LDPR activists mark start of road repairs in Stavropol with anti-corruption picket

On April 6, the Stavropol Territorial Branch of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) held a rally against corruption in the road sector of the city of Stavropol. The picket was held outside the building of the city administration in Karl Marx Avenue and gathered over 30 participants.

Most of them were young people aged 20-25, who held the blue-yellow flags of the LDPR in their hands and posters reading: "Valchuk! Where's the money???" (Alexander Valchuk is the first deputy head of the city administration and the former head of the Committee for City Management of Stavropol), "Bureaucrats pack their pockets... And who will respond for road pits?!", "Road repairs – for the money of thieves!" and "Bureaucrats wrote off repair money; but it's unclear how they laid asphalt here..."

As Alexander Kurylenko explained to journalists, the reason for the picket was the large-scale road repairs launched in Stavropol on the eve of the action. The deputy reminded that two years ago as part of the programme "New City Road" of the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party, the same scaled road repairs were undertaken worth almost 400 million roubles – and today the same roads that were reconstructed in autumn of 2010 are again in need of repair.

Nobody from administration officials went out to meet the protesters, although, as Alexander Kurylenko said, they had been informed about the picket and specially invited to meet the federal deputies who came to Stavropol.