A steady stream of garbage-laden trucks moves the waste of Russia's capital to landfills in the surrounding region. The resulting mountains of refuse emit noxious fumes and leach pollutants into nearby waters, endangering the residents of the region around Moscow.
Citizens living near these landfills have had enough.
Protests against garbage dumps have erupted in at least eight towns and villages around Moscow in the last six months. As a scholar who studies contemporary Russian politics, I believe these garbage protests reveal a crisis of basic governance that potentially poses a greater challenge to Putin's government than pro-democracy activism.
Russian activists have come under increasing pressure since Putin returned to office in 2012. Protests have been relatively scarce after the 2011-2012 Bolotnaya demonstrations in response to election fraud. Long-standing nongovernmental groups working on environmental and human rights issues, which relied in part on funding from abroad, have been labeled “foreign agents” by Russia's Ministry of Justice.
At the same time, Putin's government has cultivated more patriotic and apolitical forms of activism, such as youth groups that organize events memorializing World War II and socially oriented NGOs that work marginalized groups, including the disabled and orphans.
