I have great respect for Yekaterinburg and its residents (mainly because of its rock history - it can't be a coincidence).
Therefore, I appeal to the best qualities of its residents and ask them to pay attention to the essence of the matter - in this case, the votes were indeed divided (22/20 - even a simple calculation shows that it's approximately equal), but the slight advantage of Volgograd is due not to Merlin's machinations, nor to a "biased" point-counting system, and I would even venture to say that it's not even due to certain expected weather conditions (although this is also a plus).
Just look, using common sense, at who voted. Those who really need to leave their current location and travel somewhere are generally more inclined towards Volgograd. This is evident from the list of votes, regardless of Merlin (and everything has already been mentioned in the thread multiple times).
I risk incurring the righteous wrath of the Siberians, but I would like to point out that Volgograd has a more convenient geographical location in terms of gathering people from different regions of the CIS. This is its initial advantage. :smile32:
And I'm sure that people will vote for Korolev for the same reason.
I'm not trying to claim that Volgograd is better in 2017. I don't have any experience to make such claims.
I want to reduce the tension and subtly encourage the discussion to move from subjective preferences to objective criteria.
There are objective advantages for Yekaterinburg as well, but to articulate them convincingly, perhaps we should try to look at the situation not from within Yekaterinburg, but from the scale of the CIS?
Yekaterinburg is significantly larger than Volgograd, it has a more powerful transport hub, therefore there are more trains, flights, and buses.
As a result, there is a more varied way to get there (after all, we are talking about the 3rd or 4th largest city in the country, without trying to belittle Volgograd in any way) and more flexible options in terms of price.
And if someone says that it would be easier to come by car, well, let's realistically count how many people will come by car in May, and if they do, their percentage will be no more than 10-15.
