Polls open in Russia’s three-day parliamentary election

Parliamentary and local polls in the world’s largest country spread across 11 time zones began on Friday.

Russians in the Far East have begun voting in a three-day parliamentary election in which most vocal Kremlin critics have been barred from running following a historic crackdown on the opposition.

Parliamentary and local polls in the world’s largest country spread across 11 time zones began on Friday, and as Muscovites prepared to go to bed, residents of the Far Eastern Chukotka and Kamchatka regions were gearing up to cast their ballots.

“Let’s go!” Ella Pamfilova, the head of the Central Election Commission, said in a live broadcast.