NENETS AUTONOMOUS DISTRICT, Russia (AFP) — Grigory Vylka emerges from his traditional reindeer skin tent, the red sun setting over the vast expanse of snow, as a pair of election officials pull up outside on snowmobiles.
Assessing the new arrivals -- two election officials bearing a ballot box, together with AFP reporters -- Vylka, 60, his eyes blurred by cataracts and his teeth broken, declares in broken Russian: "What I want is a president with technology."
Russia's presidential election may be a stage-managed affair in the eyes of critics, but a major effort is made to reach voters in some of the remotest corners of the country.
Vylka and three companions with whom he herds reindeer get to vote ahead of other Russians, who vote on Sunday.
Members of the Nenets ethnic group, they are the only sign of life for thirty kilometres (20 miles) around in this harsh climate in the Arctic Circle.
President Vladimir Putin's designated favourite, Dmitry Medvedev, is seen as virtually sure to win Sunday's vote after a race skewed by biased media coverage and the exclusion of a number of potential contenders under controversial electoral rules.
Here however such debates seem very far away.
Election officials say that early voting is necessary to ease the logistics of an election in such a massive country.
The "travelling ballot" box transported by officials Maxim and Alexei has made the journey from an electoral commission office 150 kilometres (93 miles) away in Nelmin Nos, which itself lies 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) northeast of Moscow.
Vylka says he voted for Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov after hearing him speak on the radio that morning.
The radio is one of the few links between the Nenets, whose nomadic lifestyle revolves around their reindeer, and what they call the "Great Land," or the rest of Russia.
In this territory the only practical way to get around is by helicopter or snowmobile.
"The tundra needs technology," Vylka explains.
In a hurry to move on, Maxim and Alexei, who decline to give their surnames, explain that they have another 130 kilometres to cover before getting home.
Their day began eleven hours earlier when they headed out in the dark of early morning, pulling behind the snowmobile a sledge bearing food, petrol and a small military green bag containing, inside black plastic wrapping, the ballot box.
The journey across the uneven snow is tough, punctuated by bruising jumps and jolts, and interspersed with vodka and reindeer sausage for sustenance.
Navigation is a matter of following the reindeer and when they are not visible, their hoof prints.
"If you look you can see the reindeer tracks," says Maxim, a 23-year-old Nenets who has returned to work in the electoral commission after pursuing oil and gas studies in Saint Petersburg.
Arriving at a reindeer herding collective farm base 90 kilometres from Nelmin Nos, he and Alexei set up the ballot box in a wooden accommodation barrack.
Rusting teapots sitting on a large stove give off steam and as the locals line up to vote, several have blood on their hands from the raw reindeer meat they eat.
Among them, Stepan Vyuzhevsky is 45, but looks twenty years older. The tough life in the north is to blame, but so is vodka, which he has been drinking in large quantities this morning.
He claims to know who the candidates are, yet cannot say all their names.
As for Medvedev, Vyuzhevsky says "I saw him in a newspaper once.
"I can't say who he looks like but he had a good air about him," he said, his moustache wet with reindeer blood.
Nearby is a television and a bag full of video cassettes, the herders' only entertainment.
They have been promised a television aerial and when it eventually arrives, "we will find out who our future president is," Vyuzhevsky observes with a grin.
By 10 pm, after more than 300 kilometres and collecting a total of 12 ballot papers, Maxim and Alexei are desperate to get home.
They do so navigating by the stars.
Was the trip worth it for a dozen ballot papers, when the result is known in advance?
Maxim shrugs his shoulders and contents himself with a grin.
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