So should we let him in or not?

During the ten days that wheelchair users were no longer allowed on the metro, my phone hasn’t stopped ringing. We are already almost friends with Alexander, Zhenya, Yuri, Nikolai, two Sergei and the wife of one of them, Anya. Seryozha and Anya made it a rule to report every day where they were not allowed in and where they were sent.

And if at first the people were simply indignant at the injustice of the metro management: “We are the same people and we have the same rights,” now everyone is tired of the complete confusion.
“We listened to TV yesterday, and the governor was already preoccupied, as were a bunch of other bosses. The chairman said something like that, that the issue had been resolved. So we went,” says Sergei Nikolaev, who took his 46-kilogram Anechka on hikes in a stroller, and dragged him through the Crimean mountains, but cannot drag him into the subway.
Another Sergei, Timokhin, says that he simply fell into depression when he realized that he was doomed to sit at home.
— I take photographs, and I was supposed to have a show of my work and a master class at Bukvoed on Enlightenment. I couldn’t get there from Zanevskaya Square! (metro station "Novocherkasskaya"). And the next day, I drove to work two hours longer, using the transfer bus, was late and let 20 people down. I returned home, lay down on the sofa - and I felt so bad from the frustration! Maybe they will come up with all sorts of mechanisms, but when will this happen... But life is going on now.
The fact that the issue has been resolved is, of course, exaggerated by the disabled. Alexander Rzhanenkov, chairman of the Committee on Social Policy, spoke out much more cautiously after the coordination council on this issue.
“We suggested that the metro find opportunities and provide assistance to low-mobility groups of the population,” Alexander Nikolaevich said this with such a sad face that it was not difficult to guess: we had not agreed on anything.
But the wheelchair users heard only what they wanted to hear.
Okay, wheelchair users, even the prosecutor’s office bought into the magic word “coordination council.” Because when I called to find out if anyone had filed a lawsuit, the press service of the prosecutor’s office was very surprised: the issue had been resolved! A few minutes later they called back with clarification:
“The Prosecutor’s Office of the St. Petersburg Metro is conducting an inspection, and the City Prosecutor’s Office has made a representation to the head of the St. Petersburg Metro, Vladimir Garyugin, demanding that the violations be eliminated, the perpetrators punished and measures taken,” said Elena Ordynskaya, senior assistant prosecutor for media relations.
- So who should Garyugin punish? After all, this is his order - not to allow people in wheelchairs!
— Those who did not allow, for example, Evgenia Gurova into the subway, should be punished. This should be good prevention.
It turns out to be some kind of absurdity. Vladimir Garyugin ordered his subordinates not to allow wheelchair users. Prudently, he did this orally. However, according to several guards, their colleague who disobeyed the order was deprived of his bonus. Now those who did not disobey the order must be punished to prevent stupid actions.
Garyugin himself refuses any comments about the scandal. When I managed to get through to him on Friday evening, he almost barked into the phone:
— All questions to Rzhanenkov!
“He has already answered his questions.” But he cannot answer the questions that are addressed to you! — I shouted, realizing that the conversation would not be long.
- These are his problems... - end of connection.
I, of course, understand that Vladimir Alexandrovich has driven himself into a corner with his irreconcilable fight against disabled people. And now it is beneath him to say anything. Therefore, we publish the questions that we were unable to ask him, and at the same time we fax them to him. Maybe he'll read it. Maybe he will answer. For example, I am most interested in the answer to question No. 8.

Diana KACHALOVA

REQUEST

Questions for Vladimir GARYUGIN:

1. Name the cases of wheelchair users falling on escalators, resulting in injuries to the disabled people themselves and other passengers.
2. What percentage of the total number of incidents in the metro are such cases?
3. What was the impetus for your verbal order, and why was it only oral?
4. Why was no one, including the employees of the metro information center, instructed how to deal with the increased number of complaints and what to explain to people?
5. Is it true that one of the security guards was deprived of his bonus for taking pity on a disabled person and letting him into the subway?
6. How do you intend to respond to the prosecutor’s office’s submission and fulfill the demand to punish the guilty?
7. Why in reports on the activities of the metro do you write as an achievement(!) about the ramps and rails installed to help people in wheelchairs, including at stations with escalators, if you don’t allow them beyond the ramp?
8. How to get from the Novocherkasskaya metro station to Prospekt Prosveshcheniya by ground transport? (question from wheelchair user Sergei Timokhin).