There are few starker illustrations of the plight of Russia’s beleaguered opposition than the election battle being fought in one provincial town on the banks of the River Volga.
Beneath the picturesque onion domes of Kostroma, 345 kilometers from Moscow, Russia’s main opposition party, Parnas — led by Boris Nemtsov until his assassination last year — is making a solitary election stand.
Most of its candidates in nationwide local elections this weekend were disqualified, with officials citing election irregularities.
But in Kostroma its candidate, Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin, has been permitted to stand, thrusting the town into the spotlight.
“It’s very difficult to campaign in Kostroma region, so that’s why we were allowed to participate here,” Yashin told CNN on the campaign trail.
“But we have a very simple message. We want to show people there’s an alternative,” he added.
You won’t see Yashin on Russian television, nor on many of the election posters that festoon Kostroma. State media is essentially ignoring him.
But the former Nemtsov ally is determined to deliver that anti-Kremlin, anti-corruption message — even if there are few people around to hear him say it.
“I understand we won’t be able to change anything with this election,” Yashin told the seven pensioners who were the only potential voters to turn up at one event CNN attended.
“We won’t be able to change the government and the government doesn’t want to do anything. But that’s why you need the opposition, to hold the government to account, and to make officials work,” Yashin told them.
It has been a grinding campaign that does not promise to deliver much in terms of opposition support. At one point a frustrated Yashin lashed out at us, accusing CNN of scaring off his voters.
“You really scare all my voters,” he snapped at us. “Of course I’m not going to speak with you.”
“You behave inappropriately. This is a Russian province where people are not used to big cameras like this, and you come and put it into their faces,” he said.
But the sensitivities are real. Opposition campaigners in Kostroma say they’ve been physically attacked and accused of being secretly funded by Russia’s so-called enemies in the West.
Back at his election headquarters, Yashin explained the challenges his campaign faces. “People are scared of even talking to me because there’s propaganda, police harassment, administrative pressure,” he said.
“I’m cut off from appearing on TV. I’m cut off from the radio. So my goal is to talk face to face with as many voters as possible and to shake as many hands as possible.”
For a few the anti-Kremlin stance is being well received. There are some Russians, hit hard by an economic crisis, willing to listen to the opposition message.
But that’s unlikely to translate into votes.
And with pro-Kremlin parties fielding tens of thousands of candidates across Russia, it is an absurdly uneven political battle.