Novosibirsk Zoo asked to stop voting for the symbol of the city due to cheating and “political farce”

The Novosibirsk authorities had to stop voting for the mascot of the city, recognized as the New Year’s capital of the Russian Federation, because of the “political farce”. It is reported by Kommersant.

Initially, five pets of the Novosibirsk Zoo claimed the role of the symbol of the city: Aisha’s cat, Batu the orangutan, Max the Amur tiger, Sayan the snow leopard and Shilka the polar bear. In the first week of voting, Batu became the leader, whose candidacy was supported not only by the townspeople, but also by the well-known blogger Ilya Varlamov. But over the weekend the situation changed and the polar bear Shilka came out on top.

Bloggers and politicians, including Novosibirsk City Council deputy Sergei Boyko, suspected electoral fraud and urged citizens to vote for “the people’s candidate” Batu, who eventually won almost 40% of the vote, beating his main rival Sayan.

As Anna Tereshkova, head of the Department of Culture, Sports and Youth Policy of the Novosibirsk City Hall, explained on Instagram, the voting was stopped at the request of the zoo itself.

“Today we see that our animals have become participants in a farce organized by people,” comments the Novosibirsk Zoo, one of the city’s favorite leisure spots. – The poll is used for purposes far from choosing a symbol of the festive Novosibirsk – a number of bloggers, deputies, journalists (including those who have nothing to do with our city) called on their audience to give the poll for the talisman a political coloring. The Novosibirsk Zoo is not interested in such attention to our pets, we do not like the creation of offensive memes, so we ask you to stop the survey and do not take into account its results.