Moscow will spend 10 billion rubles on an amusement park
The amount of monthly assistance for families with disabled children who need medication has been approved: 807 rubles.
And the problem is not just the obvious one: for some damn reason, the budget is paying for something it SHOULD NOT—an amusement park—while failing to pay for what it SHOULD—children’s medicine.
10 billion is a year’s worth of medication assistance for a million families with disabled children.
10 billion is enough to give money to everyone raising funds online for surgery.
The issue is also the overall pointlessness and harmfulness of it. In the worst possible way, this repeats what the Soviet authorities did at VDNKh (the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy), only now with a layer of “trendy urbanists” brought into the project—and with the added fact that a lot of money will be stolen this time too.
The USSR built huge, expensive pavilions at VDNKh, golden fountains, and all sorts of other things. They were outrageously expensive to maintain, so when the oil money ran out, the pavilions were rented out, the fountains were switched off, and kiosks were put up everywhere.
Twenty years have passed. Oil money is back in the budget. So now let’s throw up—at state expense—a Future Park at VDNKh, along with things like “Sun attractions capable of illuminating the grounds.” After a while, the money will run out, the budget will no longer be able to maintain it all. The “Sun” will be switched off. Everything will be overgrown with thistles, and kiosks will have to be installed again.
The phrase “the city is trying to attract private investors,” at the stage when budget money has already been allocated, clearly tells us that there will be no private investors there.
The only people left with any long-term benefit will be the builders and designers of the “Future Park” at VDNKh, who will clearly be able to greatly improve their housing situation on the Spanish coast.
For that matter, why doesn’t New York City Hall build, at its own expense, some giant flashy ride with blinking lights in Central Park (or any other park)? They have more money than Moscow does.
The answer is simple:
Residents would first ask: have you lost your minds? Got money to burn? And then they’d vote the mayor out.
Before building something that costs 10 billion, New York City Hall asks itself: and how are we going to maintain it afterward?
That is why they invest heavily in public spaces—but in the kind that are inexpensive to maintain and that increase the investment appeal of nearby neighborhoods.
That is why, around the world, no one builds Disneyland-style parks with public money.
But in Russia, they do. Simply because it is an efficient way to privatize public money.
P.S. Aleshkovsky estimated what a family with a disabled child can buy for 807 rubles.
That’s the kind of state this is: buy 6 bunches of cilantro and go admire our 10-billion-ruble amusement park.
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