Quick-witted Moscow residents have learned to co-opt the authorities’ distaste for opposition leader Alexei Navalny by writing his name on snowbanks that had not yet been cleared by municipal services.
Residents have reportedly pelted municipal workers with eggs, venting their frustration with the slow pace of snow-clearing efforts after last week’s "storm of the century."
A resident of one of Moscow’s suburbs discovered that the best way to get city cleaners to address the snow problem was to write Navalny’s name on the snowbanks and ice covering the neighborhood.
"It works," she is heard saying in the video posted on Twitter on Saturday.
Navalny said his "jaw dropped" when he saw the success of the ploy, writing in his blog that he initially laughed off photos of snowbanks with his name written on their surface. The inventive lifehack appears to have originated after an opposition-leaning television station journalist made the suggestion on social media last week.
On his blog, Navalny labeled the new phenomenon "state dementia at the service of man."
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