Lorry drivers protest in Daghestan (Aida Mirmaksumova/ OC Media)
On 28 April, Daghestani lorry drivers ended their strike against the ‘Platon’ road tax. The strike lasted 33 days in total.
One protester, Abdurashid Samarov, told OC Media that they decided to end the strike after meeting with State Duma deputies on 28 April.
‘We wanted to pass on our demands personally to the deputies, and they listened to us. They can’t abolish “Platon”, but they are trying to meet our conditions at a regional level’, Samadov said.
Lorry drivers began to disperse on the evening of 28 April. According to Samadov, some of the protesters have already resumed work, but not all of them.
‘And what can we do? We didn’t expect “Platon” to be abolished, we just wanted to draw attention to this problem. It turned out that Daghestani lorry drivers were the ones who stood the longest. We wanted support from other Russian drivers, but most of them only gave us moral support’, Samadov said.
The Russia-wide protest against ‘Platon’ began on 27 March. In the North Caucasus, Daghestani lorry drivers were the first to join the strike. They were later followed by approximately 100 drivers from North Ossetia, and then a smaller number of drivers from Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachayevo-Cherkessia. In Chechnya, there were no protests against ‘Platon’.
Protests in Karachayevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria lasted for only a few days, while in North Ossetia, the strike lasted until 19 April. Ingush drivers gave up their protest on 26 April. The strike in Daghestan was held in several districts, with the biggest one held just outside the village of Manas, 30 km south of Makhachkala, where more than 350 heavy lorries were stationed for 33 days.
A group of protesting lorry drivers in Daghestan have said they are now satisfied, after the government conducted an inspection of the customs post on the Azerbaijani border. They say that there are no longer queues and they no longer have to pay bribes at customs control.
The drivers had been demanding an apology from a customs officer captured in a video in which another official called them ‘fools’, and spoke of extorting money from drivers. Authorities told the drivers the official spea
On 31 October, several dozen Daghestani lorry drivers gathered at the customs post on the Azerbaijani border demanding an apology for insults directed at them by a Daghestani customs officer.
The demonstration came in response to a video widely circulated on social media in which a customs official at the post demands a bribe from an Azerbaijani lorry driver, calling his Daghestani colleagues ‘fools’.
‘Don’t look at these fools, the Daghestanis, who tell you things at the checkpoint
Lorry drivers in Daghestan, who ended a month long strike on 28 April, warned the government on 11 May that if their demands are not met, they will go back on strike.
‘MPs of the State Duma met with us. They promised us that they would solve our problems. They asked for time for that. We gave them time — two months’, Rustam Mallamagomedov, one of the strikers told OC Media.
Russia-wide protests against the ‘Platon’ road tax began on 27 March. In the North Caucasus, Daghestani lorry driver
Protesting lorry drivers in Daghestan are expecting to meet today with deputies of the Russian Duma. According to the protesters, the outcome of the meeting will determine whether or not the strike continues.
Abdurashid Samadov, a participant of the strike, informed OC Media that the majority of the protesters had asked to meet with the parliamentarians.
‘Three MPs agreed to meet us here, to see the drivers with their own eyes, to hear us. We plan to introduce our demands once again. We a
On 28 April, Daghestani lorry drivers ended their 
