Germany says ‘Sorry, but no’ to Siberian village after locals ask Merkel to encourage local government to build paved road

The office of the German government has rejected a request from Russians living in a Siberian village after local residents asked Berlin for help when the regional administration refused to asphalt a road in the small settlement.

Residents of the village of Verkhny Karbush, near Omsk, a large city 2,500km east of Moscow, recorded a video appeal to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in June, claiming that they had been applying to various “bureaucratic offices and the Russian government” for many years without success. They opted to turn to Berlin because the village was initially founded by Russian Germans, and many of the residents still have German roots.

According to Irina Drozdova, a local councilor from the nearby village Troitskoye, the locals received a reply from Nadine Wachter, an employee in Merkel’s office.

“It is not the task of the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany to interfere in the work of local authorities in other countries,” the reply said. “We are very sorry that there is nothing we can do to help you.”

Drozdova, who initiated the appeal, said that the locals were satisfied with the answer, noting it was better than they had received from the Russian authorities.

“The officials, having received a magic kick in the form of our appeal to the German chancellor, came out of their coma and immediately promised that they would build us a road in 2022,” the politician stated.

Following the news that Berlin had responded, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the decision of the local residents to ask Germany for help “difficult to understand,” but noted that their anger was justified.

“They are absolutely right, this is absolutely unacceptable negligence... on the part of the regional authorities,” he said.

The Verkhny Karbush appeal to Merkel isn’t the first time Russian residents have asked foreign leaders for help with local problems. Last year, residents of the famously polluted city of Chelyabinsk asked US President Joe Biden to help them avoid “ecological genocide,” noting that local authorities were ignoring their complaints as cancer rates increased.

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