Voluntary duty

Some census takers are offended by people who do not open the door for them, citing reluctance to participate in the census. To convince them, they are trying to involve local police officers in their work. As the editor-in-chief of the information site “Our Ryazan” and the political online newspaper “In the Foreshortening”, the chairman of the organizing committee of “The Other Russia” in the Ryazan region, Sergei Yezhov, wrote in his blog, census takers, despite his refusal, came to him three times, and on the fourth they brought a policeman . Yezhov filmed this fourth visit on his mobile phone and posted it on his blog. The district police officer demanded that the phone be removed and refused to show identification. Yezhov opened the door, but still did not participate in the census. At the same time, neither the census takers nor the district police officer listened to Yezhov’s arguments that participation in the census was voluntary. On blogs, other people indicate that local police officers also came to them. Blogger Viktor Korb from Omsk posted a photo of a piece of paper that census takers left on the door of his apartment - it’s an ordinary leaflet calling for participation in the census, but there is a handwritten inscription on it that reads: “If you don’t open it, the census taker will come with a district police officer.” Some particularly touchy census takers, if it is not opened to them, will cover the peephole with a piece of paper.

Meanwhile, census takers themselves admit in their blogs that the district police officer supposedly has to go to those who haven’t opened the door - and he may refuse to correspond, the main thing is that he opens the door. In addition, they are allegedly required to still register those who did not participate, taking information from the housing office and inventing information about the residents from their heads, sometimes even adding non-existent people to their apartments.