RUSSIA: Villagers in Yaroslavl region build own cable car, giving up on local authorities to improve local transport.

Far from the glitz and economic boom of Moscow, most of Russia struggles to feed itself and make ends meet. Despite President Vladimir Putin's repeated calls to root out corruption and for state officials to meet the needs of the people, many people living in small communities, away from Russia's big cities, find local authorities too slow or not responsive at all in meeting their demands for improvement in their lives. Though Russia earns billions of dollars a day from the sale of oil and natural gas, few investments are made in infrastructure and public welfare, and so locals often have to take matters into their own hands for anything to get done. Take this small village on the outskirts of Yaroslavl, approximately 250 kilometres northeast of Moscow. Tired of waiting for the government to build a bridge, Vladimir Gusev found a long cable on a scrap heap; and after finding a discarded elevator motor and cannibalizing parts from other engines, he built his own cable car crossing. "One day I passed by the scrap heap and saw an old elevator motor,'' said Vladimir Gusev. ``I cannibalized other parts from other motors, tied the cable to it, and the cable car was moving." At that point in time, the cable car was for his personal use and was more of a curiosity. Most people still relied on boats to cross the river, and had no use for the cable car. As lawlessness and crime has risen in Russia over the past decade, however, the boats have gone missing and the cable car remains the only way to cross the river. "It is very useful,'' said one local resident, Rimma Guskova. "We can use it when we want to go pick mushrooms and berries, especially now that all our boats have been stolen." The cable car is a two-seater, and it has the same specifications as the old elevator motor, and it pulls 320 kilos of weight. "I was quite surprised to see that amid the garden patches there is a river crossing," said another local resident, Svetlana Kalashnikova. The cable car is not only thing Gusev has resurrected from the garbage dump. He is a shy man with a speech defect, but his flair for ingenuity seems boundless. His summerhouse is made from discarded building materials. For instance, the wall in his basement is made from approximately 6,000 empty wine bottles, while about 7,000 plastic water bottles have been used to encase the house and act as insulation to keep it warm during the cold winter months. Gusev is the first to admit, however, that depravation and poverty are the mother of his ingenuity. Like most locals, he survives on the food he grows on his plot of land, and because there's little money to buy building materials, he must find ways to recycle trash.

ITN Source | September 19, 2006

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