Alexander Plyushchev is an active citizen. Active Citizen

“At many meetings of residents of the five-story buildings being resettled, it was said that voting on these issues would be held in the “Active Citizen”. This means that there would actually be no voting. This service was created with gigantic possibilities for cheating, so that it was nicknamed “A fictitious citizen,” the journalist writes in his blog .

“Since then, it has not changed so much: at the beginning of the year I looked at it carefully. Here are the notes that I jotted down then. Not everything written is related to the upcoming vote, I analyzed the problems of the service as a whole, but methods of manipulation” popular opinion"interesting.

Registration. The system does not prevent people with numbers from other regions of the country from registering. I checked this with the help of several of my friends in other cities. They all managed to register without difficulty. Moreover, they managed to vote, that is, the system allows voting not only from different numbers from other regions, but also does not pay attention to the location of the voter. To be allowed to vote, you don't need anything other than a phone number. This means that there is no identifier that would absolutely guarantee that a voter is a resident of the capital. In other words, we cannot understand how many of those who voted are actually Muscovites.

The principle “One SIM card - one vote” still applies. This allows you to inflate the voting results in any way you like. City Hall employees say that this is not economically feasible - the cheapest SIM card costs at least several tens of rubles. However, the Internet is full of virtual SIM card services that allow you to register with any service."

Vote. There are no topics that provoke real discussions among Muscovites. For example, there are no surveys about the abolition of trolleybuses, parking, minibuses, the activities of the State Budgetary Institution "Zhilishchnik", the use of deicing agents, the transfer of land for churches, etc.

Questions for voting are posed in such a way that they dilute the essence. They suggest choosing the main achievements, and the fact that these are achievements in themselves is not questioned. Most votes are formulated in such a way that the resident does not have any doubt that he is being cared for every minute. Some voting is pure narcissism and vanity fair."

“As a result, it turns out that Muscovites a priori support all the actions of the Moscow authorities, only some more, and others a little less. One hundred percent manipulation.

At the same time, it is not proposed to vote on issues. For example, they ask about holiday events: liked it, didn’t like it, etc. However, no one asks whether Muscovites consider such spending appropriate. It would be logical to write down what money was spent and on what, and ask (perhaps for each item) whether these expenses are justified. That is, no one asks about the most important thing - the ratio of price and quality."

“You can’t look at the results of past votes and turnout. You can look at the intermediate result of the current vote if you voted yourself. This was implemented well, but it is still unclear who is counting the votes and how. What, other than faith in the crystal purity of the hands of officials of the Moscow mayor’s office, can convince us that the vote counting at "Active Citizen" is fair and no one from the mayor's office is interfering? There is no external audit. This does not matter if you ask about the working hours of the sections or the color of the fences (although hooliganism cannot be ruled out) , but if the conversation ever turns to serious or controversial issues, as with Voikovskaya, cheating will not be long in coming. Moreover, no one can guarantee that the mayor’s office itself has not stocked up such a tool for itself just in case.

There is a rather controversial system of incentives for voting - people receive points, which they can then exchange for tickets to theaters, an ice skating rink, and something similar. The incentives there are usually those that, forgive the frankness, are more likely to interest those in need, guests of the capital and migrant workers. As a result, they will vote more actively, and it is possible that they will decide the outcome of the vote. In general, it is not clear why voting should be encouraged if it is voting on truly important issues.

So if a serious issue concerning you is put to a vote, consider that you have already lost, unless, of course, your position coincides with the position of the Moscow authorities. However, in this case there is no need to hold a vote."

For example

Oscar, Price Waterhouse Coopers

ROI

there will be a broadcast on Echo of Moscow

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Active Citizen. But muddy

Yesterday, the Active Citizen project began voting on the issue of renaming the Voikovskaya metro station. I also voted

Active Citizen is a website and application for mobile OS, which the Moscow City Hall positions as an instrument of electronic democracy. Electronic democracy is modern and convenient; it is strange to object to such a method of clarifying public opinion. How this electronic democracy is organized is another matter. If this were simply an element of entertainment, for which voting is used, for example, on the Ekho Moskvy radio, then it would not be worth asking this question. However, Active Citizen voting is increasingly being used by Moscow authorities as an argument for making decisions about the life of the city. And this, let me remind you, is not even a municipal entity, but an entire subject of the Russian Federation. And, apparently, a lot of our money was spent on this project: the Yod publication estimates the costs at tens of millions of rubles. But this post is not about the advisability of spending - this is a separate issue, but about how it all works.

I don’t work at the Moscow mayor’s office and I don’t know how all this works; I judge only from the outside, as the most ordinary user. But it seems to me that it would be in the interests of the mayor’s office to tell about this not only to me, but to all Muscovites in general, in as much detail and clearly as possible, in order to avoid suspicion of fraud. Frankly speaking, it doesn’t take long to come up with a motive to cheat: to issue a decision that is beneficial to the authorities for carrying out the will of Muscovites. I don’t know whether the capital’s mayor’s office is guided by this motive; I have no evidence, just as there is no reason to blindly trust Moscow officials. But doubting and asking questions is my usual, daily work. And these are the questions I had during a quick acquaintance with the project.

- Who is considered an active citizen, in the sense of who is allowed to vote?

I answered this question this way: any person who has a Russian SIM card, since registration takes place by phone number. The system does not prevent people with numbers from other regions of the country from registering. I checked this with the help of several of my friends in other cities. They all managed to register without difficulty. Moreover, they managed to vote, that is, the system allows voting not only from different numbers from other regions, but also does not pay attention to the location of the voter. To be allowed to vote, you don't need anything other than a phone number. This means that there is no identifier that would absolutely guarantee that a voter is a resident of the capital. In other words, we cannot understand how many of those who voted are actually Muscovites. In this sense, statistics on registered numbers by operator and region would be interesting. In general, a potentially very dangerous thing.

Well, imagine that, for example, all residents of some other regions will register on Active Citizen and will decide something. While there is a question about raking leaves, God bless him, but what if something more serious?

It would be logical to assume that in votes that the authorities promise to take into account, the principle of “one person - one vote” should apply. However, as you might guess, the principle “One phone - one voice” applies here. I have several numbers and I have successfully voted from each of them. In general, according to statistics, each person has on average two mobile numbers. But this is not the main thing, but the fact that you can influence the voting results by simply buying up SIM cards. This is an inexpensive business, any operator is always interested in formally expanding the subscriber base, I don’t think that if you want there is a problem in agreeing on wholesale discounts on numbers. In addition, there are various services of “virtual” SIM cards (for example) that allow you to register in different services for a few rubles without using your mobile phone.

- How protected is the system from cheating, primarily on the part of its authors?

Let the programmers correct me if I’m wrong, but, as far as I understand, if you have at your disposal a sufficient number of phone numbers, real or virtual, there is no big problem in writing a script that increases voting.

Thus, it is obvious that there is a theoretical and technical possibility to cheat the voting results, both by using SIM cards and by some other means: by writing other programs that somehow bypass registration or simply rewrite the results on the server. After all, if this is the server of the mayor’s office, it is logical to assume that its technical specialists have access to it? And, again, as far as I understand, there is absolutely no responsibility for falsifying such a vote.

When in various television projects, for example, Eurovision or Voice, voting is carried out via SMS to a short number, this is not done by the organizers, but by third-party companies. The cost of SMS is usually tens of times higher than the usual operator price, and therefore it is noticeable to the user, which in itself is one of the tools aimed against cheating. It becomes simply expensive to cheat.

Well, besides, in case of any doubts, you can always request billing from the company. Everything here is not ideal either, but this is at least some kind of protection against falsification.

By the way, Active Citizen not only does not have an “entry threshold” in the form of a conventional 50 rubles per vote, but also, on the contrary, for each vote cast, the user receives points, for which he is subsequently promised some kind of money. I wonder how many Active Citizens there would be if each vote cost 50 rubles?

What, other than faith in the crystal purity of the hands of officials of the Moscow mayor's office, can convince us that voting on the Active Citizen is fair?

One of the means is an independent and authoritative audit. For example, at the Oscars, which, let me remind you, is purely internal matter The American Film Academy hired none other than Price Waterhouse Coopers to audit the voting of these same film academicians. You can talk as much as you like about the politicization of the vote, the bias of the jury, etc., but it’s much more difficult to find fault with the counting. Yes, it’s not a cheap business, but the cheapest solution is not always the best or most reliable. Moreover, judging by how much money they say has already been spent on the Active Citizen, the mayor’s office is not particularly keen on the price of the issue.

- What prevents you from using the ROI mechanism?

One day a government services website appeared on the Internet. Then, websites providing similar services appeared at ministries and departments, and regional resources gradually became available. This, instead of convenience, or, more precisely, together with some conveniences, led to considerable confusion. Citizens made an appointment for public services, but it turns out they had to go to the traffic police website, they printed out an application form or a payment form from one site, and on the spot it turned out that it was necessary to go to another and this mess, although cleared up a little, is making itself felt still. The story is similar with electronic democracy. As we remember, more than two years ago the website of the Russian Public Initiative (ROI) was launched with great fanfare. Well, this is the one where various petitions are voted on. So, there are different levels of initiatives: federal, regional and municipal. What prevented the Moscow authorities from using the already existing ROI mechanism? Moreover, its protection against cheating is incomparably higher. There you need to register for those same government services, and this is a unique identifier. Which, by the way, makes it possible to exclude residents of other regions from voting. So, I was unable to vote at the ROI on the issue of renaming one of the streets in Nizhny Novgorod, the system understands that I am not local, and rightly sends me to hell.

There were also many complaints about this site, for example, there is no protection against the use of administrative resources, say, using the personal data of civil servants. But the Active Citizen also does not have such protection: if municipal employees can be forced to go to community work days and rallies, and vote in elections, what prevents them from being plowed in this very innocent case? It is clear that ROI is a site for petitions, not voting, but the essence is the same. You might think there are few in Moscow public organizations or, excuse the pun, active citizens to submit a corresponding petition. At the same time, it would be possible to save several tens of millions of rubles. Not to mention the fact that, in fact, offline mechanisms have long existed on various issues - hearings and referendums. And we know examples when hearings are falsified and referendums are canceled at the initiative group stage, which does not add to the authority of electronic democracy, which these tools seem to be slowly replacing.

I did not find any explanations on this matter on the Active Citizen website, although it would seem reasonable and logical to explain the principles of voting and control mechanisms there. In short, I have far more questions about Active Citizen than answers; for me the service is obviously opaque and murky. I read on Twitter that there will be a broadcast on Echo of Moscow, as I understand it, with the participation of representatives of the Moscow mayor’s office and its critics, where I would be glad to hear answers to all my questions and doubts.

I am personally against naming the street in honor of B. Nemtsov. I don’t know his specific affairs, and I don’t consider him such a wonderful politician, and I’m not alone. The vote on the topic of renaming the Voykovskaya metro station to AG is somewhat unclear, there are no specifics. It is not clear what is meant: in general, the renaming of all stations, be it metro, railway stations, etc. Regarding Voikovskaya, I’m for it. There is a street there. cosmonaut Volkov, we can name the Metro station after him.

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“Active Citizen” became the winner of the “Runet Award” in the category “State and Society”

09:32 11.11.2015

The project of city electronic referendums of the Moscow government “Active Citizen” received a national award in the field high technology in the category “State and Society”. This was reported by the portal's press service.

The award in the category “State and Society” is awarded to government and non-profit projects and organizations, as well as media and social resources that develop the social component of the Runet, socially significant and government resources.

The lists of participants in each nomination were formed based on the results of voting by members of the Expert Club - an open community of more than 1 thousand IT professionals. “The shortlist for the State and Society nomination included five organizations and 15 projects. According to the decision of the Expert Council, the winner was “Active Citizen”, as well as the Unified Portal of State Services and the socially significant project of the online cinema and the All-Russian Society of the Deaf “Cinema of Equal Access”. In addition, the Organizing Committee awarded a special award to the Federal tax service Russia,” reports the project’s press service.

“Runet Award” is the seventh award of the “Active Citizen”. In 2014, the project received the Grand Prix of the RuPoR-2014 public relations award and the CNews AppWARDS award in the “Best Mobile Application for the Public Sector” category. In 2015, "Active Citizen" was recognized best app in the international Best m-Government Service Award and SABER Awards EMEA 2015 and became the winner of the Russian Runet Rating competition, as well as a laureate of the Digital Communication AWARDS-2015. The project is included in the TOP 50 social mobile applications in the world,” the material clarifies.

Chairman of the State Services Committee, curator of the “Active Citizen” project Elena Shinkaruk called the Runet Prize “a reward for all Muscovites participating in the project.” Minister of Government, Head of Department information technologies Moscow City Hall Artem Ermolaev expressed hope that even more Muscovites will become “active citizens.” Currently, more than 1.2 million users are participating in the project.

The “Active Citizen” project was launched on May 21, 2014 on behalf of the mayor of the city, Sergei Sobyanin, to conduct voting among Muscovites on issues important for the development of the city. In less than a year and a half of work mobile application 1.2 million Muscovites registered in it, almost 700 votes were held, as a result of which over 300 decisions were implemented.

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All of this is personal data, which I understand very well at Electronic Moscow OJSC, so above there is a link to the Policy regarding the processing of personal data. This very 13-page Policy beautifully describes how Electronic Moscow will protect your personal data (PD).

There is one caveat - it does not indicate which PD it has the right to collect and process. But there is quite official document, where all this is indicated. It is called the Personal Data Operator Register and is maintained by Roskomnadzor.

Here is the information about OJSC “Electronic Moscow”:

That is, they can ONLY process the data of people or organizations that came to them for an electronic digital signature. We are not talking about any data within the framework of an active citizen, residence addresses, or personal account numbers.

I cannot file a complaint - it can only be filed by a person who can participate in voting (or better yet, someone who has already voted; Roskomnadzor really likes to dismiss complaints on formal grounds), so here is a sample complaint for everyone:

On the website “Active Citizens” on the Internet (ag.mos.ru) a vote is being held on the issue of renovation of houses in the city of Moscow (https://ag.mos.ru/poll/3061). In this voting, the participant is asked to provide a number of personal data about himself: full name, date of birth, residence address, passport, SNILS and Financial-personal account (from the document for payment of housing and communal services).

The operator of this site is JSC Electronic Moscow. According to the information on the website, the processing of personal data is carried out in accordance with the Policy regarding the processing of personal data of OJSC Electronic Moscow.

In violation Federal Law dated July 27, 2006 No. 152-FZ “On Personal Data” OJSC “Electronic Moscow” did not submit a notification about the processing of personal data, thereby violating the requirements of Art. 22 of the said law. The notice contained in the Register of Personal Data Operators indicates only the following purpose for processing personal data: “Carrying out the activities of the certification center for the production of verification key certificates electronic signatures, provision of services, fulfillment of contractual obligations, execution of contracts in which the subject of personal data is a beneficiary or guarantor, conclusion of contracts on the initiative of the subject of personal data or contracts in which the subject of personal data will be a beneficiary or guarantor.”

In connection with the above, I demand that you take the measures provided for in clause 3.1 of Art. 23 of the Law, namely to limit access to information processed in violation of the law, clause 4 - to take measures to suspend or terminate the processing of personal data carried out in violation of the requirements of the Federal Law, as well as to bring those responsible for violating the law to account under Article 13.11. Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation."

Submission of a complaint is carried out through the Roskomnadzor website. The form must be filled out as follows (of course, indicating your full name and email!!!):

A screenshot of the AG page on which personal data is requested must be attached to the message. If you attach a screenshot with the completed data, it will be better, but it is not critical. It is important that you are a legal voting participant, that is, the owner of an apartment in the demolished five-story building.

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The statement of fraud against Sobyanin and Rakova for their fraud with “Active Citizen”, filed by Volkov, is an absolutely correct and necessary thing.

Today, the Moscow City Duma, in the first reading, adopted amendments to the Moscow Urban Planning Code, which effectively abolish public hearings in the city. Detailed analysis These amendments can be read. In a nutshell, the mandatory procedure for holding hearings on any urban planning projects is abolished. It is proposed that they be carried out at the discretion of the mayor’s office, providing residents with projects to the extent that the officials themselves deem necessary. Cancelled mandatory standards for green areas - that is, in fact, the total development of parks and squares is sanctioned. Also, construction expertise on projects is actually abolished, and any construction that contradicts the General Plan for the development of the city is legalized.

These ugly amendments were made in a special operation, just a day before the meeting. All so that the deputies do not have the opportunity to fully get to know them, and the city residents do not have time to express their protest. All the Sobyanin deputies present voted for the bill, only the communists voted against it.
http://5dec.ru/blog/konstantin...

The cancellation of public hearings and the replacement of public opinion with fake results of the “Active Citizen” are two parts of one operation.

-You don’t like the development of the park? Well, excuse me, you are in the minority, voting on “Active Citizen” showed that Muscovites love to build up their parks with compensatory landscaping in the area of ​​the 20th kilometer of Kaluga Highway. Do you want to gather residents? No, you can’t - there are no public hearings, vote on “Active Citizen” .

It already works like that (" Muscovites supported the installation of a monument to Vladimir at the Borovitsky Gate") and will be expanded many times over unless we all declare a decisive war on the machinations of the "AG" and the abolition of public hearings.

So Volkov is great, he has started a process that is important to all of us, let’s support it. .

Active Citizen is a website and application for mobile OS, which the Moscow City Hall positions as a tool for electronic democracy. Electronic democracy is modern and convenient; it is strange to object to such a method of ascertaining public opinion in itself. How this electronic democracy is organized is another matter. If this were simply an element of entertainment, for which voting is used, for example, on the Ekho Moskvy radio, then it would not be worth asking this question. However, Active Citizen voting is increasingly being used by Moscow authorities as an argument for making decisions about the life of the city. And this, let me remind you, is not even a municipal entity, but an entire subject of the Russian Federation. And, apparently, a lot of our money was spent on this project: the Yod publication estimates the costs at tens of millions of rubles. But this post is not about the expediency of spending - this is a separate question, but about how it all works.

I don’t work at the Moscow mayor’s office and I don’t know how all this works; I judge only from the outside, as the most ordinary user. But it seems to me that it would be in the interests of the mayor’s office to tell about this not only to me, but to all Muscovites in general, in as much detail and clearly as possible, in order to avoid suspicion of fraud. Frankly speaking, it doesn’t take long to come up with a motive to cheat: to issue a decision that is beneficial to the authorities for carrying out the will of Muscovites. I don’t know whether the capital’s mayor’s office is guided by this motive; I have no evidence, just as there is no reason to blindly trust Moscow officials. But doubting and asking questions is my normal, everyday job. And these are the questions I had during a quick acquaintance with the project.

– Who is considered an active citizen, in the sense of who is allowed to vote?

I answered this question this way: any person who has a Russian SIM card, since registration takes place by phone number. The system does not prevent people with numbers from other regions of the country from registering. I checked this with the help of several of my friends in other cities. They all managed to register without difficulty. Moreover, they managed to vote, that is, the system allows voting not only from different numbers from other regions, but also does not pay attention to the location of the voter. To be allowed to vote, you don't need anything other than a phone number. This means that there is no identifier that would absolutely guarantee that a voter is a resident of the capital. In other words, we cannot understand how many of those who voted are actually Muscovites. In this sense, statistics on registered numbers by operator and region would be interesting. In general, a potentially very dangerous thing.
Well, imagine that, for example, all residents of some other regions will register on Active Citizen and will decide something. While there is a question about raking leaves, God bless him, but what if something more serious?

It would be logical to assume that in votes that the authorities promise to take into account, the principle of “one person – one vote” should apply. However, as you might guess, the principle “One phone - one voice” applies here. I have several numbers and I have successfully voted from each of them. In general, according to statistics, each person has on average two mobile numbers. But this is not the main thing, but the fact that you can influence the voting results by simply buying up SIM cards. This is an inexpensive business, any operator is always interested in formally expanding the subscriber base, I don’t think that if you want there is a problem in agreeing on wholesale discounts on numbers. In addition, there are various “virtual” SIM card services (for example) that allow you to register in different services for a few rubles without using your mobile phone.

– How protected is the system from cheating, primarily on the part of its authors?

Let the programmers correct me if I’m wrong, but, as far as I understand, if you have at your disposal a sufficient number of phone numbers, real or virtual, there is no big problem in writing a script that increases voting.
Thus, it is obvious that there is a theoretical and technical possibility to cheat the voting results, both by using SIM cards and by some other means: by writing other programs that somehow bypass registration or simply rewrite the results on the server. After all, if this is the server of the mayor’s office, it is logical to assume that its technical specialists have access to it? And, again, as far as I understand, there is absolutely no responsibility for falsifying such a vote.

When in various television projects, for example, Eurovision or Voice, voting is carried out via SMS to a short number, this is not done by the organizers, but by third-party companies. The cost of SMS is usually tens of times higher than the usual operator price, and therefore it is noticeable to the user, which in itself is one of the tools aimed against cheating. It becomes simply expensive to cheat.
Well, besides, in case of any doubts, you can always request billing from the company. Everything here is not ideal either, but this is at least some kind of protection against falsification.
By the way, Active Citizen not only does not have an “entry threshold” in the form of a conventional 50 rubles per vote, but also, on the contrary, for each vote cast, the user receives points, for which he is subsequently promised some kind of money. I wonder how many Active Citizens there would be if each vote cost 50 rubles?
What, other than faith in the crystal purity of the hands of Moscow City Hall officials, can convince us that voting on Active Citizen is fair?
One of the means is an independent and authoritative audit. For example, at the Oscars, which, let me remind you, is a purely internal matter of the American Film Academy, not just anyone but Price Waterhouse Coopers was hired to audit the voting of these same film academics. You can talk as much as you like about the politicization of the vote, the bias of the jury, etc., but it’s much more difficult to find fault with the counting. Yes, it’s not a cheap business, but the cheapest solution is not always the best or most reliable. Moreover, judging by how much money they say has already been spent on the Active Citizen, the mayor’s office is not particularly keen on the price of the issue.

– What prevents you from using the ROI mechanism?

One day a government services website appeared on the Internet. Then, websites providing similar services appeared at ministries and departments, and regional resources gradually became available. This, instead of convenience, or, more precisely, together with some conveniences, led to considerable confusion. Citizens made an appointment for public services, but it turns out they had to go to the traffic police website, they printed out an application form or a payment form from one site, and on the spot it turned out that it was necessary to go to another and this mess, although cleared up a little, is making itself felt still. The story is similar with electronic democracy. As we remember, more than two years ago the website of the Russian Public Initiative (ROI) was launched with great fanfare. Well, this is the one where various petitions are voted on. So, there are different levels of initiatives: federal, regional and municipal. What prevented the Moscow authorities from using the already existing ROI mechanism? Moreover, its protection against cheating is incomparably higher. There you need to register for those same government services, and this is a unique identifier. Which, by the way, makes it possible to exclude residents of other regions from voting. So, I was unable to vote at the ROI on the issue of renaming one of the streets in Nizhny Novgorod, the system understands that I am not local, and rightly sends me to hell.

There were also many complaints about this site, for example, there is no protection against the use of administrative resources, say, using the personal data of civil servants. But the Active Citizen also does not have such protection: if municipal employees can be forced to go to community work days and rallies, and vote in elections, what prevents them from being plowed in this very innocent case? It is clear that ROI is a petition site, not a voting site, but the essence is the same. You might think that in Moscow there are few public organizations or, excuse the pun, active citizens to submit a corresponding petition. At the same time, it would be possible to save several tens of millions of rubles. Not to mention the fact that, in fact, offline mechanisms have long existed on various issues – hearings and referendums. And we know examples when hearings are falsified and referendums are canceled at the initiative group stage, which does not add to the authority of electronic democracy, which these tools seem to be slowly replacing.

I did not find any explanations on this matter on the Active Citizen website, although it would seem reasonable and logical to explain the principles of voting and control mechanisms there. In short, I have far more questions about Active Citizen than answers; for me the service is obviously opaque and murky. I read on Twitter that

Petr Sarukhanov / “Novaya”

The program for the renovation of Moscow's housing stock, better known as the great resettlement of Khrushchev houses, inevitably becomes a major factor political life Moscow. If only because of the scale: judging by the government’s plans, it will directly affect the lives of more than one and a half million people, and if you add to them those who do not move themselves, but will live surrounded by neighborhoods being demolished and under construction, then it will probably be up to a third population of the city. And absolutely everyone will talk about renovation.

Moscow is a metropolis with high level social mobility, but this bustle of vanities is created mainly by visitors. The population of residential areas - not those who rent apartments and rooms there, but those who rent them out or live on their own meters - are very conservative and paternalistic. These are people who will not challenge the strategic decisions of the authorities: once they decide to demolish and resettle, demolish and resettle. But when it comes to details: the number of meters, the exact address, layout, neighbors on the landing and the view from the window (in the sense of the road or the yard), here the Muscovite is experienced, meticulous and adamant.

The Moscow government, of course, is aware of this specificity, so the draft law on renovation - in the version that is currently in the first reading by the Duma - turns the situation upside down. The authorities stated that they intend not only to consult with citizens, but to entrust them with the decision of the fundamental question: whether to include the house in the renovation program or not. But in particulars, the room for maneuver is sharply narrowing: there are neither the usual three options for new housing to choose from, nor the opportunity to sue on this matter.

One option, two months to think about it and evict, again, regardless of your desire or unwillingness to move - as the majority decides.

To identify the opinion of the majority, the Moscow government proposed modernist methods: a telephone survey and voting on the Active Citizen portal, and all this in an extremely short time, right before the May holidays. But the political passivity of Muscovites turned out to be considerably overestimated. Routine events: meetings of heads of councils with residents - caused a stir, people not only came to them in the hundreds, but also asked tough, pointed questions, and sometimes it was clear that they had studied the draft law better than the officials. They even remembered the right to a referendum...

So the campaign to approve the renovation no longer promises to be a cakewalk, especially in the Central Administrative District and its border areas. Khamovniki and Arbat, for example, completely abandoned it, and this was achieved by municipal deputies who wrote a request to the prefecture. It turns out that this can be done. The response to the actual start of the program before the adoption of the law and the application of the rules of “telephone law” to ordinary citizens is the living creativity of the masses.

It does not follow from this, of course, that there is a need to launch a large city campaign against renovation as such. For most residents of residential areas, moving to new apartments is desirable. The reverse process is much more promising and important—the return of urban politics to the grassroots level, to where people live. The renovation approval mechanism opens up amazing opportunities for this. Here are the same municipal deputies: previously, most citizens remembered their existence once every five years, receiving a long sheet with a list of unknown names in the voting booth. But it turns out that it is these municipal deputies, and not government officials, who can protect your rights.

In this context, the campaign to elect municipal deputies, which will take place in Moscow in September, is turning from a dull ritual into a serious challenge. Moreover, every home becomes a cell of political life. After all, the only way, in fact, to preserve it for those who do not want to move is to agitate their neighbors, convince them to vote against inclusion in the renovation program. By the way, those houses where a real and not a fake HOA operates are in an advantageous position. And in both cases: when you want to defend the house, and, on the contrary, when you want to quickly include it in the program.

Such grassroots self-organization is much more useful and promising than a citywide protest campaign dedicated, for example, to the federal agenda - to presidential elections. Because rallies of thousands will not solve the problems of a particular building, and the renovation program, due to enormous inertia, including financial inertia, will still be implemented. But pressure from below will help leverage this inertia to a greater extent in the interests of residents, rather than politicians or city authorities.