This morning as I sipped that cup of delicious coffee (or chicory in my case), I was doing some thinking’s about webcams that I was able to watch yesterday as the presidential election unfolded in Russia. It was amazing and really an incredible feat pulled off by Russia. I was able to watch deep in the heart of Siberia, a mother with her three children vote and then I was able to move to Moscow and watch a mother with her three children vote. Then I could watch a Babushka vote in Saint Petersburg and so on and so on and so on and so on…
Why Sveta and sat and watched them count the votes at the polling station where she cast her vote. I will be posting that video in the next few days. Then I will also post a video of many of the polling stations that I jumped to. They are from all over Russia…
The photo above is the election monitoring command center that allowed the officials to keep an eye on what was happening all over Russia. It is rather impressive how in such a short time that Russia put a network together that encompassed over 90,000 webcams and hardly had an issue keeping it online through the whole process…
I am going to post a long video of what I recorded because I really think that you need to see Russia, as Russia really is. Everywhere I went on the webcam system I saw what I see as everyday life in Russia. Why we got to even watch the cleaning lady mop the floors as they shut the buildings down for the night. The exception of everyday life for me was in Siberia where you could tell by the way people were dressed that cold was an understatement. I was mesmerized by the difference in people in that part of Russia. They had such a hardened look about them and it was hard to tell ages by the faces because they were all weather worn by a hard life. It was really interesting… 🙂
Russia had webcams everywhere and I mean everywhere. In fact I have found many webcams still running and the polling stations are empty and clean. The photo below is what you see to start your search. You click on the blue square nearest to where you live and then you work your way to your favorite polling station one click at a time. The squares have the number of polling stations inside of the box – visible. It was great and worked fantastic…
http://webvybory2012.ru/#81132 is the link if you still want to play around. You can still find a site open if you look hard enough and occasionally you will find someone messing around and cleaning…
That is how I found/made a video of Sveta and her son Misha voting: http://windowstorussia.com/sveta-and-misha-voting-in-russia.html
I have one last thought: Hey America! You need to do this same thing and make the voting process in America just as open and free as in Russia! The heat is on America – Can you match Russia in being an open democracy?
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!