Penza, 15 May 2015. PenzaNews. Lyudmila Kolomytseva, deputy editor-in-chief of “Novaya Sotsialnaya Gazeta,” sent a request to Nikolai Nikolaev, director of the APF center on independent Presidential edicts fulfillment audit center “People’s Inspection,” dedicated to the Penza dacha commute and fare rate increase.

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In particular, she reminded that the local authorities made concessions and returned Friday buses for dacha owners after the Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed of the state of affairs.

However, recently the deputy head of Penza city administration Sergei Simonov said the Friday buses will be cancelled due to low passenger turnout.

“[…] The city administration announced the Friday buses will get cut, since due to bad weather and Victory Day that made people cancel their dacha plans, […] it is unprofitable then. And the overall dacha commute human traffic shrunk by 33% this year. And why shouldn’t it, if the fare increased while the salaries grew only in reports? This was what I told the Russian President about. The dachas are great held for the poor and the elderly during the crisis. People feed themselves. And now they will have to buy imported potatoes and carrots in chain stores because there would be nothing to replace it. The realities of import replacement,” reads the text of Lyudmila Kolomytseva’s address made available to PenzaNews agency on Friday, May 15.

The journalist also recalled that the Penza shuttle bus fare may soon increase by 40%.

“[…] A private driver who now has no municipal competitor has no other way to make ends meet. Didn’t the city authorities know this would be the case when they let ‘Penza Passenger Transportation’ go bankrupt? The most revolting thing for me is the way the authorities treat the people and the Russian President with disdain, and even more surprising is the dead silence of the regional authorities represented by the regional government [Vasily Bochkarev],” reads the statement of Lyudmila Kolomytseva.