MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. More than 2,500 polling places opened at 08:00 local time (02:00 Moscow time) in the Sakha (Yakutia), Trans-Baikal and Amur Regions.
"As many as 937 permanent and five temporary polling places started operating in the Trans-Baikal Region. The latter are located at a railway station, in a Chita pretrial detention center, a Krasnokamensk hospital and at two mining enterprises. A polling station has been first established at the Bystrinsky Mining and Processing Plant built by Nornickel in the Gazimursky Zavod District," the local election commission told TASS.
The voting also started in more than 800 polling places in the Sakha Region (Yakutia). "Everything is quiet. The election campaign also passed quietly here, without any complaints of violations," said Deputy Chairman of the Yakutian Central Election Commission Ivan Androsov.
Nine polling places have been set up in the region’s places of voters’ temporary stay, but there are more of them in the neighboring Amur Region - 21. According to the regional election commission, they were established in hospitals, a pretrial detention center and even in a Blagoveshchensk shopping center.
An early voting was held in all three regions from late February to March 16. Members of local election commissions had to use cars, amphibious all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, helicopters and planes to reach shepherd stations, polar stations, border outposts, gold-mining areas, meteorological stations and nature reserves.
Reindeer and horse breeders, geoscientists, geologists and oil and gas industry workers also took part in the early voting. "So, members of a polling station commission spent about 12 hours to get to a distant community in Yakutia’s Oimyakon District and the same time for a return trip," Androsov said.