Winter is coming. Primorye again feels feverish

Another scandal is breaking out in Russia’s far-eastern region of Primorye. Unfortunately, this has become a commonplace, a natural regularity of sorts. If a scandal take place in Primorye, it means that the winter is to come soon, and vice-versa. Sergei Shoigu, the emergency situations minister, will again have a whole lot of troubles. There is no other way to solve Primorye collisions, whether you swap the governor or launch criminal proceedings. Today, a termless hunger strike was declared by the ambulance station in Primorye’s Shkotovki region. The physicians demand the payment wage arrears to them. They have not seen their wages for 3 months. It is unclear how they have made their living for those months and why have they turn up at a work which is not paid for. It is also unclear where the money allocated for paying the wages has gone. The present-day authorities seem to have coped with many years of wage arrears for public sector workers, which is regarded as largely former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s legacy. Ministerial officials keep on uttering reassurances that the money is remitted properly and in due course and even that the public sector workers’ wages are on increase. However, the point is that the money does not reach the targeted people. The workers at the above ambulance station, while on the hunger strike, continue to carry out their duties. The Primoye administration’s representative and the chairman of th territory’s trade union have been sent to hold negotiations with the strikers. You can only wonder at the Russian man’s soul. To starve, but keep on working. And wait for the reaction from the local authorities who exactly are to be held responsible for the situation. Really, the physicians had better go to their homes and the bureaucrats had better take their places and get the feel of what it is like. Maybe the wages will come on time then?

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/11/06/33459.html