Moscow officials try to Photoshop their way out of doing real work

Since last year, the Greater Moscow Area has operated a website called Dobrodel (Good Deeds), where locals can file complaints with the authorities about problems regarding landscaping, street cleaning, and other neighborhood matters. Officials also use the site to show the public all the great stuff they're doing, in response. Despite this charming arrangement, the public isn't always left fully satisfied with how the authorities choose to respond. 

In early April, a woman named Yulia Vasilyeva living in the town of Ramenskoye uploaded to Dobrodel photographs of a neglected sandbox at a children's playground outside several apartment buildings. In particular, Vasilyeva pointed out how the sandbox had virtually no sand and hadn't been refilled in two years.

Ramenskoye town officials first answered that more sand would be delivered by the end of the month. In May, officials twice reported that sandbox was now brimming with fresh sand. According to the town's accounting records, two shipments of new sand were made, one on May 6 and another on May 17. 

Strangely, however, the photograph used in these reports (showing an extremely full sandbox) was identical. Stranger still, it appears the town's officials merely photo-edited Vasilyeva's original photograph digitally, crudely pasting sand into the sandbox.

The authorities' final response containing the edited image was published on May 19. Meanwhile, Internet users in a local community on Vkontakte noticed the town officials' shenanigans and began mocking them for the deceit. 

The next day, on May 20, city workers finally appeared in person at the playground and got to work repairing the sandbox. Yulia Vasilyeva told Meduza that workers refilled the sandbox, despite rainy weather. (And it was only two weeks after the government claimed to have finished the job!)

Here's what the sandbox with fresh sand actually looks like today.