The flip side of 400 million Sabantuy rubles

      Even with the belated comment from the Kirov government claiming that, supposedly, 62 million rubles from the regional budget were spent directly on Sabantuy itself and the rest, non-budgetary funds, went toward local road repairs (manholes on the repaired roads were asphalted over, which means the cost of street repairs will have to be doubled) and “other facades,” it still feels offensive when “we’re treated like children being fooled.” After all, when the regional budget was being drafted last November–December, as far as one can recall, no “planned investment” in cosmetic repairs of the district center was envisioned.

      However, the guests who dared to attend Sabantuy were far from the promised 100,000 people; the numbers weren’t even in the tens of thousands, but just in the thousands of scattered individuals—mostly locals, volunteers, and journalists, which is for the best, since out-of-towners lured in by political advertising were literally storming the buses in droves to “escape the festival.” It is worth noting an interesting fact: hungry Sabantuy guests, arriving after their journeys, were shocked by the prices—they had to pay almost 2,500 rubles for two hot dogs and a 200-gram portion of shashlik. Meanwhile, “guest” and government photos showed shots where the governor’s jacket could barely be buttoned over his well-fed belly. There were also plenty of photos that required no commentary, showing that in addition to “mud baths” from the soggy roads, the area for festivities had turned into a dump—since apparently no one had bothered to arrange garbage pickup. Or perhaps they simply didn’t have time to clean up all the “festive trash” left by guests. There were no lines to the toilets either, since the stench and the “internal décor of the stalls” drove people away.

      Nevertheless, Newsler.ru, with no intention of deliberately seeking out flaws or failures at Sabantuy, could not help but publish a photo and video gallery of our readers’ impressions.