Last week, United Russia leader, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with people at his United Russia office in Orenburg.
Tatyana Korablyova, a nurse and mother of two, came from the village of Troitsky. She spoke on behalf of local parents. She asked about a school bus for the children who have to attend school in a different village.
The old bus they had was dangerous, so the administrators discarded it, she explained. Thirty six children from Troitsky have to travel 14 kilometers daily to their school in the village of Krasnokholm.
Putin promised to issue an order to provide a new school bus, and to repair the road from Troitsky to Krasnokholm, which is in bad condition.
Many women across Russia are concerned about the new system of calculating maternity benefits. Putin tried to reassure Yulia Khodakovskaya, who asked the prime minister to comment on the changes.
"We will leave the old procedure for another two years – 2011 and 2012. Second, we will greatly ease the procedure for calculating the amount due to women deciding to go on pregnancy and maternity leave. The time spent on sick and some other kinds of leave will be excluded from the formula," he said referring to the maternity grant calculation based on their income in the preceding two years.
He said this procedure will be introduced very soon, and is to take effect on January 1, 2011.
This year, the government plans to provide additional financial assistance to help farmers with the spring sowing, Putin said. "We allocated an extra one billion roubles for mineral fertilisers, one billion for fuel and lubricants, and an additional billion for seeds. We work with our oil companies and urge them not to hike prices during the spring sowing campaign for fuel and lubricants, especially for diesel fuel," he told farmer Alexander Khizhnyak.
He also said they have agreed to pay bonuses to those who did not reduce the number of cattle despite the drought. But the government is not going to subsidise everyone. Considering Russia's varied conditions, it is better to provide targeted support to specific farms depending on the climate in their region and other local conditions, he added.
Putin and his visitors also discussed cultural heritage questions.
"On October 1, 2011, we will celebrate the 220th birth anniversary of Sergei Aksakov, a prominent Russian writer and storyteller," said Marina Dmitriyeva, a local historian. "Aksakov spent 15 years at his grandfather's estate in the Orenburg Region," she said, adding that restoring the Aksakov estate required 2.5 million roubles from the federal budget and another 3 million roubles from the regional government.
"I will ask the Minister of Culture to find the funding for you," Putin said adding that restoring the Aksakov estate was a good and noble cause.
Natalia Ryabova