In the village of Voloma, local resident Valentina Rumyantseva has been filing requests with the authorities to get the water source repaired for five years, but to no avail. Mushrooms and mold have long grown inside the old well. She says that the villagers do not need either the Crimean Bridge or the Power of Siberia — they only need water. The woman is trying to get the well repaired again — now through Rospotrebnadzor (Russian Federal State Agency for Health and Consumer Rights). The Otrazhenie (‘reflection’). Karelia Community on vk.com reported on the case.
There are two public wells in the village of Voloma, which are used by the whole village. One that is cleaner is used to extract drinking water, although mushrooms have already grown on the walls and there has been mold, but there is still no other source. The second one, which is dirtier, is used for household needs. The last time the administration promised to inspect the wells was in the second quarter of 2022, but this never happened.
Valentina Rumyantseva now hopes that Rospotrebnadzor will force local officials to solve this problem.
"We do not need either the Crimean Bridge or the Power of Siberia," the woman said.
Not only residents of Voloma faced such a problem — it happens everywhere in the villages of Karelia. The situation is similar in Tiksha and Reboly. And a public well has been being built in Peninga for more than a year.
The problem of drinking water is relevant not only for Karelia and is not generally new. In 2018, we covered how residents of the village of Kuyar in Mari El lived without clean drinking water in free access for several years. It was delivered by a tanker twice a week.
And in 2019, 7x7’s editorial board visited the village of Maraki, Kirov Oblast, where a water tower broke down. Nobody hurried to fix it, leaving the settlement without access to drinking water.