Press Release, 10.06.2021

Photo: Maxim Kruglov at a meeting with residents of the Alekseyevsky district. / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Deputies of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, as well as party candidates for the State Duma, will hold a series of street meetings with Muscovites to find out what amendments they would like to make to the Moscow budget for 2022.

Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma:

– The Moscow Mayor’s Office believes that it should dispose of the money of Muscovites, including at the district and courtyard levels, and it should be managed behind closed doors. The authorities use dependent deputies of the City Duma so that to give this state of affairs the illusion of legitimacy. As a result, the budget is written and adopted in the interests of officials, and not of Muscovites, its direct owners. But the Moscow treasury is the money of Muscovites, and one cannot first spend it, and then once every five years at the mayoral elections ask people if they liked the result. One must first ask the owner and spend the money only after that.

The first meeting took place in the Alekseyevsky district on June 9. On June 11, there will be a meeting in Ramenki, on June 13 in Strogino, on June 14 Bogorodskoye, on June 15 in Lomonosovskiy district, on June 16 in Academicheskiy district, on June 17 in Butyrskiy district, and on June 18 in Maryina Roshcha. Further schedule will be specified.

All the proposals made during the meetings will be processed and sent to the relevant departments of the Moscow government in the form of official requests from Yabloko deputies.

The draft budget for next year will be discussed by the Moscow City Duma in the fall. Last year, the Yabloko faction introduced more than 50 amendments to the budget, but none of them was adopted – the pro-mayor majority simply did not participate in the voting. Commenting on this, Yelena Zyabbarova, head of the Moscow Finance Department, suggested then that Yabloko should discuss its initiatives with the Moscow government in advance.