Wow. This was yesterday in the town of Volokolamsk. The population of the entire Volokolamsky District is 43,000 people. So it is safe to say that about 10% of all the district’s residents were at the rally. And the district covers a huge area, so getting to the center is quite an ordeal.
If you compare it only to the population of the town of Volokolamsk (20,000 residents), it turns out that every fifth adult resident of the town came to protest outside the local administration building. In temperatures of minus 15 degrees Celsius.
That would be like a million people taking to the streets in Moscow.
At the same time, the rally is sharply directed against district head Gavrilov and Moscow Region Governor Vorobyov.
These are the two crooks who built a highly profitable business around the Yadrovo landfill. It is a classic Soviet-style mega-dump there, poisoning the water and air for many kilometers around. It is an extremely lucrative operation, so they ignored every complaint from local residents—and now they are seeing the consequences.
Those gathered say that next time they will go block the road. They also say they will boycott the elections en masse. It is especially encouraging that people understand politics and see clearly what is going on.
And just listen to the slogans. A classic opposition rally:
All in all, this is really impressive. Congratulations to the organizers on this success, and congratulations to all residents of Volokolamsky District on showing this level of solidarity and determination to defend their right to clean air.
As someone born in Moscow Region and a longtime resident of it, I fully support their demands.
Moscow Region is larger than Denmark, Belgium, or the Netherlands. Can’t a civilized system for municipal solid waste disposal be organized here? Other countries manage to deal with this somehow. And yet only here do landfills turn into environmental disasters.
Dear media, please pay attention to this situation. In proportion to the population, this really is the largest protest rally. A real event.
The same goes for the residents of Chelyabinsk and Krasnoyarsk—cities facing the same environmental disaster with their water and air. (I think things may be even worse in Krasnoyarsk.) This is exactly how people need to act. Both of these cities have amazing, courageous people organizing similar rallies. In Chelyabinsk, I even spoke at one myself. The example of Volokolamsk shows that it is possible to hold environmental protests that the whole city will actually come out for. This absolutely needs to be done.
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