Residents of the village of Borovskoye in the North Kazakhstan Region are complaining about impassable roads that make any trip outside the settlement dangerous, reports infohub.kz.
The village, home to 53 households and 140 people — mostly pensioners — is struggling with severely deteriorated roads. "Our roads are in a catastrophic state. We have a Gazelle van, but within a month a new one breaks down. After the rains, the Gazelle stopped coming at all. Life has come to a standstill. People just suffer. You constantly drive fearing for your life, terrified the van could tip over at any moment. It's only 30 km from the city, but we suffer as if it were 300," says resident Natalya Ilyinykh.
Due to the bad roads, ambulances cannot reach the village, and taxi drivers refuse to pick up residents. Local businesses are also affected. "Companies refuse to deliver goods because of the roads. They reach the bad stretch and turn back. Goods don't arrive. Sometimes even bread doesn't get to us. People have gone without bread, without supplies, without fruits and vegetables several times," says shop worker Marina Nemchenko.
The rural district akimat said design and cost estimates for graveling the village's internal roads and access routes were completed last year. "The access road to Borovskoye is a district road — 4.5 km from the Novosibirsk–Chelyabinsk highway. The internal roads fall under the Peterfeld rural district. Designs exist, costing 30 to 40 million tenge each. Total comes to about 70 million. But no funds were allocated this year," explained Asylkhan Kassymov, akim of the Peterfeld rural district.
According to the akim, similar problems exist in other villages in the district. Residents of Borovskoye hope the issue will be resolved soon.