The Baltic Media Group’s public reception room marks its fifth anniversary this year. It was one of the first independent organisations established in post-Soviet Russia to serve as a link between the authorities and ordinary people.
The public reception room is open every day from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. It employs 12 people, including two licensed lawyers and a sociologist, who either supply visitors with the appropriate background materials they need to take action on their own or act as mediators by sending letters in their own names to various governmental bodies.
All in all, the public reception room has received 27,604 requests and inquiries over five years of work from residents of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. There is an average of 460 requests received every month. After just several months of work, the public reception room has identified the greatest issues of concern for the public, which are housing and utilities and issues connected with the legal system (they account for exactly two-thirds of all requests):
|
No. |
Subject |
% |
Number of Requests |
|
1. |
Housing and Utilities |
34.7 |
9,582 |
|
2. |
Legal System |
31.9 |
8,814 |
|
3. |
Consumers’ Rights |
9.7 |
2,652 |
|
4. |
City Improvement Projects |
4.7 |
1,311 |
|
5. |
Social Security and Pension Fund |
4.1 |
1,130 |
|
6. |
Health |
3.3 |
914 |
|
7. |
Transport |
2.3 |
612 |
|
8. |
Other |
9.3 |
2,589 |
|
|
Total |
100 |
27,604 |
The changes in the number of requests falling within these two priority groups show that legal issues have gradually moved to the top position, and they currently account for about two-fifths of all the requests being received by the reception room:
|
Subject |
Requests: Number/Percentage (%) |
|||||||||||||
|
|
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
Total |
|||||||
|
– |
|
% |
|
% |
|
% |
|
% |
|
% |
|
% |
|
% |
|
Housing and Utilities |
1033 |
52.5 |
3512 |
48.1 |
1706 |
29.1 |
1460 |
28.5 |
849 |
19.7 |
1022 |
33.5 |
9582 |
100 |
|
Legal System |
322 |
16.3 |
1216 |
16.7 |
2080 |
35.5 |
2097 |
40.9 |
1769 |
41.1 |
1330 |
43.5 |
8814 |
100 |
It is worth noting that in the first years after the opening of the public reception room in St Petersburg, the city administration was critical of its activities. However, as time passed, the city authorities started to appreciate the reception room’s important social role, and now the reception room maintains robust cooperation with city authorities at various levels.
The public reception room maintains close working relationships with other media outlets that are part of the Baltic Media Group. In particular, the newspapers Nevskoye Vremya, Vecherny Peterburg and Smena regularly publish investigative reports prompted by inquiries sent to the reception room. The 100TV channel runs a special daily programme based on requests from members of the public and Radio Baltika has a daily programme on a similar subject.
Among the public reception room’s most successful initiatives is the 36 Square Metres Programme which was carried out in conjunction with the Vecherny Peterburg shortly before the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the victory in the Second World War. Under the programme, public reception room staffers assisted veterans in finding apartments in line with the Russian President’s Decree No.714 On Providing Housing to World War Two Veterans. From July 2009 until May 2010, the reception room received more than 1,800 calls on its hot line. The public reception room and Vecherny Peterburg reporters helped several hundred WWII veterans be put on, or reinstated to, a priority waiting list for government-subsidized apartments. As a result, about 50 WWII veterans and survivors of the Siege of Leningrad in St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region were given separate apartments. An agreement has been reached with the St Petersburg housing committee to consider the complicated family situations of another 94 people seeking housing.