.RU → Russians offered a variety of ways to be caring citizens. Part II
23.05.12
With the ongoing wave of rallies sweeping Russia it appears the stigma of apolitical inactive citizens that don't really care about anything is a stereotype about to get shattered. The Twitter account designated for updating those that want fair and transparent elections and government was aptly named "Wake Up Russia". But, given the amount of websites using which Russians can express themselves and law-abiding, legally savvy, responsible and responsive citizens, I would say that this sentiment has been going on for quite some time. Lifestyle newspaper and blog Bolshoy Gorod, translated as Big City, has published a list of such websites and yesterday I covered one of the categories - Urban life and development. And today I'll try to go through the rest of these and close the books on "civil control websites" for 2011. So without further ado, here goes.
Two more entries have something to do with living in an urban environment or, rather, moving through it. First one is not really a website, it's a community and it's called The Blue Bucket society - I've mentioned these guys several times on the program. They were somewhat spontaneously created out of a one-time protest against VIP-cars with blue sirens on top that often feel like traffic laws do not concern them. Drivers who strive for road equality put blue buckets on top of their cars to mock these blue beacons and drove around downtown in a motorcade. Well, tried to do so, they were quickly stopped by traffic police and kindly asked not create traffic jams and remove buckets due to them "not being securely attached". Anyway, it's all history now - this incident sparked the online Blue Bucket Community, where everyone is welcome to share their stories of blatant traffic law violation, preferably with videos photos as proof. The community is responsible for several such cases getting significant exposure in the media and even got thanked by a law enforcement official for their bringing a certain violation into light and helping find those responsible.
Source: The Voice of Russia