Astrakhan.  Back in February we blogged about the difficulties of fostering support for the opposition movement in the Southern oil and gas town.  This week headlines have spoken of the Volga city ‘electrifying’ the opposition, becoming a new battleground in the fight against election fraud and the ills of Putin’s power vertical, thanks to a hunger strike from thwarted mayoral candidate Oleg Shein.  Many have been quick to claim that the sudden explosion of anti-Kremlin activity has more to do with the Muscovites who have descended upon the city (among them Alexei Navalny, Ilya Yashin and Sergei Mironov) than native Astrakhanians.