Russian man leaves two wheelbarrows full of dead beetles at city hall to draw attention to beach disaster

A 62-year-old Kaliningrad pensioner named Vladimir Gudovich left two wheelbarrows' worth of melolontha beetles at the foot of the city hall building in Zelenogradsk. He collected the dead bugs at a nearby beach.

According to the man, tens of thousands of dead beetles appeared on the beach on June 1. Within ten days, they were so plentiful that it became almost impossible to walk on the sand.

“The week turned out to be rather cold, so the stench [of the beetles] did not have a chance to spread across the beach. But we are now expecting rising temperatures and the situation will be catastrophic. We can already gather [these beetles] by the shovelful!” said Gudovich, who believed that delivering the beetles to city hall would call attention to the city’s ecological problem.