Smithsonian.com

Photo: URA.RU

No one enjoys the painful clunk, bump and scrape of running their car into a gaping pothole, but a group of annoyed citizens in Yekaterinburg, Russia, has really had it. Their city is the fourth largest in Russia but one of the worst for quality of roads. Since repeatedly commenting and complaining about the streets to local politicians had no effect, they reasoned, perhaps they could shame the politicians into action. Unable to bear the car deathtraps pockmarking their streets any longer, they decided to paint the faces of local politicians around the worst-of-the-worst potholes. Lo and behold, the not-so-subtle cartoons did the trick. Ads of the World reprots:

The news about caricatures became a sensation. With this intense PR the politicians were no longer able to sit idle. The holes were fixed. The news about the action was released in more than 300 media venues, the website traffic on URA.ru doubled. The officials at last started to do their jobs.

Here’s a video the artsy acitvisits put together that details their exploits:

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