomorrow in Magnitogorsk the local parliament will elect a mayor. Obviously the elections are indirect, which is quite sad, but as it is there are few places left in Russia where the mayor is directly elected by voters without any intermediary. It is clear that now in Russia there are probably no parliaments in which United Russia does not have a majority. And therefore it seems that the results of any votes are predetermined. But this is not always the case. Because politics, including grassroots politics, exists in one way or another, it is simply outside the bounds of party competition. So in Magnitogorsk former Duma Deputy Stanislav Naumov came up against the current mayor Berdnikov. He collected signatures to represent Magnitogorsk and the surrounding area in the federal parliament, but was never allowed to participate in the elections. And it was always possible to find formal reasons not to let the mayor participate in the elections. Well, let's say the stamp on the certificate is something very hard to see or the date is one or seven. By the way, there were such cases, I'm not making this up. The fact that he is participating in the mayoral elections is a rather unexpected turn for me. How can I explain this? Usually, mayors of big cities rush to the State Duma, especially given the meager powers of local government. Naumov, on the contrary, moves from the State Duma to the municipal level. I personally don't know any more deputies like that from the previous convention. And this very fact raises the status of local government in the country and history immediately becomes federal. Then options are already possible, so to speak, and the choices themselves become less predictable than it seems at first glance.