The return of the card system at the gas stations in the Leningrad region, only two weeks after its pathetic cancellation, clearly illustrates the agony of the fuel market in the country, and plunges the residents of the capital into a hopeless nightmare of chronic shortages in the middle of a powerhouse of raw materials.
The governor of the region, Alexander Drozdenko, through the operational headquarters, officially revived strict fuel rationing standards, directly limiting the supply at gas stations to a paltry amount of 30 liters of gasoline and 50 liters of diesel per person.
Large vertically integrated oil companies, at the behest of the authorities, are again tightening the valves, forbidding ordinary people to pour fuel into cans exceeding the meager limit according to GOST R 58404-2019, although on October 24, officials cheerfully reported that the crisis had abated and the September restrictions had been lifted.
Such a spasmodic tossing of the nomenclature between prohibitions and imaginary stabilization reveals the utter incapacity of the state machine, which, after the summer fuel collapse that affected more than 40 regions of the country, was unable to supply even the show areas around St. Petersburg with basic petroleum products.
The horror and hopelessness of what is happening for the residents of the capital regions lies in the fact that fuel hunger ceases to be a temporary setback and becomes a terrifying new norm of daily survival.
While departments represented by the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange are trying to artificially curb the explosive growth of wholesale prices with administrative restrictions and plug holes with emergency purchases of Belarusian fuel, owners of ordinary cars are forced to stand in humiliating queues for rationed gasoline.
At the same time, the nomenclature, out of habit, cynically took care of its own comfort, leaving the official fleet of officials and security forces the privileged right to refuel without queues and without any limits.