Weinberg

At present the owner of the land plot at Privolzhskaya Sloboda 6 has erected across the footpath a solid metal barrier on a concrete foundation, blocking access to the territory of the embankment.

A "technological opening" instead of the Otkos.

That is how the owner of the land plot, who has also "privatised" a little piece of the embankment for himself, sees the solution to the problem of passage along the embankment. This embankment is a favourite place of recreation for more than one generation of residents. It offers a view of the Volga and the The Ascension Pechersk Monastery for Men.

If the seizure of one section of the embankment is not stopped now, this process may take on an avalanche-like character, the entire bank of the Volga will be blocked off by fences and inaccessible to us!

Shall we agree to the proposal of our deputy (the author of the idea of seizing the embankment) - to walk along the Otkos, squeezing through a "technological opening"?

— By the time the journalists were making their report, the metal barrier had already completely blocked the passage along the embankment. The photographs of the fence being installed were taken two days before the correspondents arrived. In the photo there is only an iron frame. By now it is already a solid iron fence. Felled trees along the slope..

— And here is the author of the embankment seizure — a photo of the people's elected representative (deputy of the Legislative Assembly). In his day he sang in Lyube with Rastorguyev.

— What is going on here is sheer lawlessness and a seizure of public state land.

Whom this plot is officially registered to - the exact data are in the Cadastral Chamber. At the request of any person they can supply information that is open. Residents of the street assure us that for several years now they have seen precisely Vainberg as their neighbour (the property may be registered to anyone at all).

— Well then, this illegal rubbish should be torn down. Otherwise these legislator-deputies do not observe the laws themselves. Demonstratively.

"It is necessary to change people's psychology, to give them the rights and the opportunity to solve part of their problems themselves."

"If you carried your rubbish out to the road and threw it away – you are the master only of your own room, but if you are the master of the country – then you will be able to put things in order everywhere."

"Interaction between the state and society must be built on the principle of a two-way street."

— And here is the deputy's answer.

— And do you believe that a fence with such a foundation was put up temporarily for the repair of the path it crosses? And that the trees were felled for the repair as well?

— nope... I do not believe it at all. Paths are repaired without fences like that. He takes people for complete idiots, he would have done better not to answer like that. Evidently he is hastily wangling the land registration papers with someone from the administrative resource.

— A Candidate of Legal Sciences!

— I wonder, is this the first case of a deputy communicating with his voters through a fence? Or have there already been such cases?

— What a story is going to waste. Maybe we should call in some television channel, or a newspaper?

— Yep, the authorities have fenced themselves off from the people with a reinforced concrete fence and are writing outright nonsense on the fence, as if it were the fence of a psychiatric hospital.))

Well, our TV is, after all, part of the agitprop, it is not free media, so the reports already filmed do not touch on the "authorities - the people" theme, and they certainly will not film a separate story specially. We have to do that ourselves and put it on YouTube.

— He could have splashed out on a proper board for the sake of credibility. Such information boards must state the client firm and the contractor, and contact telephone numbers. Was this wretched scrap of paper written for idiots?

And what is the white lower part of the fence made of? Of slabs, or is solid concrete poured?

And who is the deputy for the neighbourhood?

— Solid concrete. First they broke up the asphalt, dug a trench, set up formwork, poured concrete. Such is the repair of the path. The deputy is Oleg Sorokin.

— An inspector of the regional administrative and technical supervision is now about to go out to the scene. Following a written appeal to the Governor of the region, the complaint was passed to the administration of the Nizhegorodsky District. Where an administrative commission was set up. The ATN inspector who telephoned orolovae is a member of that commission. He called to clarify the location of the object that had violated the town-planning norms.

Now comes the "moment of truth". Either the authorities will use their power and in this way secure compliance with the law. Or the cudgel of the people's wrath will come down on the head not only of the "author of the work" himself, but of the idle officials as well.

We are waiting...

P.S. another + 20 signatures. Today at the Duma the appeal was handed to the mayor.

— Residents continue to bring signatures for the appeal to the Mayor. Another 156 signatures have come in! The total number of signatures has passed 600!

The old construction fence along the footpath has now been taken down, and it turned out that the cottage was designed from the very beginning so that the steps of its entrance open onto the footpath.

— I would say that this is exactly the beginning of the occupation that various paranoid citizens keep talking about here. And the threat of occupation, as we can see, comes not from the Chinese and not from the Americans at all. This is occupation in the literal sense. They have seized land that we consider ours. Yes, I consider this embankment my land. Belonging collectively to me and to all my neighbours, to all the citizens of the city. To people who grew up here, who taught their children real beauty here. I have never seen such a beautiful view anywhere, and I have been to many places. I used to bring my guests from other cities to this embankment, and they were simply left speechless by the surprise of it — two steps from an ordinary city block, and suddenly such a view. This is occupation. And this is war.

— Well, personally I think that this is, of course, an outright disgrace. But if you act competently, you can get results. Take the time when Bulavinov closed the dairy kitchen factories — people made a noise, it reached Putin — he brought Bulavinov to his senses, and the man reopened everything in a flash.

— According to local residents, landscaping has already been carried out on Vainberg's territory. The fence that used to run along the blocked-off slope has been demolished. Now there is an open terrace there, a magnificent view of the Volga, steps leading to the master's (owner's) house and to the little house for the guests-hangers-on. A spot has been set aside for barbecues and so on and so forth. Vainberg has had a good laugh at all of us! He wrote on the fence for the suckers (temporary landscaping under way), while over there our whole administration has been frantically rushing to legalise his deeds during this time.

— We should bury them not in our signatures but in our complaints. All the more so since now it can easily be done electronically, and they are obliged to respond to every one, to answer every one. I think that is more effective than our signatures, which turned out to mean nothing to our new mayor.

Either Vainberg does not give a damn about the mayor, or the mayor does not give a damn about us.

— The replies will be written to you over and over again by petty officials, the senior ones will not even see that piece of paper. They receive a horrifying number of such complaints every day, with far more serious matters. Very often the effect is zero. The system is built so that inconvenient questions do not trouble it. Vainberg is part of that system, and judging by the press reports he is a great intriguer who knows all the ins and outs. He thought it all through in advance, even before building the house, judging by the way the house is positioned. I think he will stand his ground to the death. As if he would just change the fence, so that the layout of the house lost its point and became inconvenient. Now if he falls into disgrace and a rival wants to spite him, then the fence will be torn down and he will be handed the bill. Until then it is all just ripples on the water for him.