Subbotnik in Grozny will last till elimination of "all unfinished work and drawbacks"

The broad-scale subbotnik (day of unpaid work) for cleaning Grozny announced on June 19 by President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov was again prolonged. He said that each of the sectors into which the Chechen capital was divided for the procedure, where a particular official was in charge of the sector, will be inspected, and no "work with drawbacks" will be accepted.

According to the authorities, the participants in the subbotnik were 333,000 city residents and 21,300 units of special vehicles and trucks.

"During 20 days of the all-city subbotnik, about 650,000 cubic meters of garbage and wastes were taken out of the city, 900,000 running meters of kerbstones were painted, 122,000 running meters of fences were erected and 191 kilometres of road pavement were laid down," s source from the Grozny Mayoralty asserts.

The President also stated that further the respective agencies and services should maintain the order and clean condition of city streets.

The attitude of city dwellers to the broad-scale and lengthy subbotnik, held in Grozny, is rather ambiguous. People welcome the cleaning of streets and districts from garbage and wastes and territory improvement; however, actions of individual bureaucrats cause aversion in them.

"People are revolted that under the pretext of cleaning and bringing the city into order officials are actually practicing lawlessness and do whatever they want. But helping some people and ignoring the needs of others - is it correct? Someone has his fence changed or painted, but dozens others are forced to remove old fences and built new ones by themselves. I doubt that President Ramzan Kadyrov had instructed them to scoff at people," said Kyuri, a local resident.

"It's no longer the all-city subbotnik, but just a mockery. Benefiting from the huge unemployment here, when a sacked worker has no chances to get employed, the authorities do whatever they would. They appoint endless subbotniks, force people to dress as mullahs on Fridays; and now they have the idea that on holidays ministers and other bosses should wear Circassian clothes. Until recently, this was just unimaginable," a worker of one of the republic's ministries said.