Russia election: Stage-managed vote will give Putin another term
BBCAs I walk around Borovsk, two things strike me about this town 60 miles (100km) from Moscow.
First, there is almost no sign of the presidential election coming up this weekend.
I see few election banners or billboards and no political flyers being handed out.
Not surprising, really. The absence of election preparations mirrors the absence of drama surrounding a stage-managed event that will hand Vladimir Putin a fifth term in the Kremlin.
The other thing you can't help noticing in Borovsk is the street art. It's everywhere.
Much of it has been created by street artist Vladimir Ovchinnikov. All over town his work stares down from walls and buildings.
Most of his paintings are uncontroversial. Like the giant globe recounting the town's history. Or the image of a famous footballer.
Increasingly, though, when Vladimir paints a picture of today's Russia, it turns out very dark.
"I call this one Pinnacle of Ambition," the 86-year-old artist tells me. The painting he's showing me at home features a man in a martial arts uniform walking a tightrope over a mountain of human skulls.
"This is what the ambition of someone high up in power can lead to."
More dramatic still is his image of two meat grinders mincing people - one is labelled 1937 (the year of Stalin's Great Terror); the other Special Military Operation (Russia's war in Ukraine).
"We haven't learnt any lessons," concludes Vladimir.
After the artist graffitied similar meat grinders on a wall, he was fined for "discrediting" the Russian army. Same outcome for his street art showing missiles falling on a girl dressed in the blue and yellow of Ukraine.
Vladimir not only uses his art to comment on the present, but to shine a light on Russia's dark past - the repressions of the Stalin era. His graffiti criticising the war in Ukraine doesn't go down well with the authorities. It gets painted over fast.
"My paintings get people thinking: are we right or are we wrong in this conflict"Dr Stephen Reaney is wearing a light-blue shirt and black puffer jacket. He is standing in an example of one of the tent-like hospital rooms he works in across the globe, which was on display at Dundonald Elim Church " class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj"/>
