A pensioner who paid to repair his local road has been ordered by local authorities to destroy the changes, the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported Tuesday.
Vladimir Blagoveshchenshy, from the Yaroslavl region's village of Brembolsky, first asked officials to build a drainage ditch with his own money to stop the road from flooding.
Locals said they had repeatedly asked local authorities to mend the road for more than 30 years, but that the work had not taken place.
The authorities agreed to Blagoveshchenshy's plans, but stipulated that the retiree must also pay to have the road resurfaced. Residents made the changes, installing curbs and posts to prevent illegal parking.
Yet when officials saw the
improvements, they argued that the road needed to be returned to its
former state. They argued that the additional changes had not been
agreed upon, and narrowed the road below legal requirements.
Blagoveshchenshy is now set to appeal the decision in the district court, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
It isn't the first time that community-minded Russian residents have seen their good deeds backfire. Locals in the southern city of Astrakhan found themselves fined 25,000 rubles ($400) after repairing the road which ran alongside their apartment building in August 2016. Local politicians claimed that builders hired by the residents had damaged the municipal sidewalk.
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