Strangers with candy are always dangerous, as supporters of a popular rabble-rousing politician learned not once but twice last week.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) candy giveaways ended in tears when crowds were filmed shoving each other for New Year’s gifts in the western city of Kursk.
“This is a nightmare,” one babushka can be heard telling a man wearing an LDPR bib in a YouTube video of Thursday’s event. “I’ll tell the Internet about this.”
A second video shared by the local news website Kurskiye Izvestiya on Saturday showed the regional legislative assembly’s party chief berating locals for cutting lines.
When asked to explain the chaos, a woman standing in line said: “Maybe this is how we were raised.”
The party said 600 residents gathered for the first giveaway and 800 for the second set of festivities.
The giveaway came two months after LDPR offered free tattoos of the party emblem or Zhirinovsky’s face to its supporters.
