Everything that could be said about the "fall guy" has already been said. The situation really could be called absurd, if not for the dozens of people who will return home with life-altering injuries, and the 22 people who will never return home.
Yesterday I also wrote, "I hope the investigation will not end with punishing a few fall guys, and that there will also be political resignations." However, it now appears that the fall guys will be the end of it.
Over the past 24 hours, we have learned many astonishing facts about how the system of safety and responsibility for safety is structured in Moscow City Hall. The final straw was a statement that leaves you staring at the screen for a long time, repeating, "I can't believe they are actually saying this":
Well, of course. How could we have assumed otherwise? What kind of fool would think that the Moscow City Government's Department of Transport bears responsibility for safety in the metro?
The metro merely happens to be on the list of organizations subordinate to the Department of Transport:
And the Department of Transport's own regulations merely state that it manages its subordinate enterprises:
But from this it, OF COURSE, DOES NOT FOLLOW that the Department of Transport and Liksutov are responsible for safety in the metro or for making sure that track switches are not tied together with wire.
Skimming money from tenders—yes. Stealing through inflated construction costs—of course. Finding a job for the deputy of former Russian Railways head Aksyonenko, whose son's corrupt business was where he made his first millions—absolutely.
But when it comes to safety, apparently it's Uncle Petya in the orange safety vest who is responsible.
Ah yes, I forgot one more thing that Sobyanin, Liksutov, and the Department of Transport can do very well and very quickly. Before the wreckage had even been cleared, those tens of millions of rubles (hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars) that City Hall and the Department of Transport allocate to buying posts and comments were already at work.
This is their specialty, their main professional line of work. They know how to do this just as well as they know how to skim off public procurement. Read here and here
They whipped up little graphics right away and started posting them.
We should also add "restrained but firm praise for the decisions of the party and the government" to the "reaction of a normal person." The obvious question of resignations and accountability is dismissed as "PR on the back of a tragedy."
If you try to google the origin of the expression "The switchman is to blame" (a Russian idiom meaning a low-level scapegoat gets blamed), you will get the following:
a) Remove the word "tsarist." b) Replace "private entrepreneurs-capitalists" with "officials-corruption profiteers."
That's exactly how it is. The switchman is to blame.