PROVINCIAL

CENSORs… Saratov Governor Dmitri Ayatskov used a compliant local legislature to move election day from June to March, curtailing the opposition’s chance to organize. He won re-election with 67 percent of the vote. The elections, Izvestia wrote on April 14, “were carried out with outrageous violations of legality.” Of Ayatskov himself, the paper commented: “All of his promises have only one common characteristic–they are never fulfilled.” But Izvestia’s Moscow fulminations did not travel down the Volga. The paper’s Saratov edition said the elections were “…in the opinion of his main rivals, allegedly carried out with violations of legality.” And of the governor’s probity, the Saratov edition noted with a weird deadpan humor: “All of his promises have one common characteristic–they are sometimes fulfilled.”