By Slava Tsukerman
Trucks of the protesters are blocking highway near the city of Kerch
On November 15 a new Russian law took effect, whereby trucks weighting twelve tons or more are charged 1.5 rubles ($0.02) for each kilometer on Russia’s roads. The tax will be introduced stage by stage ending by 2018 with the price rising to 3.73 rubles for kilometer. It means the transportation companies will have to pay today on average about 350,000 rubles ($5,410) for each heavy goods vehicle per year. The fine for an unpaid trip will be 450,000 rubles (almost $7,000) for the first recorded violation and one million rubles (around $15,500) for subsequent violations.
According to Russian officials the initiative is necessary to collect funds to repair damage to roads inflicted by trucks transporting heavy loads. Yet opponents of the new tax say it threatens to bankrupt small- and mid-sized companies and drive up inflation.
The money is collected by an electronic collection system — called Platon, similar to the American toll collecting system.
“Platon”
Platon is operated by a company controlled by the son of construction magnate Arkady Rotenberg, a friend and former judo sparring partner of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since Putin became President, Rotenberg has landed billions of dollars in state contracts.
Hundreds of truck drivers from across Russia are protesting against the new law. The protesters pledge they will block federal highways if the planned tariff is not cancelled. Mass demonstrations have taken place in more than 70 Russian cities across the country, including outside Moscow, St. Petersburg, as well as the Siberian cities of Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, and Omsk.
In the Belgorod region, 150 drivers blocked several lanes of the ‘Moscow-Crimea’ federal highway leaving only one lane available for motorists in each direction. In Siberia, 370 drivers parked their trucks on the roadside of the highway between Novosibirsk and Omsk, with around 50 truckers joining the protest on a road near the city of Irkutsk.
Truckers block traffic lanes
On November 21 drivers in the republic of Dagestan announced that they intend to “move to Moscow” if their demands are not heard and block the traffic in the Russian capital. A column of trucks longer than 50 kilometers stands in the republic’s highway.
The protest was organized via social networks by several drivers associations, including the Interregional Union of Professional Drivers, Gazeta.ru reports.
Truckers all over the country have flashed placards denouncing what they call the “Rotenberg Tax.” Protesters put placards on the windscreens of their vehicles: “No to the tax!” “Build good roads first!”
Placard: “Money to home, not to platon”
A driver in a column of protestants’ trucks on the side of a freeway in the Sverdlovsk region in the Ural Mountains told to a correspondent of Radio Liberty: “This money are not going to go to fixing roads, because it’s going into pockets filled with holes.”
Russian Internet is featuring a video interview with a Dagestan truck driver, who openly blames Putin and his government for ruining Russian economy and supporting corrupt officials. He addresses his speech to Putin: “When you fire a corrupted official, you replace him with an even worse one!.. Czar Nikolas II didn’t listen to workers and in 1917 workers overthrew him. We can do the same with you!”
https://www.facebook.com/100007800271652/videos/1664286333841360/?permPage=1
The Russian officials made attempts to frighten the protesters. The Federal Roads Agency has asked the Interior Ministry to investigate protest organizers, citing a November 19 incident near the western city of Tver in which a truck veered off the side of the road and struck a group of demonstrating truck drivers, killing one and injuring three.
State Duma Deputy Yevgeny Fyodorov, a member of Putin’s ruling United Russia party and known as one of the most aggressive enemies of democracy, released on November 20 a video in which he accused the protesting truck drivers of being manipulated by “national traitors” and a “fifth column” working by orders of the United States.
Yevgeniy Fyodorov
The drivers and representatives of transport companies warn that new tax could lead to a rapid increase in prices for many consumer goods, including basic food stuffs, as companies will “be forced” to raise tariffs for their services.
“We will have to raise prices for transportation services because fuel, maintenance and repair costs have increased… we will just have to include the new tax in the price for our services, so suppliers will include it in the cost of their goods and eventually the prices for food and basic necessities will increase several times,” one of the protesters told TASS.
“When prices for food rise, it will be not only drivers who are protesting – it will be the whole country,” another demonstrator told Gazeta.ru.
Meanwhile, some transportation companies have already announced a 30% increase in prices for their services, Interfax reports.
The Russian government took a small step back. The Transportation Ministry said in a November 20 statement that it has drafted legislation that would cancel fines for drivers of 12-ton trucks who fail to pay the federal road tax and would lower fines for truck owners, though the tax itself appears set to remain in place.
Russian state controlled TV hadn’t even mentioned truck drivers’ protest activity in their newscasts. Russian bloggers made yjr decision to fight the state TV. Under the “News” link in the social network VKontakte (Russian analog of FaceBook) users started asking why nothing about the truckers had appeared on air of the Channel One TV. The network began a flashmob: all users have begun to ask Channel One about the truckers.
As a result, on November 22 Channel One broadcast a story about truckers “by popular demand of viewers.” It was an old documentary about the hard work and happy life of truck drivers. Protest movement wasn’t even mentioned.
