St. Petersburg has a Tiananmen Square Jr. moment

A spirited group of youngsters and their parents in St. Petersburg has won a standoff against a bulldozer dispatched to demolish a small snow slide erected at a local playground. In an adorable display of civil disobedience, kids pelted the bulldozer with snowballs, refusing to move out of its path to the snow slide.

Pavel Bezumov, who lives near the playground, told Meduza that activists from the group “Central District for a Comfortable Habitat” built the snow slide. A few days later, he says, representatives from the city-owned Central Gardening Company showed up with a bulldozer, planning to flatten the small mound of snow.

Before the bulldozer could get to work, however, local children and their parents blocked its path. “Kids realized what was happening immediately and started throwing snowballs at the bulldozer, threatening the driver with their fists,” Bezumov says.

A local official in charge of the playground was there with the bulldozer, reportedly “demanding that everyone cease this outrage,” but she and the driver eventually abandoned the effort and left.

According to Bezumov, activists have spent several years unsuccessfully lobbying local officials to bring back the wooden slides that disappeared from the playground in the 1990s.

Spokespeople for the Central Gardening Company say they were called out to demolish the snow slide in response to a complaint about un-removed snow and a report that someone had been injured.