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Event participant: Governor’s meeting with Penza bloggers not discussion, but petition show

13:58 | 21.10.2014 | Society

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Penza, 21 October 2014. PenzaNews. The public meeting of the Penza region governor Vasily Bochkarev that took place on the evening of Monday, October 20, grew from a discussion to “indiscriminate petition show,” said Denis Simonov, one of the participants of the event and the author for the blog “Traveling Penza citizen’s notes.”

In his own words, the representatives of information policy and media department called him with an invitation to the meeting announced as a post-mortem discussion for “Penza Region Points of Growth” project.

“And I thought we’ll sit down, have a serious talk about the places we’ve visited – why not? […] Then I run into the governor’s house […] and see that the faces at the ‘Points of Growth’ table have no relation to it at all. […] But now about the meeting itself. There was a lot of talking. A great lot of talking. From six to half past eight. Sometimes about the ‘announced topic’ (those very ‘Points of Growth’), but mostly about everything or nothing at all. And despite a lot of happy vibes I got during the ‘tea party,’ I got assured that the ‘governor and bloggers’ discussion format doesn’t suit me. First of all, I am not a blogger, and real bloggers on the meeting were as scarce as hen’s teeth. And then, it was not a ‘discussion’: from what I see, it is not a discussion at all, and just an indiscriminate ‘petition show.’ No questions of even general kind were raised, nothing was discussed, nobody wanted to learn the opinion of those present. But everybody asked something from the governor – a lot and all together. Some wanted a glossy magazine to be printed at once, some needed a road to their house, some needed their URL on the gov website,” Denis Simonov wrote in his LiveJournal after the meeting.

According to him, he decided against taking part in such events in the future.

“The road to my home’s OK, the magazines I’m not making, using only my phone for calls, and do not expect any grants or subsidies from anybody. Any reasons to go, then?” Denis Simonov asked.

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