I have said before that Sveta is a very patient person and really does not say a whole lot about things that irate her. But when she does say something I listen and she has talked about the stupidity going on downtown Moscow. She said that walking around downtown has become a real problem at times…
The Problem is that the Mayor of Moscow for some reason decided to spend a fortune and replace all the sidewalks in Moscow with brick sidewalks. Not repair sidewalks but tear up all the sidewalks and replace them, whether they were bad or not. Now this has caused lots of issues downtown and some people are hot under the collar. In fact the news agencies and blogs have taken it up as a protest of sorts and are wanting explanations of why this is being done. No one it seems asked the people what they thought about their sidewalks…
There is a ton of evidence it seems that is pointing to family gains by the Mayor by doing all the sidewalks in Moscow in brick. That is what is being posted around the town…
This has prompted the Mayor to come out publicly with this type of statements:
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has once again denied that his wife is in anyway involved in the brick-making business. Rumors surfaced that the mayor’s wife was involved in the brick business after the mayor chose to replace nearly the entire city center’s asphalt covered footpaths with brick.
“My wife is an educator, a teacher, she doesn’t work with bricks,” said the mayor on Vesti Fm radio on Tuesday. He also added that the removal of asphalt was necessary. “Asphalt on footpaths is the same as engine oil on a fry pan,” said Sobyanin.
Now all this is doing is causing more issues with the people who are complaining and after I read the Mayor’s comments. I then wonder what this is all about. Brick sidewalks are not better than any other sidewalk. In fact the brick sidewalks that we have where we live are only a few years old and they are a disaster. When the whole world drives on these sidewalks. All you get is loose bricks everywhere and they are dangerous. About the only thing good I can say about a brick sidewalk is that you have plenty of bricks to defend yourself with against dogs and hooligans… 🙂
The upkeep is tremendous on brick sidewalks, plus the cost is horrendous and to be truthful upkeep is not in the Russian language…
I have watched for a month now about this controversy of the sidewalks in Moscow. It all boils down to this:
- Asphalt is bad for you!
- Bricks are good for you!
- We (the Mayor) don’t care how much money is spent on this project!
- It will take several years to get done!
- The city sidewalks are now in a worse mess and are dangerous from construction. (I know I have seen them)!
- The Mayors wife is not a bricklayer!
- Now Shut Up…
That just about sums up that situation in a nutshell…
I hope for the Mayors sake that he is not pulling an old Mayor ‘switch a roo’, because the people here do not like the new mayor, near as well as the old mayor (Kinda that good ole boy thing!). I guess time will tell and in the mean time, we here in Moscow are getting nice new brick sidewalks. I guess we have nothing else to spend money on and that way we have lots of bricks to chase stay dogs/hooligans away with…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!