Grozny townspeople complain about non-admission to stores without vaccination certificates

In Chechnya, without certificates about vaccination against coronavirus, people are not served in stores; they can’t even buy bread, local residents have complained.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on June 16, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, threatened to impose severe restrictions related to coronavirus. Authorities will have to take these measures in view of low vaccination rates in the republic, Mr Kadyrov has stated.

In Chechnya, shopkeepers refuse to service the customers who have no COVID-19 vaccination certificates on them. In Grozny, the Chechen capital, several large grocery stores have been closed for failure to comply with the authorities’ ban, residents of Grozny told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent on July 7.

"We have several shops in our dwelling settlement. Announcements are posted everywhere that they will not serve customers without a ‘covid’ certificate. We have to send children for shopping, as they don’t claim certificates from them. They say that several stores have been already closed," Liza has noted.

"This situation exists nowhere else. My son works in Moscow; he says that in some places people have to wear masks, and that's all. Here, they wouldn’t serve you if you are not vaccinated. [...] Should people die of hunger if they don't want to get vaccinated?" a local named Dokka is indignant.

A resident of Grozny told on conditions of anonymity that he had faced a similar problem when he was trying to buy a loaf of bread. They demanded a vaccination certificate from him. “I had to ask a kid whom I knew to buy bread for me,” he said.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 8, 2021 at 06:29 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.