What is slyakot and how do Russians cope with it
RBTH
07 May 2021, 04:55 GMT+10
Imagine there are three roads - one with brown slushy snow, another with a huge puddle and a third with dirty snow in a huge puddle. Which one would you take? Residents of most Russian cities face this choice every spring.
On a spring day in 2020, Maria (the name has been changed per request), a medical college student from the small town of Kamensk-Uralsky (in Sverdlovsk Region, 1,500 km from Moscow), together with a friend, was standing at the entrance to an underground passage, filled knee-high with dirty water smelling of feces. Instead of a "lifebuoy", there were just a few wooden planks floating in the middle of the underpass. But it was the only way to get to the other side of the rail tracks, so it had to be crossed. Maria would have gladly climbed over the tracks, as was her habit, but just the previous day she had been caught by a police officer while doing exactly that and issued a fine of 100 rubles (approx. $1.30).