In Irkutsk, deputy mayor Nikolai Khitsenko demanded not to wait for the citywide cleanup day and to start cleaning the city now while the weather holds. At a meeting he sharply criticized the condition of streets, bridges, container sites and adjacent areas, and ordered unused advertising billboards removed. In addition, city services and oversight agencies were asked to intensify inspections and fine negligent managers.

«I demand that already today, without waiting for April 1, every fair day be used to bring cleanliness and order to the city,» said Irkutsk Deputy Mayor Nikolai Khitsenko.
The statement was made at a meeting held today with the participation of heads of administrative districts, managers of management companies, road enterprises, environmental specialists, and police officers. Let us recall that, according to the decree of Irkutsk Mayor Vladimir Yakubovsky, from April 1 to May 1 the city will hold a month-long sanitary cleanup of the trash accumulated over the winter, and a citywide cleanup day is preliminarily scheduled for April 18. However, the deputy mayor’s sharp displeasure was caused by the fact that, despite the fairly warm weather of recent days, cleanup in the city is practically not being carried out. «On Saturday I specifically made a tour of all the administrative districts, and I counted exactly four janitors in the city, two in the Sverdlovsky District and two in the Leninsky District,» Nikolai Khitsenko emphasized. «No one else worked last Saturday. Unfortunately, some of our managers have a habit — once there is a citywide cleanup day, then we’ll clean up, while in the meantime the city is in a disgraceful state. That won’t do.»
The deputy mayor also noted the extremely unsatisfactory sanitary condition of bridges and road shoulders, public areas, and areas adjacent to various enterprises and organizations. Some container sites are piled high with garbage, fences on construction sites have been knocked down, and dirt is emerging from beneath the snow. The bleak picture is completed by the condition of advertising structures from which pieces of fabric are hanging. As a result, Nikolai Khitsenko ordered the dismantling of advertising billboards that are not being used by their owners. In addition, the deputy mayor demanded that all officials present begin work on garbage cleanup, and that the Department for Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety begin inspections of the city’s sanitary condition and impose fines on negligent managers. It was also proposed to involve such agencies in the inspections as the police, Rosprirodnadzor, Rospotrebnadzor, and the Lake Baikal protection service, which also have the authority to issue substantial fines.