Hi everyone! This is Andrey Zatirko, and here is my first piece for Verstka — about how...

Hi everyone! This is Andrey Zatirko, and here is my first piece for Verstka — about how the Kremlin is building the scenery of Putin’s Russia. I cannot call the network of national centers called “Russia” anything else. There, Vladimir Putin personally and his war are glorified.

But the propaganda damage they do to the population is only half the trouble. The way these centers are being built makes me angry. First, poor regions are spending billions of rubles on this. Second, the sites for them are chosen with complete disregard for residents’ opinions.

The most striking example is Ryazan. There, the authorities cut down part of a forest park for the center, a park that nearly 100,000 townspeople planted 70 years ago. They spent 3 billion rubles from a deficit budget on the building and infrastructure.

At the same time, the completion of a school and a clinic was postponed because of a lack of money. When the building was already standing, it turned out that it had been constructed without a building permit. What is that even called?

Naturally, people close to Russia’s top leadership are profiting from the creation of the centers. I showed only two such examples in this story. I am sure there are more, since total spending on these projects exceeds 160 billion rubles.

So read my piece, help spread it, and support our work— it really matters to us.

How Russia built an alternative reality — read on Verstka’s website (with a VPN):

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Verstka

A Country That Does Not Exist. How the Kremlin Is Building the Scenery of Putin’s Russia

Tens of billions of rubles from the budget for centers of parallel reality