Activist from the Karelian town of Pitkyaranta Anna Boykova received a warning on vk.com from the official page of the district administration head Dmitry Troshin that inviting residents to flash mob #PitkyarantaWaitingForATrain was illegal and unsafe. Anna Boykova told the correspondent of "7x7" about it on September 18.
"Good afternoon, Anna Gennadyevna! We inform you that inviting citizens through social networks to participate in a flash mob at the train station of Pitkyaranta on September 21, is unsafe and does not comply with the norms of the legislation," the administration messaged.
The author of the warning gave a long quote from the law on rallies. Boykova received this message in the afternoon of September 18. She did not negotiate holding a mass event with the administration.
— We won’t cancel anything, — wrote Boykova to the correspondent of "7x7". — Let [Troshin] try to explain to us since when waiting for a train has become a dangerous and mass uncoordinated event.
Residents of Pitkyaranta decided to conduct flash mob #PitkyarantaWaitingForABus on September 21 by means of gathering at the railway station to wait for the train from St. Petersburg, cancelled several years ago, and in this way to draw the attention of officials to the fact that the city needed a connection to the outside world by rail. When the train from St. Petersburg was canceled, residents of the city appealed to the government of Karelia to organize a comfortable bus route or a «railbus» — one car with a locomotive — for them many times.
The bus to St. Petersburg from Pitkyaranta (330 km) takes ten hours, there is no toilet in the bus. There is a «minibus» going through Sortavala from Pitkyaranta, it reaches the destination in five hours, but, according to locals, minibuses are inconvenient and close, and on July 12, 2019 one of them collided with the oncoming car on a route. Route taxy driver and two car passengers died. After the accident, residents of Pitkyaranta decided to hold a flash mob.
