I thought nothing in the field of government procurement could surprise me anymore. But this tender announced by the Main Directorate for Material Resources of the Chelyabinsk Region should infuriate any sane person.
zakupki.gov.ru/pgz/public/action/orders/info/common_info/show The amount is small—300,000 rubles—but that’s not the point. Before we look at what exactly these brazen Chelyabinsk crooks want to spend 300,000 of our money on, I want to ask everyone: Do you know what "Karabash," "Muslyumovo," "the Techa River," and "the accident at the Mayak Production Association" are?
Those who do know will remember some of the Soviet Union’s worst man-made disasters, tragedies for thousands of people. They will remember the mistakes, negligence, or stupidity that led to the appearance in our country of settlements proudly bearing the title of the "dirtiest city on the planet." And those who don’t know can google it. Or search on Yandex. Just do it right now—soon it may be harder.
Let’s take a look at exactly what kind of "services" the Chelyabinsk authorities want to spend money on:
So these shameless people are simply paying for search engine result manipulation and de facto censorship. It’s one thing when an online shop called "At Ashot’s" optimizes search results so that its website ranks above a kebab place with the same name. But when a government body uses budget money to rig things so that people searching for "the accident at the Mayak Production Association" get "80% positive coverage," that is simply disgusting and immoral. At first I thought this was just the idea of some enterprising idiot in the Chelyabinsk Region, but I quickly found confirmation that this enterprising idiot is Chelyabinsk Region Governor Mikhail Yurevich: CHELYABINSK, Sept. 20 — RIA Novosti, Natalya Yeremeyeva. Chelyabinsk Region Governor Mikhail Yurevich has instructed the regional Ministry of Economic Development and the administration to begin work on changing the image of the region, which is associated with an unfavorable environmental situation, the governor’s press service reported on Monday. Guess which party Mikhail Yurevich belongs to.
That’s right: Mikhail Yurevich is a member of United Russia—the "party of crooks and thieves" (a popular opposition nickname for the ruling party). He is fighting for the environment by cleaning up Google search results.
For example, this well-known photograph from Karabash could be captioned: "Thanks to United Russia and personally to the governor of the Chelyabinsk Region, one of the bodies of water in the city of Karabash has turned a unique ruby color. The unusual phenomenon has already attracted many tourists, and there is speculation that the unique copper compounds are good for your health and have a rejuvenating effect."