Press Release, 3.08.2021

Photo: Sergei Poltorak, Marina Zheleznyakova and Nikolay Rybakov

From 30 July to 1 August, Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov visited eight towns of the Maritime (Primorsky) Territory: Artyom, Bolshoy Kamen, Fokino, Nakhodka, Partizansk, Arsenyev, Ussuriysk, as well as the village of Shkotovo. Marina Zheleznyakova, who tops the regional list of candidates of the party to the State Duma in the Maritime Territory, and Sergei Poltorak, the head of the Martime branch of the Yabloko party, and a group of young Yabloko activists from Vladivostok, went on the trip together with Rybakov.

In Artyom, the Yabloko leader met with the residents of a house which is unfit for living, nevertheless people live there in bad conditions. Despite the fact that residents of the house regularly pay for utilities, major repairs in this house have not been carried out for a very long time. Nikolai Rybakov noted that it is dangerous to live in such conditions. “Although the residents pay their utility bills, neither the management company nor the local authorities are ready to improve the living conditions of people. The situation cannot be changed without the intervention of the regional authorities. We will try to help people,” Rybakov said after the meeting.

In the village of Shkotovo, residents told Rybakov about the failed garbage reform. There are few waste collection areas in the streets of the village – people have to take their garbage a long way from their houses, the waste collection areas are situation a few blocks away from their houses.

“Every day we insist that it is time for us to start the separate collection of garbage, but people do not even have a common container near the house. And the head of the Shkotovsky disrtict, Viktor Mikhailov (member of the pro-government United Russia party), has been holding his post for 16 years,” Rybakov noted.

In the town of Bolshoy Kamen Rybakov and the leaders of Martime branch of Yabloko met with the head of the city Alexander Andryukhin and the Chairman of the City Duma Alexei Kuznetsov. At the meeting, they discussed problems that can not be changed without participation of the federal authorities.

One of the acute problems of Bolshoi Kamen is the provision of housing for the poor and orphans. As of January 1, 2021, the queue for such housing is 1,506 people (284 families). Based on the established norm in Bolshoy Kamen, the norm for the provision of living space is 13.5 square meters per person in a family, which means the town needs to build 20,000 square meters of social housing, but the town has no funds for this.

The second important problem of Bolshoy Kamen is personnel shortage in the social sector. The city received the status of a territory of advanced development, and enterprises with this status tempt specialists with large salaries. As a result, the social sector is left virtually without personnel.

It is increasingly difficult for the town to find specialists for the development of cultural and sports facilities (coaches, teachers, and educators), since the average salary in the advanced development enterprises is two times higher than in the social sphere. In the meantime, several social facilities will be built in the city by 2023, and they will require the involvement of 160 different specialists.

The shortage of personnel and the outflow of the population also occurred due to the closure of the branch of the Far Eastern State University in the city during the pandemic,  and 30% of the 1,500 students of the University come from Bolshoy Kamen.

According to the head of the town, before the closure of the University, the city was attractive for both students and teachers. Now, when young people were deprived of the opportunity to get a higher education and work in their hometown, they are leaving the town looking for better prospects in other places.

In Nakhodka, Marina Zheleznyakova, who has been helping residents in the fight against coal dust, demonstrated this environmental problem to Rybakov. In the Far East, coal is stored in open areas right in the sea ports. In winter, in dry weather, coal dust rising during transshipments into the air settles not only in the port, but it also covers the neighbouring territories, where residential buildings, social and children’s institutions are located. In windy weather, coal dust is carried over very long distances. Hence there emerge illness and premature death in the region. The topic of coal dust officially came into the federal agenda when, in June 2017,  a boy from Nakhodka complained to President Vladimir Putin during a direct line with the President about dust in the city due to the transshipment of coal at the port. Then the President instructed the Public Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Natural Resources to take measures to bring the work of the port of Nakhodka in line with environmental standards.

But nothing was done. “An open transshipment remained in the port. And for so many years the State Duma has not been able to pass a law that would protect the residents of the city from inhaling coal dust which is hazardous to life and health,” Marina Zheleznyakova said.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov meets with residents of the house which is not fit for living in the city of Artyom

On the first day of the trip, the Yabloko leader also visited the town of Fokino, where he walked along the central streets, distributed leaflets with the Yabloko campaign team and talked with citizens.

The head of Yabloko visited the state natural marine reserve The Gulf Vostok of the Sea of ​​Japan. Professor Anatoly Drozdov of the National Research Centre for Marine Biology, located on the coast of the bay, told Rybakov about the work of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the study of endemics of the Sea of ​​Japan. Here Rybakov also met with the Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Adrianov, with whom he discussed the Russia’s role in the world in reducing the carbon footprint, the situation with fires and how Russia could remain “the lungs of the planet”.

On the second day of the trip, the Yabloko leader visited three more towns: Partizansk, Arsenyev and Ussuriysk.

In Partizansk, local residents came to meet with Nikolai Rybakov so that to tell him what conditions they have to live in their hometown.

For example Dina Nedbailova, one of the residents of Partizansk, a pensioner with a disability, a labour veteran, an honorary donor of Russia, who had worked all her life in coal mining, where she manually washed coal before it was exported abroad, was left without heating and water at her old age.

Photo: Dina Nedbailova (right)

Today she lives in her house of the 1930s without coal and water. In order to warm the house in the winter months, she has to burn electricity and pay 7,000 – 8,000 roubles every month for it, at an average pension in Russia of 15,000 ruobles. The pensioner was also left without running water. In the 21st century, when the government of the country is proud of intercontinental ballistic missiles and Nord Stream 2, citizens have neither heat nor clean drinking water in their homes.

Previously, water was taken from a water pump located near the house, but soon the water utility company cut it off, and the elderly woman was left without water. Her daughter, who works as a cook in a kindergarten, carries water to her mother in bottles several hundred meters away from her house. The water utility company periodically brings water in barrels to the pensioner, but this water is not clean drinking water.

Dina Nedbailova wrote to all possible authorities, so that the state help her solve the problem, but this did not happen. Nikolai Rybakov will try to help change the situation.

In Arsenyev, the Yabloko Chairman met with residents in the central streets of the city and answered questions. There are many young people in Arsenyev, who do not watch state propaganda TV channels, well understand the situation in the country and are determined to change it. The Yabloko party is well-known in Arsenyev.

The final point of the trip to the Maritime Territory was Ussuriysk. The Yabloko Chairman met with numerous residents of the city in the central square, spoke about Yabloko and the importance of the upcoming elections for them, their city and the country.

After a trip to the Martime Territory, Nikolai Rybakov visited Khabarovsk and Novosibirsk.