Russian ballet star to appeal exclusion from mayor race in Sochi

SOCHI. April 3. KAZINFORM The Sochi election committee barred on Friday former Bolshoi ballerina Anastasia Volochkova from running in the Black Sea resort city's upcoming mayoral elections.

Volochkova told RIA Novosti shortly before the ruling that she would appeal the ban, which she blamed on "the scheming of competitors." The city is set to receive billions of dollars in government funds as it prepares to host the 2014 Winter Olympics and the race to be mayor has attracted unprecedented attention, with several prominent politicians and businessmen campaigning. Volochkova's campaign spokesman in Sochi said she had been barred due to irregularities in her payment documents and gaps in the required information on contributions, income and property. "We will challenge the decision of the committee in court," Anton Atrashkin told RIA Novosti. Volochkova earlier said she expected to be ruled out. "I will be removed from the election due to the omission of my date of birth on the Sberbank receipt testifying to my deposit, even though this receipt was dictated by a bank employee," she said on Friday. Atrashkin said the election committee had told Volochkova that some information was missing in the documents she had submitted, and the campaign was able to produce the missing information by April 1. "Everything was corrected on time by April 1, and we did everything according to law," he said. Volochkova is a notorious figure in Russia, appearing regularly in fashion magazines, tabloids and on talk shows. She was famously dismissed from the Bolshoi Theater in 2003, following complaints from her ballet partners that she was "overweight." Other high-profile candidates running for mayor include opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, and tycoon Alexander Lebedev, who recently bought London's Evening Standard newspaper. Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB officer, accused by Britain of murdering dissident Alexander Litvenenko, had earlier planned to run for mayor, but withdrew his candidacy. His party, the ultranationalist LDPR, put forward on Thursday Alexei Kolesnikov, a local lawyer, as its candidate. The official candidate of the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party is Anatoly Pakhomov, currently the city's acting mayor, Kazinform cites RIA Novosti.