Photo: Centralasian.org

Kazan coordinators of the initiative “City without barriers” on November 9 sent an open appeal to the president of Kazakhstan, reports "Idel.Realii".

The President of Kazakhstan was asked to come to Kazan and inspect the street, named in his honor, for accessibility for people with disabilities.

The coordinators of the “Cities without obstacles” Alexander Kalashnikov and Iskander Yasaveev together took a walk on the street named after Nursultan Nazarbayev. During this walk, they confirmed about inaccessibility for representatives of low mobile groups of the pedestrian underpass near the "Sukonnaya Sloboda".

The joint experiment “Cities without barriers” and “Idel.Realii” showed that a person in a wheelchair who came by subway would need to travel a distance of at least one kilometer to get to “Taikazan”. The nearest ground crosswalk is located at the Philharmonic Square. At the same time, the way from the metro station “Sukonnaya Sloboda” to the public garden, where the sculpture is installed, is only 130 meters through the underpass. However, both elevators in the underpass do not work.

In the letter, the coordinates of  “Cities without barriers” invite Nursultan Nazarbayev to cross the street, renamed in his honor, in a wheelchair, expressing confidence that by the visit of the Kazakh president “the Tatarstan authorities will repair and launch the elevators, ensuring their compliance with accessibility requirements - setting a ramp tilt angle ".

"Unfortunately, we cannot see other way to change the situation with non-working elevators: the opinion of citizens is not important for the authorities”, - said the coordinators, referring to the circumstances of renaming the street.

Recall, until 2015, the street was called Esperanto. The same summer, the authorities named it in honor of Nursultan Nazarbayev, ignoring the active resistance of citizens. Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov called this decision a “gift” to the President Nazarbayev.

"The Qazaq Times"