Mighty Putinist Russia can occupy Crimea, invade Ukraine, and “pacify” the “terrorists” in Kazakhstan, but it can’t manage to shovel the sidewalks in our old neighborhood in Petersburg, reports Boris Vishnevsky, the city councilman for our district. If you’ve been watching this space for a while, you’ll recall that snow removal has vexed the Petersburg authorities at least since the “anomalous” winter of 2010-2011, when a healthy amount of snow (Petersburg is the world’s northernmost major city, after all) led to a total “snowpocalypse” on the streets and, most devastatingly, the roofs, flooding thousands of apartments, including ours. ||| TRR

I walked around my council district for two hours: Zagorodny – Zvenigorodskaya – Pravda – Socialisticheskaya – Dostoevsky – Razyezhaya – Svechnoy – Marat – Kuznechny – Pushkinskaya – Mayakovsky – Nevsky – Liteiny – Bolshaya Konyushennaya.

I found no signs that the sidewalks had been cleared. Nor did I find any traces of janitors.

Walking on the vast majority of sidewalks on these streets (the exception is Nevsky, and parts of Marat and Liteiny) is simply dangerous.

Even Mayakovsky Street is dangerous 2-3 meters off Nevsky. On Pushkinskaya, the danger zone begins even closer to the city’s main street.

Don’t even get me started about smaller streets.

I’m posting a portion of the photos I took. Social media are chockablock with similar images.

Now it will get colder — and the black ice and widespread injuries will kick off.

A friend suggested a good idea: to arrange an inspection of janitors. They would all have to be at “their” houses at seven in the morning. And the head of each district would have to personally make the rounds and check how many of them are real — that is, how many of them don’t exist only on paper.

We should demand that the authorities carry out such an inspection.

Meanwhile, [Petersburg] Governor Alexander Beglov, according to the Smolny’s website, has been discussing with Tamara Moskvina the prospects for the development of grassroots sports in Petersburg.

Meanwhile, walking on the sidewalks in the center of the city he leads is a real extreme sport.

Translated by the Russian Reader