Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 24 – In a display
of the way in which a small issue can grow into a larger one and in which
disagreements within the power vertical invite demonstrations on both sides of
an issue, hundreds of villagers in Tatarstan have taken to the roads to protest
the routes under consideration for a new toll road between Moscow and Kazan.
That road is scheduled to be
completed in 2024 and be a critical link for truck traffic between central Russia
and western China. Moscow officials came up with one route; Kazan officials
with another; and local people say that both are bad because they have the
route pass through their villages and close to an oil pipeline.
The protests began as a typical
NIMBY response by residents to a project over whose planning they had no voice,
but they have now escalated, with participants taking to YouTube, a local
Orthodox priest backing the protesters and comparing them to Khabarovsk, and the
protesters forming a “STOP” sign with their bodies and thus attracting broader
attention.
But the issue has now grown because
what the villagers are demonstrating about has the potential to delay or even
block a road Vladimir Putin has made a central part of his plans for linking
China to Russia, and so these local protests are gaining far more attention than
would otherwise be the case.
For reports about them and examples
of the sophisticated use of social media by the protesters and those who
support them, see zona.media/article/2020/08/25/m12,
youtube.com/watch?v=jbR9FZDgfco&feature=youtu.be&t=203, instagram.com/p/CD9DRK9DqY3/
and idelreal.org/a/30786772.html.
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