In recent years, very strange visitors began to appear in grocery stores in Moscow and St. Petersburg from time to time: people dressed in huge costumes of pigs were actively interested in the shelf life of products, the accuracy of weighing, and the correspondence of prices on labels. At the same time, the attention of the surprised audience did not disturb the original visitors at all, on the contrary, they tried in every possible way to attract it. It soon became clear that the strange mummers were not just bored comedians, but members of the new public movement Piggy Against.
Piggy Against is a youth public organization created by the Nashi movement in 2010. Piggy considers their main task to be the fight against poor customer service in department stores and markets. In order to attract as much public attention to their actions as possible, members of the organization during their raids wear bright pink suits and large masks with angry pig faces. Actually from these suits the name of the entire organization originated.
According to its participants, if the unscrupulous management of supermarket chains treats their customers like pigs, then pigs should go to such stores. It is not by chance that the slogan of the movement became the slogan: "We are fighting the swinish attitude towards people."
The Piggy Against movement has been conducting its raids on a regular basis since September 1, 2010, when the organization itself was created. The main task of each raid is to identify violations that exist in a particular store or market.
Violations, in the opinion of traffic participants, include the presence of products with expired shelf life on the counter, the buyer's body kit, and incorrect informing of visitors about the price of the goods. Each "Piggy" action is filmed on video, which is then posted on the Internet. In this way, the attention of the general public is drawn to the lack of service in a particular store.
In addition to verification raids, "Khryusha" also organize pickets near "fines" trade establishments, warn shop buyers about the availability of expired and low-quality products, write inquiries and letters to the management of retail chains and state control bodies.
It should be noted that the activities of the movement quite often lead to positive results, when the heads of stores and retail chains begin to take measures to eliminate publicly voiced problems. In particular, in October 2010, the management of the Trading House "X5 Retail group" under pressure from "Khryush" carried out a thorough check of two of its stores and punished those guilty of violating the rules of service.
However, trade workers do not always treat this youth organization with understanding. In 2010, one of the movement's activists, Yulia Zemlyakova, was beaten by the head of the security service of one of the Moscow stores of the Perekrestok chain. This led to the beginning of an indefinite picket "Khryush" near the store and an appeal to the police on the fact of beating.
It is not uncommon for "Khryush" to be detained by police squads caused by the angry store administration. In July 2012, at the Seliger-2012 youth forum, the leader of the movement, Yevgenia Smorchkova, even addressed an appeal to President V. Putin during his visit to the forum. The girl spoke about the long-term struggle of the movement with the Narodny store and complained about the unlawfully instituted criminal case initiated against the Khryush activists by employees of the 13th police department of St. Petersburg.
