Day: January 10, 2022

“Beglov Is a Douchebag”: How to Get Snow Removed Fast in Petersburg

A huge snowdrift in downtown Petersburg was graffitied with an insult to Beglov. Workers began clearing it within an hour • Yevgeny Antonov • Bumaga • January 10, 2022

A large frozen snowdrift near the Sennaya Ploshchad subway station in downtown Petersburg attracted notice this morning. An insult to the city’s governor, Alexander Beglov, who has been blamed for poor snow removal, had been written on it in black.

Bumaga asks readers to guess how soon this snow hill will be removed.

Updated after 12:00 p.m. Workers have begun clearing the snowdrift.

“Beglov is a douchebag.” Photo by Andrei Bessonov. Courtesy of Bumaga
“How soon will the insulting snowdrift be removed?” [Button on left] It’s probably gone already! [Button on left] It will melt by spring.”

Updated after 12:00 p.m. An eyewitness has informed Bumaga that workers have begun removing the snowdrift. A little less than an hour has passed since we published this news, and an hour and a half since the accumulation of snow was first noticed.

According to an eyewitness, municipal services employees removed the graffito separately as trucks worked nearby. “Two trucks loaded with snow have already left Sennaya. The backhoe driver drove up, took a keepsake photo [of the offending snowdrift], and began shoveling the neighboring snowdrift,” he said.

Photo: Andrei Bessonov

Read more about it:

  • Fate, Sauron or Navalny? Our readers on who is to blame for the poor snow removal in St. Petersburg.
  • Periodicals that previously supported Beglov are now criticizing him for the uncleared snow. What’s happening?

Thanks to the Five Corners public Facebook group for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

“We Are Fraternal Peoples!”

Activists in Novosibirsk record message for the international community about Kazakhstan • Arina Yuzhnaya • Siber.Realii (RFE/RL) • January 10, 2022

Novosibirsk residents have recorded a video message to the international community “on behalf of all Russian citizens who oppose the Russian military intervention in Kazakhstan.” They are certain that the peaceful protesters in Kazakhstan “are not terrorists,” our correspondent reports.

Nine people appear in the video, including pianist Timofei Kazantsev, former head of the We Are Against Corruption Foundation Viktor Sorokin, and activists Andrei Kaygorodtsev, Rashid Zamanov and Alexander Abrosov. The appeal has been released in two versions: in Russian with English subtitles, and in English translation.

“The citizens of Kazakhstan who came out to protest poverty and corruption are not terrorists. Their arrests, and even more so their murders, are unacceptable,” they say in the message.

They stress that they consider the Russian military intervention unacceptable, since it could lead to “interethnic hostility and bloodshed.”

“President Tokayev called on the CSTO to defend [Kazakhstan] against an external terrorist threat. We believe that the Kazakhs will perceive Russian soldiers, who make up the bulk of the Collective Security Treaty Organization military contingent, as an external threat,” Kazantsev told us.

He believes that there now exists an “extraordinary situation in which our country is potentially behaving like an aggressor.” Kazantsev considers it wrong when an international organization meddles in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, even at the request of the country’s president. All this, in his opinion, is fraught with consequences.

For this reason, the authors of the video also appeal to the people of Kazakhstan. They explain that the Russian people have no “aggressive ambitions,” but that “no one has asked the opinion of ordinary Russians.”

At the end of the appeal, the authors of the video demand the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kazakhstan.

Translated by the Russian Reader