Sochi residents reveal reasons of conflict around pedestrian crossing (+video)

The reason for a picket in the Lazarevskoe District of Sochi, which was dispersed by the police, was a long neglect by the authorities of the demand to return the pedestrian crossing, which allowed seniors and people with disabilities to easily access the socially relevant objects, said the eyewitnesses to the conflict.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 29 residents of the Lazarevskoe District staged a picket demanding to reopen the closed pedestrian crossing. The police dispersed the rally. The picket was peaceful; and the administration had been warned about it, the organizers assert.

The conflict was triggered by a long neglect by the authorities of people's demand to open the crossing, Alexei Shtaba, a resident of the district and an eyewitness of the incident, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to his version, residents wrote requests to various bodies of power, but achieved no result.

"The authorities began telling that in 2015, within the works of the major repairs, a new scheme of traffic was designed and adopted," said the eyewitness, adding that it was announced about the allocation of 80 million roubles for these purposes.

"But the new scheme has greatly worsened the status of pedestrians, especially elderly and disabled people," said Alexei Shtaba. "Now, we need to walk for an extra 500 meters, instead of just crossing the road 10 meters wide; and they spent 80 million on that!"

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.