The way home: how the road to an isolated Petrozavodsk neighborhood turned strangers into an unbreakable community

Getting out of the swamp

 

Cars bog down in thick brown mud. If they stop for even a minute, they're stuck for good. Even tracked construction vehicles struggle to make their way through it. Old pine trees rise and fall across the hills, while people in rubber boots hop from one rock to another. This isn't an off-road adventure. These are the future residents of the Rezervny neighborhood: recipients of state benefits, large families, and families of people with disabilities who have come to see the land they received under the federal program “Housing for Russian Families.”  The cadastral engineers accompanying the happy new landowners conclude that the plots sit on a peat bog, one kilometer from the nearest public transportation stop.

Thirteen years have passed since then. Today, an unpaved road built by the residents themselves connects the neighborhood to the nearest bus stop. They have also laid another 4.5 kilometers of roads within Rezervny, which is now home to more than 100 people. To save money, the residents covered them with reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), made from old asphalt crushed into small pieces and compacted. However, this material is not designed to withstand heavy trucks. 

Over the past 13 years, residents have spent more than 20 million rubles of their own money building and maintaining the roads.

It takes about 25 minutes to reach Rezervny from the city center by car and more than an hour by public transportation. On the map, other cleared plots are visible nearby in the forest. The authorities allocated this land to other families under the same program. In one neighborhood, Drevlyanka-1, housing density is about three times lower than in Rezervny. Another, Zvezdny, has only a couple dozen buildings visible on the map.

Residents of Rezervny remember meeting others in the same situation. Many wanted to pressure the city administration into addressing the lack of infrastructure in these new neighborhoods. The people of Rezervny, however, decided to take matters into their own hands.

"When we all got together to see what we'd been given, it was immediately clear that none of us would be able to do this alone," recalls Oksana, one of the landowners, reflecting on events that took place 13 years ago.

At the time, future neighbors found one another through VK groups and mutual acquaintances so they could join forces.

One of the activists, Vadim Evseenkov, recalls that the first attempts at self-organization were rather spontaneous and failed to inspire much confidence. He was convinced that they needed to establish a legal entity so that all contributions, and the way they were spent, would be fully transparent. Eventually, an initiative group of 13 people founded a public organization called Svoy Dom (One's Own Home), elected Evseenkov as its chair, and began collecting contributions for shared expenses.

Once the first roads were completed in 2015, it became clear that building them was only half the battle. Someone still had to maintain them: clearing snow in the winter and repairing and resurfacing them in the summer.

"At first, I just laid out rough tracks so people could drive through. Then we gradually improved them and widened some sections. The drainage ditches have to be cleaned regularly. Whenever the area flooded, we had to increase the diameter of some culverts and install additional ones alongside them," Vadim Evseenkov said.

Only eight households in all of Rezervny do not contribute to the community fund. Vadim divides those who refuse to pay into three groups:

"The first group says, 'What you've done is great, but all you had to do was write some magic letter, and the authorities would have taken care of everything.' The second says, 'What you've done is great, but you should have done it more cheaply.' And the third says, 'There's something fishy about all this. This was all done just to make money.'"

Balance for the chosen few

 

The situation surrounding the road into the city came to a head in 2022. Dozens of trucks carrying construction materials for the neighboring residential development Ravnovesie (Balance) began using the road through Rezervny. The development belongs to Lotos, a holding company owned by prominent Karelian businessman Leonid Beluga. In 2025, Beluga was fined a record 500 million rubles after being convicted of bribing a public official to obtain a construction permit for another residential development, Svoy Bereg (One's Own Shore).

To avoid being run over by the trucks, children walking to the bus stop, located one kilometer from the neighborhood, had to "jump across the ditches." The heavy vehicles kicked up clouds of dust and steadily destroyed the unpaved road. At the time, the road had not yet been taken over by the city. Still, the city administration promised that the developer would maintain it for as long as construction continued.

Construction materials reached Ravnovesie by a detour. The trucks drove along the road to Rezervny and, about 100 meters before the neighborhood, turned onto what locals described as a ghost road. Beyond a strip of forest lay an open stretch of mud, sand, and puddles left by the surrounding peat bog. In the middle of this wasteland stood a huge billboard proclaiming, "Ravnovesie — Developed Infrastructure…" Behind it were an unfinished apartment building and piles of clay.

"All of this was brought here by thousands of trucks using our road," Vadim said.

Ravnovesie could have been accessed directly via the municipal streets of Universitetsky Gorodok (University Town), but trucks were banned from using those roads. City officials justified the restriction as a measure to "ensure road safety." Like Rezervny, Universitetsky Gorodok consists of detached houses. It is sometimes referred to as Karelia's Rublyovka, after Moscow's elite suburban district, because many affluent residents live there, including senior regional politicians.

In the spring of 2023, Rezervny residents stood along their road holding signs that read "The city didn't build the road, so the city doesn't use the road" and "Balance not only in words, but in deeds." They had come to meet Yulia Mezinkova, chair of the city's utilities committee, and Irina Kozyrina, head of the road management department. By then, the activists had already applied for permission to hold a picket outside City Hall. Several dozen local residents, including parents with young children and mothers pushing strollers, gathered to meet the officials. Surrounded by local TV cameras, they closed in around the city representatives from all sides.

Residents of Rezervny made it a rule to record all their conversations with local officials and share the videos in their group chats, "just in case they tried to back out of their promises." In one of those recordings, Irina Kozyrina said that the road would be resurfaced with RAP. It never happened.

Later, the Petrozavodsk city administration, then headed by Vladimir Lyubarsky, tried to ease tensions. The road was officially taken over by the city, and the previously approved picket was canceled, with officials citing security concerns following the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg that killed pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

The developer, in turn, promised to build a new access road to the residential development that would take pressure off the road to Rezervny. A new road was eventually built. It later turned out, however, that it was also unsuitable for heavy trucks because it was too narrow. Almost immediately, trucks were banned from using it, just as they had been on the previous route. Road signs prohibiting truck traffic appeared at the entrance. Although identical signs were also installed on the road to Rezervny, trucks continued using it.

Joking about the road the developer had built but never actually used, Rezervny residents even created a meme.

"I remember there was a flood somewhere beyond the Urals, and a woman posted a video showing how she was raising carp in her flooded basement. Some regional news outlet picked it up, and suddenly things started moving. Sometimes you look at something and think it's nothing special, but it still manages to get people's attention," one resident said.

The activists say they would like to spend more time on media work, but they simply don't have the time. Even so, a week after speaking with 7x7, they finally took the plunge and launched a Telegram channel called #RezervnyZhdet ("Rezervny Is Waiting").

All for one

 

Summer is the busiest time for construction. Between neat plots with lived-in homes stands the unfinished shell of a two-story brick house, surrounded by construction materials and tools. The owners aren't afraid to leave them outside. There are hardly any strangers here, and every driver passing by waves to people on foot.

The lived-in homes have the restrained look typical of the Russian North. Most are clad in wood or light-colored siding. Nearly every house is surrounded by a simple fence no higher than a person, allowing passersby to see into the yard. Outside one pale yellow house, a rock garden with flowers and ornamental shrubs has been carefully arranged to brighten the street for everyone passing by. From the outside, the neighborhood looks well-off. The residents themselves, however, say it reflects years of pouring their last resources into their homes.

"Our house still isn't fully finished on the outside. We sold everything we had and took out loans to get this far," says Oksana, a local resident. "People who live in apartment buildings don't let their young children wander around on their own anymore. Our kids, though, have the kind of childhood we had in the Soviet days. They all know each other, they're friends, and they aren't glued to their phones or computers."

The residents organize hikes and holiday celebrations for their children. Before New Year's, parents chip in for presents and invite Ded Moroz and Snegurochka, the traditional New Year's characters. On New Year's Eve, everyone gathers in the neighborhood's central square to ring in the New Year together and exchange greetings after the clock strikes midnight. On Orthodox holidays, residents visit a wayside cross that they also paid for themselves.

People continue improving the neighborhood. One long-standing concern is a steep clay-and-sand embankment topped with pine trees that sway in the wind. Residents fear that one particularly windy day could bring the trees crashing down onto the neighborhood road. But they are not allowed to cut them down because they lack the necessary permit. The Ministry of Emergency Situations also refused to classify the trees as hazardous and remove them.

Infrastructure for recipients of state benefits

 

Summer in Karelia brings the white nights. The northern sunsets linger over rows of detached houses. But the other side of the white nights is the pitch darkness that comes with the colder months. Light shining from house windows draws wild animals out of the forest, while drug stashers make their way from the city into the woods.

"People come out of the forest: drug stashers, drunk people. There have even been cases when they tried to force their way into people's homes. We constantly call the traffic police and report such incidents to law enforcement. I know this problem exists everywhere, but at least the city has streetlights. Here, it's pitch black, especially in winter," Oksana said.

In 2023, Rezervny residents even organized neighborhood patrols. They blocked the entrance to the neighborhood with their cars and stopped unfamiliar drivers. One of those patrols gave rise to a local meme about "the man looking for birch sap." That's what residents now jokingly call outsiders. One driver claimed he was heading into the forest to collect birch sap. When residents refused to let him through, he called the police, who dispersed the patrol.

Poor street lighting remains one of the neighborhood's biggest concerns. Only after 12 years of lobbying and dozens of official appeals were 18 LED streetlights installed. Rosseti, Russia's state-owned power grid operator, allowed residents to install lights on its utility poles free of charge, but only on every other pole. On streets with an even number of poles, they could only be installed on every third pole. 

Power outages are especially difficult for some residents.

"The electrical grid was poorly designed from the very beginning, and as more people moved in, the strain on it only increased," Vadim said. "At one point we were without electricity for two days. One child here depends on a ventilator. His parents were running around like crazy looking for fuel for a generator so the machine wouldn't shut down. We raised hell over that."

Residents also worry about road safety and public transportation. Although the neighborhood now has its own access road, no regular bus route has ever been introduced. Children, parents with strollers, and elderly residents still have to walk nearly a kilometer along the roadside to reach the nearest bus stop.

Sergey's family, who are raising an eight-year-old son with Down syndrome and early-onset epilepsy, are entitled to assistance from a government-funded caregiver. But because of the neighborhood's poor transport links, making use of the service is difficult. The caregiver cannot get there on her own, so Sergey's family has to meet her at the bus stop and drive her to the house.

"She's supposed to spend three hours with us twice a week, but every visit costs us at least 30 minutes just getting her to and from our house, which makes the arrangement very inconvenient," Sergey said. "The same goes for other specialists who work with children with disabilities at home, such as massage therapists and physical therapists. They can't get here without our help."

If the family's car breaks down, they're effectively cut off from the city, unable to reach the kindergarten, the clinic, or even the pharmacy.

A lifetime of waiting

 

The residents of Rezervny began drawing attention to their neighborhood again in 2025. By then, it had become clear that there was no point in endlessly reminding the authorities to maintain the road. What they needed was a full reconstruction and sidewalks. Together, residents coordinated comment campaigns on the social media page of Petrozavodsk Mayor Inna Kolykhmatova. In October 2025, the mayor published a video from an on-site meeting with Karelia's Prime Minister Viktor Rassypnov. She concluded that once the road was repaired, traffic speeds would increase, making sidewalks necessary. But sidewalks would require separate funding, so the road repairs were postponed once again.

The residents responded quickly and publicly invited officials to a meeting on October 25, 2025. They gathered along the road carrying banners to record a video appeal to Putin:

"Vladimir Vladimirovich, we've done a great deal ourselves. We weren't afraid of the challenges. We developed this land, built our homes, and have been maintaining four kilometers of neighborhood roads at our own expense year-round. But there are things we simply can't do on our own."

At the same time, one of the neighborhood's representatives was in Moscow, attending a meeting at the Presidential Administration with a petition signed by 165 residents on behalf of the community organization. The administration replied that the construction had already been planned, then referred the issue back to the regional authorities.

Three days later, on October 28, Deputy Mayor Mikhail Ershov arrived to meet the residents, accompanied by an investigator from Karelia's Investigative Committee. Standing beneath the dim light of a streetlamp and local TV cameras, Ershov once again promised to address the road problem, but without giving the specific timeline residents had hoped for.

"Officials come here, do a few minor things, and then use them for publicity: ‘Look how beautiful we've made everything.’ They build little paths, put up new decorations, but they don't do what people actually need," Oksana said.

Two weeks later, residents gathered by the roadside once again and invited the officials back. This time, however, law enforcement officers and traffic police arrived instead. Residents recorded the encounter on video.

"Good afternoon! Could you tell me if there's a Vadim Evseenkov here?" a smiling neighborhood police officer asked the people gathered on the frost-covered road. "I'd just like to give you a warning against holding unauthorized public gatherings, just in case."

"Go ahead," Evseenkov replied. "But why do you think you should be giving it to me? I'm not part of any organized group."

A short distance away, traffic police officers were already waiting, listening with serious expressions to an elderly woman.

"Our children have to walk along the roadside. Meanwhile it's whoosh, whoosh, whoosh as cars fly past!"

The officers then turned back to Evseenkov.

"This is the roadway, on Drevlyanskoye Highway. I can issue you an administrative fine..."

Vadim complied and got into the police car to have the paperwork processed.

When he got out, citation in hand, he half-jokingly called out to his neighbor:

"Gena, your turn. Go get processed."

According to the video, Gena had indeed stepped onto the roadway, while Vadim had remained on the roadside.

Once inside the police car, Gennady learned that the officers had no complaints against him.

Rezervny resident Sergey admitted that until the problems in the neighborhood forced him to pay attention, he had never taken much interest in local politics or how the authorities operated.

"I didn't even know who our mayor was. Well, I knew the surname, but I never paid attention to which party anyone belonged to," he said.

According to Sergey, the turning point came in 2022, when trucks began driving through their neighborhood.

"I never wanted to deal with any of this. I didn't need it. If the authorities did their job properly, ordinary people wouldn't have to get involved."

Following local politics showed Sergey, in his own words, "how bad things are, not in the country as a whole, but at the local level." Yet he has no intention of accepting that reality. Despite having little free time, he continues to follow local politics.

On April 20, 2026, Karelia's Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Rassypnov wrote on his VK page that the road reconstruction project would be ready in July 2026. However, the road to Rezervny was not included in the original list of roads scheduled for reconstruction that year. According to local activists, money allocated in the city budget for their road has already been redirected to other projects. Residents are sounding the alarm once again, convinced that officials are simply stalling so they can avoid doing anything.

"People who don't even live here but have been following the situation come up to me and say, 'You're doing an amazing job trying to get something done,'" Oksana said. "By now, everyone knows about what's happening here. We really want this to get federal attention. We even have veterans of the 'special military operation' living here. Where's the support? Nobody cares. The authorities have never done anything, they're not doing anything now, and as far as I can tell, they never will. They don't even seem worried that elections are coming. A lot of people here say they don't want to vote for United Russia."

"Officials, we pay taxes! Where's the road you promised?" read two banners the neighborhood association put up along the road during a protest in June. One was slashed to pieces, allegedly by workers from the Ravnovesie development, while the other was removed by the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Residents now plan to keep drawing attention to their cause in new ways, including putting #RezervnyZhdet stickers on their cars.

Among the neat rows of cottages on one of Rezervny's streets stands an unfinished log house, darkened by time. Some of the logs stacked beside it are now overgrown with grass. Residents say a family, a man and a woman with a disability, began building a home despite having very little money, but never lived long enough to move in. Today, the unfinished house reminds the people of Rezervny of those who never lived to wake up to a clear morning overlooking the pine forest. But for the sake of their principles, everything they have invested, and their children's future, they intend to keep moving forward together.

Original