# Highway Robbery: Russian Man Steals Road **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 3, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/highway-robbery-russian-man-steals-road/665212 "2013-08-03T01:52:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/highway-robbery-russian-man-steals-road/665212/1 "2013-08-03T01:52:55Z")
[Really](http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/02/19839063-russian-man-accused-of-stealing-an-entire-road?lite). > [@](#): > > The man, a 40-year-old resident of Syktyvkar, the capital of Komi Republic in the Northwestern Federal District, admitted having stolen 82 reinforced concrete slabs that make up the roughly 1-mile road linking the village of Parcheg with the Vychegda River, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported Thursday. > > Police uncovered the highway robbery when they pulled over a convoy of three heavy trucks carrying the slabs, which they said had been removed with a manipulator, an industrial machine that combines a bulldozer and a forklift. I admit, of all the things that could happen to a road, “stolen” isn’t one I’d have thought of. And I loved the “highway robbery” line enough to repeat it in the title. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/highway-robbery-russian-man-steals-road/665212/2 "2013-08-03T02:34:29Z")
I wonder if he had a use for them or if he’s like my grandfather and he was stealing them and piling them up in his basement ‘just in case he needed them someday’. The crap we carried out of his house when he died… I mean, he’d walk over to construction sites and grab a couple of 2x4…just cuz. He’d take nails out of things and straighten them. FFS, it’s cheaper to buy a box when you need them then spend hours pounding them flat. He had probably 20 coffee cans of old rusty nails and mis-matched nuts and bolts. My dad did it too for a while. I still remember when I was a kid, if I needed a nut and bolt, I’d spend ten minutes fishing through coffee cans for a nut and bolt that worked together, trying not to stab myself on the screws, finally finding one, then when you torque down on it, it would slip…nope, not quite a match. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/highway-robbery-russian-man-steals-road/665212/3 "2013-08-03T02:39:18Z")
In Russia, roads steal _you_. Er, or maybe that was just in the good ol’ communist days. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/highway-robbery-russian-man-steals-road/665212/4 "2013-08-03T04:22:46Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I wonder if he had a use for them or if he’s like my grandfather and he was stealing them and piling them up in his basement ‘just in case he needed them someday’. Apparently the Russian economy, as left over from Soviet days, is so desperate that people will do things like this. Towards the end of the Soviet days, as they were pulling out of East Germany, it was mentioned in the news that they were taking with them everything of value that they could . . . including, jacking up the paved runways at the airport to take the chunks with them. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/highway-robbery-russian-man-steals-road/665212/5 "2013-08-03T09:40:18Z")
In America, road transports you. In Russia, you transport road! ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/highway-robbery-russian-man-steals-road/665212/6 "2013-08-03T10:25:47Z")
Crivens! Sergeant Fred Colon should have been on the job, there! He’s the Ankh-Morpork city watchman who is frequently guarding large buildings and bridges to make sure they don’t get stolen, for those who have failing memories.