Since January 14, every day, about 100 citizens, according to city clinics on duty by ambulance, end up in hospital beds after falling on the streets. Last weekend, a record was set — 1,086 people were hospitalized with bruises and fractures. Traumatology departments of St. Petersburg hospitals are overcrowded two to three times. An additional (third in a row) department for traumatized patients. The Elizabethan Hospital has reached the maximum number of hospitalizations for those crippled on ice during the entire existence of the clinic. In total, since the beginning of the season, ambulance crews have visited the so-called street injuries more than 3,600 times. Doctors directly connect increased injuries with the situation on the roads. There are dozens of times more people who get injured due to ice and are treated at home. Optimists believe that public utilities are losing the fight against ice and snow. Pessimists are convinced that they never started it.
Everyone falls!
People's Artist of Russia, actress of the Theater on Vasilyevsky Tatiana Malyagina on January 13, on her way to work, she slipped on the corner of the 12th line and Sredny Prospekt V.O., fell, hit her head, lost consciousness and broke her shoulder. On this day, Malyagina was supposed to play in the play «The Idiot». The theater had to urgently look for a replacement for her, and performances with her participation were canceled in the following days.
— The situation is outrageous, unpleasant for Tatyana, and for the theater, and for the audience, — Vladimir Slovokhotov, artistic director of the dramatic Theater on Vasilyevsky, commented on the incident to Novaya Gazeta. “There is chaos in the city. We will investigate and find out exactly where Malyagina fell and who is responsible there. She now has half her body in a cast. For at least a month, our theater was left without a people's artist.
Tatiana Malyagina ended up in a cast for a month after an injury on a slippery sidewalk. Photo: Paper/Telegram
Petersburg musician, guitarist of the Knife for Frau Müller group Oleg Gitarkin, who broke his leg in the Central District (fell on Pechatnik Grigoriev Street on January 16), does not intend to look for the guilty. However, he admits:
“The extent to which the city is not cleaned this year is shocking, infuriating, it’s some kind of horror.”
The most terrible incident of a fall on ice occurred last week in Kolpino. A 12-year-old girl, returning home from school, slipped on Lenin Avenue. Doctors recorded a spinal fracture in a child.
In the public chats of the inhabitants of the Vasileostrovsky district, information has recently spread that in one of the yards of the Vasilyevsky Island, Governor Beglov almost collapsed. Even if this is a myth, it is quite plausible.
Ice in St. Petersburg. Photo: Alexey Dushutin/Novaya Gazeta
Citizens post on social networks videos of skiing on an ice slide in the underpass near Gostiny Dvor at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and Sadovaya Street. Under the ground people move out standing, sitting and lying down. Another unauthorized skating rink operates on Palace Square.
Traumatologists say that they will not remember such a number of people injured due to ice over the past ten years.
Fine, don't fine — it doesn't matter
Curses against St. Petersburg utilities have been flying for more than one month. Back in late November, when the first snowfalls covered the northern capital, public utilities could not clear the streets of snow in a timely and efficient manner, which led to impassable blockages and snowdrifts, both in courtyards and on city highways. Time has passed. The snow turned into ice, and the problem of road cleaning was not resolved.
During the first 10 days of January, inspectors from the State Housing Inspectorate (GZhI) checked almost 1,500 houses in St. Petersburg. Violations were found in 29% of them. As Novaya Gazeta was told in the press service of the department, experts looked at how well the adjacent territories were cleared of snow and ice. As a result, on the facts of poor cleaning, the State Housing Inspectorate initiated 107 administrative cases with fines of 9.23 million rubles.
— In addition, officials and legal entities were held administratively liable for various identified violations, — noted in GZHI. — Also, the State Housing Inspectorate checked the activities of 243 city management companies and initiated another 173 administrative cases against them for the total amount of fines of 12.45 million rubles.