Posted 3 декабря 2009,, 11:12

Published 3 декабря 2009,, 11:12

Modified 17 сентября 2022,, 13:30

Updated 17 сентября 2022,, 13:30

"Road Rage at the Kremlin" Began According to The New York Times

3 декабря 2009, 11:12
"Russians will quietly tolerate hunger and repression, but it’s a bad idea to get between them and their cars," The New York Tines wrote.

VLADIVOSTOK. December 3. VOSTOK-MEDIA – Every society has a breaking point. In Boston it was the tea tax; in France it was Marie Antoinette’s wigs, a Moscow-based reporter for The New York Times observed. For those wishing to try the patience of the Russians, Ellen Barry advises to slam the door of a cab. “The taxi driver will assume such a doleful countenance that you will apologize to him and hurry away. The Russians adore their cars,” clarified the reporter.


“The Russians will silently endure hunger and repressions, but do not try to deprive them of their cars,” Ellen Barry wrote. It seems that Kremlin is well aware of it. After a national rally of motorists, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev shelved the twofold increase of transport tax, which is a nearly unprecedented practice when vox populi is made heard in the political community.


“Motorists do not use any political slogans just for rallys sake, they revolt because they were economically suppressed in the right of owning a car, which is really essential for them,” stated Kirill Formanchuk, initiator of a campaign against corruption in State Road Safety Inspectorate. In 2007, when he came to register his car he was severely beaten. Motorists held a rally in his support. In 2005, the Russian community of car owners managed to recall conviction Oleg Scherbinsky, the driver who was accused of the death the Governor of Altai Region Michail Evdokimov. It was the Governor who was to blame for the dangerous road situation nevertheless Sherbitsky was sentenced to a four-year term in a penal colony. “It may well be that it is the car owners who are making the contribution to the development of civil society that the entrepreneurs were expected to make,” The New York Times wrote.


However, some analysts believe that transport tax cancellation is a sheer political game which is either Medvedevs attempt to challenge Putins political authority or the result of concerns for their public standings affecting both Russian leaders. In any way Kremlin should be concerned about car owners for the mere fact that the majority of them are young people.

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