The Russian government has ordered every ministry official to relocate permanently to a frontline trench outside Donetsk, where they will conduct state business from a bunker dug by hand and commute to work under artillery fire, the Defense Ministry announced Monday.
Under the plan, the entire federal bureaucracy will march to the front in a single column, carrying office chairs, filing cabinets and a portable stove, and will be issued shovels instead of briefcases. «The state must be where the fighting is,» said a ministry spokesman, standing in a freshly dug trench. «From now on, every report will be filed from this hole.»
The relocation has already reshaped the town of Donetsk. Officials have requisitioned every basement, school gym and bus depot for sleeping quarters, and a new timetable governs when ministries may use the single road out: the Finance Ministry at dawn, the Culture Ministry at dusk, the rest on foot. Local residents report that the queue for the communal kettle now stretches past the railway station.
By next week, the plan calls for the entire Duma to relocate as well, with deputies expected to hold sessions in a trench and vote by standing up. «We have prepared for this for years,» the spokesman said. «The trench is the new parliament.»