Komsomolskaya Pravda: "A veteran gets new housing after her relatives reach Putin by phone"
Nina Demidenko from Azov visited her new flat.
It took bureaucrats just three months to solve a problem that had dragged on for years, albeit only with the prime minister's direct intervention.
On December 3rd of last year, the nephew of World War II veteran Nina Demidenko got through to Vladimir Putin during his regular television phone-in programme and complained about the Azov bureaucrats who refused to give a flat to his aunt.
The Mayor's Office argued that the law did not apply to veterans who had failed to join the waiting list for a new flat before March 1, 2005. The prime minister was outraged. "I think the Don Governor should pay attention and react," Vladimir Putin said on the live programme. "The bureaucrats responsible must be punished for such negligence – and this is negligence."
The bureaucrats' reaction was swift. Half an hour after the programme had ended, city administration officials converged on the hovel where Nina Demidenko and her sister live. The city mayor, Sergei Bezdolny, cut short his holiday to report back to work.
The bureaucrats took only three months to settle the formalities. Last Saturday, on February 27, Governor Vladimir Chub signed an executive order allocating money for improving the housing conditions of 41 veterans, including Nina Demidenko.
"I have waited for it for so long," the war veteran said when she was told that she would soon get a new flat. "It is clean and spacious, ready to live in."
Alexander Stepanov
