Photo: Anatoly Zhdanov / Kommersant
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, the regional Russian authorities have spent more than 1 billion rubles from local budgets on the purchase of flags, flagpoles and coats of arms. It is reported by "Layout" with reference to the data of the public procurement website. According to the publication, this is a hundred times more than was spent for these purposes by the regions over the same period in 2021-2022.
In total, 80 such tenders were placed during the year. A significant part of them were within the framework of the federal project “Patriotic Education of Citizens of the Russian Federation”, writes “Layout”. We bought symbols, including for Russian educational institutions, which from September 2022 were obliged to start each school week with a flag raising and the anthem being played.
Several thousand flags and coats of arms were purchased by the authorities of the Saratov region for the local Improvement Service and the Dorstroy company, and in Altai the symbols were purchased by the local Center for Youth Policy, Military Patriotic Education and Pre-Conscription Training of Citizens, the publication says.
Dagestan and the Kursk region turned out to be the record-holder for spending budget money. The authorities of the latter placed a tender for 51.5 million rubles. With this money they bought 571 sets with flags and coats of arms. Dagestan, in turn, spent more than 125 million rubles on patriotic symbols.