Grozny resumes city subbotnik started in June

The wide-scale subbotnik aimed to clean the streets of the capital of Chechnya from garbage and improve their appearance, which was suspended because of the month of Ramadan, will restart within the next few days.

A source from the city administration of Grozny told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that on September 21 President Ramzan Kadyrov said, during his meeting with Mayor of Grozny Muslim Khuchiev, that "subbotnik should be resumed, and the work-in-progress should be brought to its logic end."

According to the source, out of 51 sectors, to which Grozny had been split for the subbotnik, the work is over only in 31 sectors. Now, the efforts will be concentrated in the remaining 20 sectors.

Initially, the broad-scale city subbotnik in Grozny, launched on June 19, was announced for ten days; then, it was extended for two more weeks, and later - indefinitely.

Many bureaucrats preferred to pay for their escape from the event: they hired jobless persons to work instead of them in the streets of the capital.

"It was already announced to us that the subbotnik will restart and last until we deliver our sector to the commission. For almost two months already, people were engaged, instead of their main work, in performing the functions of the housing and communal services; now they will have again to remove garbage instead of doing their direct work," Mokhmad O., and employee of one of republic's ministries, told in his conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

In his opinion, local authorities, knowing that people will keep for their jobs, as the republic suffers from enormous unemployment, "make whatever they want." "They may deduct money from our salaries for unknown purposes, deprive us bonuses and vacations; now they force us to work as garbage collectors. It is an open demonstration of the uttermost neglect to the Constitution of our country and the Labour Code," said the source.

"I know several persons, who have just quitted their jobs in order not to take part in this endless subbotnik; I also know those, who were dismissed for their refusal to remove garbage from streets of Grozny for weeks. For this purpose we have communal services, which are paid by the population on a regular basis for their work," said Ruslan T., in whose opinion, the free-of-charge work of the population in the city streets allows local authority bosses to get enriched from saved salaries of communal workers.