Since the whole deal with the public vote for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi began back in September [RUS], the issue seems to have been all but “non-political”: from the selection of 11 emblems-finalists at the end of the solicitation period to the actual call-in and SMS vote on February 26 2011, televised [RUS] on the state channel ORT. In an unprecedented move, the Sochi 2014 Olympic Committee was going to let the Russians participate in the choice of the mascots, from their creation to the very selection. Image of the Olympic Talismans, Russian Olympic Committee, republished from The Moscow Times. There were many controversies, yet it seems that the final five – the snow leopard [RUS], the polar bear [RUS], the rabbit [RUS], and the Ray-and-Snowflake couple [RUS] – are trying to benefit from the momentum, utilizing the mysterious ways of Twitter to gain acknowledgment and popularity. Whether official or not, the people behind these Tweets are obviously well-acquainted with the Russian Tweet-o-sphere, following [RUS] not only their prime online competitor, the blue Olympic hypno-toad “Zoich” (@Z0I4) [RUS], but also the Kremlin Worm (@KremlinCherv) who made some headlines back in October. Zoich, an alternative mascot created by popular designer Yegor Zhgun, deserves special mention here. Intended as political satire [RUS], it quickly gained popularity [RUS] around the RuNet and seeped in [RUS] to the traditional media [RUS]. After getting more than 24,000 submissions from the public (in September-December 2010), the mascot selection committee chose 11 candidates that were supposed to “campaign” throughout February before the final vote. Although Zoich did not make the cut, he got “special mention” on the unofficial online voting site and even got more support there (21,215 votes) than one of the call-in vote winners – the rabbit (10,107 votes). Image by Yegor Zhgun Zoich, perhaps more correctly spelled as “Z0I4,” is derived from the mix of the numbers “2014” and the combined reading of Latin and Cyrillic characters. Its author, Egor Zhgun, is a designer and a satirist, who often provides sharp graphical commentary on his website [RUS] and blog [RUS] (Take a look. Highly recommended!). He told Lenta.ru [RUS] that the psychedelic frog idea came from “Futurama”‘s Hypnotoad, although he also tried alluding to the Russian folk tale about the “Czarevna Frog” (Russian version of the “Frog Prince” folk tale): hence the Czarist crown. In an interview with Kommersant newspaper, Zhgun said that the Olympic rings in the eyes symbolized the “promotion of Olympic ideals,” while the crown referred to “nationhood and spirituality,” which were among the submission criteria put forth by the committee. Zhgun said he was surprised that, given its political connotations, his masterpiece was allowed into the general “competition” in the first place. Encouraged by its initial popularity online and the fact that the selection committee let it stay at the top of the unofficial Internet chart (which, according to him, was heavily moderated), he started harboring serious hopes and even made a video that soon went viral. Gradually, Zoich was adopted as the political opposition's symbol in the mascots’ selection process. Yet, it was clear from the start that the process was not going to be all that democratic, as the selection committee was going to be the one to choose the nominees for the final round. As Zhgun predicted in his interview, the “sanitized” polar bear was among the winners precisely because of its political attributes. As expected, the final choice of the mascots received a lot of criticism, too. Firstly, there was the issue with the polar bear. Not only was it seen as too similar to the symbol of the ruling “United Russia” party, but it was also criticized for being a rip-off of the original Moscow 1980 Olympic Misha. President Dmitry Medvedev had expressed his preference for the polar bear, which the St. Petersburg Times went as far as to suggest, was also due to his last name (derived from the Russian word for “bear” [medved’]). Can the similarities be a mere coincidence? Sochi 2014 Mascot; Misha, 1980 Olympics Mascot, logo of United Russia ruling party, collage by Yelena Osipova Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, did not abstain from comment, either (as usual).