Residents of the Varsegi settlement risk their lives due to the lack of a pedestrian crossing.

      Sloboda is divided by a road into two parts. In one — next to the Raduzhny neighborhood — there are shops, a pharmacy, a clinic, a kindergarten and a school. In the other — only private houses. To get to the "mainland," locals have to cross a busy highway. The nearest crosswalks are in neighboring Savintsy and by the Varsegi gardens — more than half a kilometre along an unlit shoulder. As a result, people have to make a kilometre-long detour or risk their lives.

      The situation is especially dangerous for schoolchildren. To get to School No. 74 by the rules, a child must walk more than 2 km. The bus to Raduzhny runs only in summer. Residents complain that they even have to cross the road just to throw out the trash: the containers are on the opposite side.

      Locals have repeatedly appealed to the traffic police and the Kirov administration to install a pedestrian crossing at the "Sloboda Varsegi" stop. But, they say, the response has been the same: since there have been no deaths or injuries on this stretch, there is no problem.

      In the end people turned to the People's Front. "Unfortunately, we very often encounter responses from the authorized bodies that amount to the logic 'no deaths — no problem.' But that holds only for so long. We have sent an appeal to the prosecutor's office to verify a possible violation of the local residents' rights," said Valeriya Cheremisinova, head of the regional branch of the People's Front.