Surely by now you have noticed the very large advertisement in the upper-left-hand corner of this blog, modestly and graciously asking you for your vote for my blog for the 2007 Weblog Awards for the Best European Blog (Non UK). Nevertheless, I thought I would extend my shameless campaigning with series of reminders, hopefully persuading you to call upon colleagues, friends and family for a little favor. So far, I’m proud to see that more than 223 people have voted for the blog (of which there must be a few whom I don’t know!) – but unlike a Russian election I wasn’t able to select my competitors, so it will really take a rally from my faithful readers to push us up to the level of those other highly popular blogs. It takes just a couple of seconds to vote, and there’s no registration required. Each person can vote once every 24 hours, so I hope you’ll remember to keep visiting and help bring more attention to the English-language Russian blogosphere. Earlier today I was enormously flattered to see a post over at Siberian Light encouraging readers to vote for us. Thanks, Andy! Regardless of how this turns out, I’m grateful for everyone’s continuing interest and support. Best, Bob Amsterdam