Voronezh Deputy Mayor Accuses Residents of Toxicity Amid Waste Management Crisis

A deputy mayor in Voronezh, Russia, has referred to local residents as “toxic and ungrateful” following weeks of public dissatisfaction regarding uncollected trash, as reported by local news on Tuesday.

Deputy Mayor Lyudmila Borodina made these remarks in light of a waste management issue in the nearby town of Semiluki, where residents informed the Ostorozhno Novosti news outlet that garbage containers have been absent from a key road for a month, and their complaints on social media have received no response.

“I want to emphasize that we have a good standard of living here. The employees serving our businesses and citizens work almost nonstop to ensure our comfort. However, the level of appreciation and negativity among Voronezh residents is quite different,” Borodina was quoted by the local outlet Bloknot during a business forum on Tuesday.

She further claimed that larger cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg are not cleaner than Voronezh, despite having significantly greater budgets.

“Point out a place that’s cleaner than Voronezh,” she challenged. “I frequently visit Moscow and St. Petersburg, and even with their vast resources, they aren’t any cleaner. In Voronezh, we maximize our budget, which is already set, despite facing issues like broken tiles.”

As reported by Trud Chernozemya, Borodina attended the event with a Louis Vuitton handbag that is valued at up to 480,000 rubles ($5,900, based on recent foreign exchange market information from Reuters) from Moscow’s TsUM department store.