It’s not an easy task for Russian drivers to make officials repair the roads. When appeals and complaints do not help, imagination and improvised materials come to the rescue. The material of «7x7» contains examples of vivid actions against potholes on the roads.
Portraits
On July 13, unknown activists of the Rybinsk district put portraits of President Vladimir Putin on the potholes. Users of social networks commented on this act: "Repaired by "the guarantor".
In 2015, unknown people painted portraits of local officials around the potholes in Kostroma so that they were placed at the mouth area. The main character of anonymous artists became the former head of the city administration Victor Emets.
Funeral
The road from Bui to Galich in the Kostroma region was "buried" by unknown travelers — they stuck the homemade cross in the rut of the asphalt and piled up flowers.
Pothole’s Birthday
In the spring of 2016, Ulyanovsk activists celebrated birthday of the pothole. Local residents noticed how road workers put asphalt in a puddle in 2013, and three years later they gathered with a cake to celebrate pothole’s birthday. They tied the balloons.
Stickers
In 2012 Yaroslavl drivers distributed car stickers with the inscriptions "Yaroslavl is a city without roads", "I pay taxes, where are the roads?".
The road must know its hero
In 2015, unknown activists installed signboards indicating the contractors who repaired these roads near the most broken roads of Yaroslavl.
Photo in the pothole
After foreign fans started to make photos in a big pothole in Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl citizens adopted the idea.
Direction signs
Drivers often mark the potholes with special signs.
The Rybinsk region have gone further and made a swearing sign to brighter characterize the danger of the road.
And in Samara, the activists of the "All-Russian People's Front" coloured the pothole with special paint, which glows in the dark. The volunteers called their action "Pothole, light up".
Roads for tanks
Petrozavodsk activist Ilya Galstang made a series of photos with toy tanks in the potholes of the city to draw attention to their condition. After that, he decided to establish a public organization that would take care of road repair control.
Bucket of asphalt
In 2014, Yoshkar-Ola resident Evgeny Pirogov brought a bucket of asphalt for road repairs to the mayor of the city Oleg Voinov.
In 2016, Pirogov was sentenced to two years in prison for extremist publications in the social network "VKontakte", he was released in the spring of 2018.
Tasteful repair
Of stones and carpet
Petrozavodsk retired Boris Strohalshchikov filled the pothole in his yard with stones and put carpet on top after no one repaired it in two years.
The Dymkovo potholes
In 2016, Kirov activists, organized by an activist Vitaly Bramm, repaired several potholes and painted them to the color of the Dymkovo toy, which is considered a Vyatka symbol.
Carpet potholes
In 2016, the same Kirov activists repaired the potholes with carpets. Bramm specifically instructed the volunteers that their actions did not look like an uncoordinated rally. A year later the Kirov potholes were covered with carpets again, but without publicity.
Ceramic potholes
In June 2018, the Irkutsk artist Ivan Kravchenko patched the potholes of his city with ceramic tiles. They became brighter and more visible on the road.
According to the Center for the Infrastructure Economy, 40 to 60% of roads in the Russian regions, except roads in donor regions with a surplus budget (KhMAO, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, Moscow, St. Petersburg), do not correspond to the standards. In some regions of the Russian Federation, there are 80%of "bad" roads. Expenditures of the federal road fund in 2017 amounted to 675.7 billion rubles, according to the Ministry of Finance, more than 260 billion of which are directed to repair federal roads, and more than 125 billion were received from the federal fund. To reduce the burden on regional road funds in 2018, officials began to transfer important highways to federal property. After the repair, some of them will be returned to the ownership of regions.
Daniil Kuznetsov, «7x7»