COME GET AROUND

Vladivostok is called the city of victorious motorists, where there is practically no place for pedestrians. The entire infrastructure of the city screams about discrimination: highways, widened roads due to sidewalks, broken surfaces of viaducts, and a poorly functioning public transport system.

The best illustration of pedestrian discrimination in the city is the Golden Bridge, which opened for the APEC summit in 2012. This is an important infrastructure facility connecting the center of Vladivostok with other districts. Initially, the bridge had meter-long sidewalks on each side, but during the construction, the project was changed and left only technological passages through which passage was prohibited.

A video of the documented action, filmed by a passing motorist, went viral on social media and local media. This led to the fact that the dispute about the ban on the bridge received a new round of discussion among the residents of the city.

Within a few days, the news about the action went from the regional level to the federal one. Once in the reports of RIA Novosti, it spread in major news and entertainment publics on social networks, as well as in many Russian media, including TV channels: Russia, Mir24, NTV, REN TV, Channel One. As well as print and online publications: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Izvestia, Life, Lenta, Meduza, Afisha, etc.

While the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the protection of the bridge, under the onslaught of requests from the media, said that we had not violated traffic rules and the law, the city authorities preferred not to comment on this action and the reaction of the townspeople.

Further, the news spread throughout the world publications: the Sun, the Guardian, Euronews, RT, ANN, CBS, FOX 47, etc.