Massive noxious garbage dumps piling up around Moscow have sparked citizen protests. And those protests are turning into criticism of the political system, which could threaten the Putin regime.
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| Citizens protesting at the Volokolamsk town hall, after noxious fumes from a local landfill sent 50 children to the hospital. |
By Laura A. Henry, Bowdoin College
A steady stream of garbage-laden trucks moves the waste of Russia’s
capital to landfills in the surrounding region. The resulting mountains
of refuse emit noxious fumes and leach pollutants into nearby waters,
endangering the residents of the region around Moscow.
Citizens living near these landfills have had enough.
Protests against garbage dumps have erupted in at least eight towns and villages around Moscow in the last six months. As a scholar
who studies contemporary Russian politics, I believe these garbage
protests reveal a crisis of basic governance that potentially poses a
greater challenge to Putin’s government than pro-democracy activism.
Resurgent citizen activism
Russian activists have come under increasing pressure since Putin
returned to office in 2012. Protests have been relatively scarce after
the 2011-2012 Bolotnaya demonstrations
in response to election fraud.
Long-standing nongovernmental groups working on environmental and human
rights issues, which relied in part on funding from abroad, have been
labeled “foreign agents” by Russia’s Ministry of Justice.
At the same time, Putin’s government has cultivated more patriotic and apolitical forms of activism,
such as youth groups that organize events memorializing World War II
and socially oriented NGOs that work marginalized groups, including the
disabled and orphans.
My research charts the changing nature of citizen activism in Russia.
In the 1990s, foreign aid flooded into Russia to support democratic
transition by funding causes that matched Western donors’ priorities –
causes like human rights and environmentalism. Now, many of these groups
struggle to survive.
In 2017, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, my research found a
substantial increase in grassroots groups oriented around “civic pride”
and local volunteer initiatives. These new groups focus on the
preservation of green spaces, litter collection, recycling, urban
beautification and historic preservation. These efforts represent a new
“environmentalism of daily life” more acceptable to the government.
But these seemingly benign groups – and their expectations that
citizens can partner with the government to address quality of life
issues – may yet represent a political threat to Russia’s status quo.
Minchenko Consulting, a high profile Russian research and PR firm
that focuses on political campaigns and elite politics, points out in a recent report that “health and children are two basic universal values” that can motivate otherwise apathetic citizens to take action.
When bread and circuses fail
All politics is local, but Moscow and its waste disposal challenges
exert an outsize influence on the surrounding region, with outsized
consequences for activism.
Since 2010, under the leadership of Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow has
transformed into a dynamic global city, fueled by oil wealth and urban redevelopment. Moscow’s growing population and unfettered consumption mean increased waste. A report by the environmental group Greenpeace
calculates that Moscow is responsible for 11 million tons of trash
annually, approximately one-fifth of all waste in Russia. Only 4 percent
of Moscow’s waste is recycled.
To preserve quality of life in the capital, the Moscow’s government
sends streams of municipal waste into the surrounding regions.
Greenpeace reports that 90 percent of Moscow’s waste goes to landfills
in Moscow’s suburban region. Landfills created in the Soviet and early
post-Soviet period, when there was little consumer waste, have been
expanded, often with no community notification and despite being in
close proximity to homes and schools. Air quality suffers as the dumps
release fumes from decomposing waste.
In addition to established landfills, 52 illegal dumps were identified in the Moscow region in the first half of 2017.
As the stench rises and the public health risks
– such as respiratory diseases that most acutely affect children –
mount, citizen appeals to regional and national government officials
have had little effect.
Local people are left with few options but protest. Demonstrations of more than 1,000 people occurred in at least eight towns and villages near Moscow. Citizens also have organized groups on VKontakte, a Russian social media platform, to coordinate petitions, block roads and even mount hunger strikes.
Children hospitalized
The biggest and most sustained garbage protests have occurred in the town of Volokolamsk, site of the Yadrovo landfill.
For months, residents have complained of foul smells, difficulty
breathing, nausea and rashes. In early March 2018, local officials
declared a state of emergency due to the release of gases from the dump.
Then on March 21, more than 50 children were hospitalized with
symptoms of poisoning. Ekaterina Volkova, the Volokolamsk district
deputy head of education,
said that the cause was presumably hydrogen sulfide seeping out of the landfill. Official measurements showed that the chemical was present at 10 times the maximum allowable concentration.
In response, 6,000 residents
– more than a quarter of the Volokolamsk population – came out on the
streets to demand that the landfill be closed – not simply “modernized,”
as district authorities promised in the past.
Protesters carried signs with slogans such as “Stop poisoning us!”
and “Don’t kill our children!” The town’s mayor pledged to try to close
the landfill, even as local businesspeople supporting the protesters
were detained by the police. Now Volokolamsk residents are pursuing their case in court.
The ruble stops with Putin
Garbage protests in Volokolamsk and elsewhere have exposed weaknesses
in Russia’s system of political authority, often described as a “power vertical”
in which government officials answer not to their constituents, but to
their political superiors and ultimately to President Putin. Facing
unresponsive or incompetent officials, citizens turn to Putin as the
only one who can solve their problems.
In 2017, Yelena Mikhailenko called into President Putin’s annual “Direct Line” call-in show for citizens to complain about noxious emissions from the Kuchino landfill in her neighborhood which caused nausea and vomiting.
“Turning to you is our last hope,” Mikhailenko told the president.
Expressing sympathy, Putin ordered the Kuchino dump closed by presidential order.
The quick resolution of the Kuchino problem was covered favorably in
the Russian media, but hardly represents a systemic response to the
problem of municipal waste disposal. In fact, Putin’s recognition of
what he called “the legitimate negative reaction of people” to widespread problems with trash disposal may have emboldened protesters near other landfills.
Meanwhile, Moscow regional government officials have placed
tremendous pressure on those lower in the power vertical to quell the
garbage protests and to allow continued transport of waste, including
threatening district and town officials with arrest and loss of
property.
One beleaguered head of a Moscow region district, Aleksandr Shestun, even issued a direct plea to Putin via YouTube video, outlining the threats made to his family and requesting the president’s assistance.
The fact that those on all sides of the garbage protests feel forced
to “appeal to the tsar” illustrates simultaneously the president’s
authority and the risk that Putin ultimately may become accountable for
failures of basic governance at lower levels.
When well-intentioned citizens confront unaccountable officials,
their activities can become more political. I interviewed a municipal
civic group leader from St. Petersburg who works on urban ecology and
waste. He commented that it has become clear that government officials
are responsive not to citizens, but to those “from above” who put them
in their offices.
City deputies are not influenced by elections, he lamented, implying
that they owe loyalty to political elites, and are not accountable to
the people.
Yet when questioned about whether he is ever concerned that the
authorities will perceive his work negatively, the leader – who did not
want to be identified – reflected on his vision of patriotism.
“It is my country, my city, my people,” he said. “That is more important than any bureaucrat.”
Garbage politics is nudging apolitical activism into a critique of
the political system. Unabated, these trends could dent the Putin
regime’s legitimacy.
When the government fails to protect citizens from toxic emissions,
and citizens have to take to the streets to gain attention, they begin
to ask: What is the government for?
Laura A. Henry is an associate professor of government and legal studies at Bowdoin College.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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