Russians use walkie-talkies and paper maps after Putin turns off internet
Moscow residents have turned to walkie-talkies, pagers and paper maps after being left without internet for more than a week.
Russia’s capital and other major cities, including St Petersburg, first experienced Wi-Fi and mobile internet outages on March 5, leaving some residents unable to contact one another.
The country’s ‘big four’ telecommunications companies – MTS, Megafon, Beeline and T2 – have experienced blackouts for over a week, according to technology outlet Kod Durova or Durova Code in English.
Sources in the telecom industry confirmed to Kommersant, Russia’s daily newspaper, that authorities asked operators to limit mobile internet in the Russian capital.
Muscovites have resorted to old-fashioned means to communicate with their loved ones.
According to Russia’s biggest retailer, Wildberries, sales of walkie-talkies and landline phones increased by over a quarter, while those purchasing pagers rose by 73%, the Telegraph reported.
Meanwhile, sales of city maps and paper guides to Moscow have nearly tripled.
President Vladimir Putin signed a law in February granting the Federal Security Service (FSB) authority to order shutdowns of telecoms services nationwide.
The outage across major Russian cities came just two days after the legislation came into force on March 3, independent Russian outlet Meduza reported.
‘All of the disconnections and communications restrictions are taking place in strict accordance with current legislation,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said onTelegram on Tuesday.
Various government-owned websites and apps are being ‘whitelisted’, allowing people access to those sites even without an internet connection.
Russian-owned social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, the state-owned MAX messenger and state media such as RIA Novosti have been made available during the outage.
One resident named, Lina, told Meduza she lost internet access on Sunday and struggled to find a working card machine, citing concerns the outage would prevent her from contacting her loved ones.
‘At a certain point, I started to panic because I thought that if something happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to tell my loved ones quickly,’ she said.
‘In an emergency (for example, if you’re arrested), writing a message is faster and more convenient than calling.’
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