Spring-cleaning Grozny

Not only garbage, but also unexploded shells have had to be cleaned away from the streets of the Chechen capital
 
A city-wide "subbotnik" (i.e. community cleaning activities), called in Chechen “Mekhkan belhi” (“Public Subbotnik”), initiated by the Chechen Republic’s President, Ramzan Kadyrov, recently finished in Grozny. The capital of Chechnya was divided into 51 sectors, and these sectors were allotted to Ministries, agencies and public organizations. The most lively sector was the 1st one, named “the President’s sector” – it was not only cleaned, but also hedges there were restored.
According to the major of Grozny, Muslim Khuchiev, 333 thousand citizens took part in the subbotnik. Some entertaining activities were also undertaken.
The city-wide subbotnik started with an announcement to all the ministries and agencies, urging all employees to take part in the cleaning activities, despite the allotted sectors being several kilometres away from their work places. People from all over the Republic took part in the subbotnik, as well as some volunteers from other regions. For example, a numerous group of Chechens came from Volgograd. “This is my motherland, I grew up here. And I’m not indifferent to the wellbeing of our Republic. So I see no reason to stand aside from our cause”, - said Magomed Eljurkaev, a businessman from Volgograd who sponsored the construction of playgrounds in two city districts.
Not only garbage, but also unexploded shells had to be cleaned away from the capital’s streets. During the cleaning activities the Chechen department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) had to defuse a 500-kilogramm aerial bomb, left over from hostilities on the Republic’s territory. Experts estimate that the bomb’s explosion could have affected buildings within a one kilometer radius.
The city administration set itself the task of restoring Grozny as the main “Green City” of the Republic. Several thousand trees and flowers were planted in the capital. This arrangement of green spaces was undertaken with the use of all modern landscape design technologies.
 
Timur Utsaev, exclusively to VK