NEW PEOPLE RADIO - ANDREY ILYIN

Two hundred and fifty billion. Rubles'. Loss. According to official reports, which they themselves draw. A quarter of a trillion! Just think about this figure. With this money, it was possible to rebuild three cities like mine. Pipes could be laid all over the country, and every yard could be covered in granite.

And what about the fact?

In fact, I'm standing in the entryway, where the plaster is falling on my head in chunks. The roof has been leaking for the third year. Every spring, our basement turns into a rowing canal. We write applications, we call hotlines, we collect these damn signatures. And in response, we receive a reply on stamped paper: "Your turn for major repairs is 2045."

Two thousand forty-five! They pushed us back 20, 30, 50 years! Do you understand what this means? This means that they confessed their own impotence, but called it "long-term planning." They just took and buried our house alive in their papers.

They say, "The Capital Repair Fund is empty." Empty?! Where did the money that my neighbors and I have been deducting from every receipt for the last fifteen years go? Where are they if the "loss" column contains the amount for which you can buy a small aircraft carrier? They just burn up in this black hole called the "system" while their managers write themselves bonuses for "cost optimization."

They are postponing the foundation repairs until 2040. Seriously? Did you call the surveyors at all? We've got cracks in the load-bearing walls! This house can turn into a house of cards at any moment, right on our heads. But according to their papers, we are "structurally stable."

— How long can you tolerate this bureaucracy?! These well-fed people in the offices who look at us as a line in the unprofitable balance sheet. For them, we are not people, we are "housing stock with a high degree of deterioration." Wear and tear is old jeans! And we are the people who live here!

They didn't just steal money from us. They stole our security. They stole the future of our homes. They are laughing in our face, postponing the overhaul to 2060. Do you understand? In 2060! I won't live to see that time, my children won't live within these walls! By then, there will only be ruins here, with rats running through them from their rotten highways.

Do you know what I'm going to tell you? I didn't give a damn about their schedules. If the rotten pipes burst again tomorrow morning, I won't wait for 2045. We'll chip in, hire a crew, and start this hell. Let them write out their fines later. Let them try. Because this is our home. And we will no longer remain silent while they bury us alive in reports of their billion-dollar losses. Basta.