Lorry drivers protest in Daghestan (Still from Youtube video)
Several hundred lorry drivers participated in a rally against the new ‘Platon’ road tax in Daghestan on 30 March. Protests against the new system are taking place all over Russia.
The Platon tax applies to lorries over 12 tonnes, and is designed to recover some of the costs of repairing motorways in the country. The system was first introduced in Russia in 2015, with the initial tariff set at ₽3.73 ($0.06) per kilometre. Following massive protests from lorry drivers all over Russia, the government introduced a grace period and lowered the tariff to ₽1.53 ($0.02) per kilometre. Last week the government announced that from 24 March the tariff will increase to ₽1.91 ($0.03) per kilometre.
According to local media reports, 200–600 people participated in rallies in Daghestan. They were held, in the cities of Khasavyurt, Kizlyar, Kizilyurt, and near the village of Manas.
‘Every lorry driver in Daghestan joined the protests and will not work. Maybe the authorities will listen to us once the shelves are empty in stores’, Moskovsky Kosmomolets quoted the organiser of the protests in Daghestan, Rustam Mallamagomedov.
‘Platon is for the private pockets of several people. Neither the people nor the state benefit from this system. The major argument for the system is that with the funds raised from Platon they will repair the roads. However, they repaired roads just recently, and also people pay taxes.’
According to a source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Daghestan, the protests went ahead in a peaceful manner.
‘The lorry drivers in Daghestan do not speak about any demands. The protest is peaceful without any violations’, the source told us.
On 29 March, Daghestan’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Sergey Karpov and head of the Department for Public Order Mikail Makasharipov, met with the lorry drivers.
‘Police officers are monitoring the situation to ensure that the drivers do not violate law and order; they talked with the drivers to ensure that they don’t interfere with passing vehicles’, the source told OC Media.
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
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
Several hundred lorry drivers participated in a rally against the new ‘Platon’ road tax in Daghestan on 30 March. Protests against the new system are taking place all over Russia. 
