SAD ROLLER- COASTER

The question arises once again:  why are things done one way here and another way elsewhere?  "This is done one way there," that is, well, "and here, it is done differently," that is, not so well.  The question arose after a guest from the United States said, during a conversation about his country, that children's playgrounds in Washington are bright, beautiful and, using the language of advertising, "awaken a child's imagination and, at the same time, are in harmony with the surrounding landscape".  This is important for the overall development of little ones.  But the matter of safety in children's playgrounds is no less important.  This is why practically all equipment for children's outdoor play is made of plastic or wood: swings, chutes, seesaws, rocking bars, crawl ways, bars, fences, mazes and other kid's joys.  All this is assembled and covered in soft materials which absorb shocks when children fall.  That is to say, every effort is made to minimize any possible injury during play.  Not to mention the fact that all component parts of children's playgrounds are rigid and strong.  The welded seams and joints of wooden surfaces are very smooth and polished.

Safe childhood

These kinds of playgrounds are built in parks in the United States and practically all municipal areas have their parks.  Initially, their attractive appearance put me off - I thought that entry would be charged and expensive.  But I did not want to deny my child the pleasure of playing in such a wonderful place.  Imagine my surprise when my daughter and I entered the playground and no one asked for money.  Later, I realized that everything there was free, with the exception of the hamburgers and other food which is sold right there on the playground in case mothers forget to bring food for their children.  There are many of these mobile containers, shaped like hamburgers, ice-cream cones, candies or fruits.  The area is clean; there are many trees and a lot of green grass.  Mothers with children can spend almost all day in the playground and leave only for a daytime nap.  This provides daily exercise, a picnic, a break for parents and a place of interest for children.  This is a form of rest because, when the mother sends her child to play, she can be certain that the child is safe - she can simply watch him or her, instead of following the child in fear that he or she will fall and be hurt.  "Children also become more independent, literally from a very early age," said our interviewee.

Children's playgrounds in city parks are the norm in the United States and local municipalities, whose budget comes from residents' taxes and some government subsidy, monitor their condition.  Our interviewee - she is curious and far from indifferent - discovered this.  Who knows, perhaps Azerbaijan will heed this information and find it useful.  Especially as the children's playgrounds in Baku neighbourhoods are much more basic.  And given that somewhat improved versions of such playgrounds can be found in Russia - a country with a long history of sad statistics relating to playground-related child mortality - the conclusion is self-evident:  we can but rely on God on this issue, for our "children's areas" are in much worse condition.

It is well known that when dealing with any problem, you have to look at numbers which, let us be blunt, are horrifying in this case.  We will cite Russian statistics because the executive authorities of Baku, not to mention the other cities and towns of Azerbaijan, do not collect this kind of information:  just last year, 40 young children died in playgrounds in Russia.  Every year, 40,000 children are injured there -- more than in traffic accidents.  The majority of accidents in children's playgrounds are caused by failures to observe safety rules by the designers of equipment, improper design of play areas and improper operation of equipment.  After Komsomolskaya Pravda published a report of a terrifying accident - a falling metal rainbow ladder killed a 5-year-old girl, it became even scarier:  after all, our playgrounds have these ladders too and, in most cases, they are not firmly attached and are quite unstable.

Housing and Utilities Administration of Municipalities?

No inspection of children's playgrounds is conducted in Baku to verify their compliance with safety standards.  You can see this quite clearly:  there are so many violations of safety regulations that the absence of seats on seesaws is the most "innocuous" of them.  However, in many cases, the situation is more serious:  in one yard, the chinning bar simply tilted and fell, in another a welded joint opened on the metal chute and the metal sheets now have a dangerous gap.  And the whole chute might soon collapse.  But what if children continue to play there?  There are many playgrounds where the sharp foundations of dismantled pavilions stick out from the ground.  And there are many violations of this type all over our city.  There are only a few exemplary playgrounds and, needless to say, there is no soft covering material anywhere, not to mention wooden or plastic seesaws.  It is extreme sport all the way, as the saying goes.  But the most interesting point is that Baku has no organization responsible for the safety of children's playgrounds, because there is, to this day, complete confusion in the division of responsibilities between municipalities and the country's executive authorities.  For example, in conversation with R+, the head of the Musfiqabad municipality in the Qaradag District said that they have no funds to maintain playgrounds, let alone upgrade them.  "And even those playgrounds which we have in our jurisdiction can hardly be called children's playgrounds.  They are more like football pitches.  Yes, there are goals, but I am not sure if they are fixed.  Sometimes, municipalities organize football matches between junior teams and, when this happens, the game is always attended by ambulance doctors, whom we invite.  The field itself is covered with sand.  By law, municipalities must supervise children's playgrounds but, in fact, the devolution of powers has never taken place.  Many of these areas are still serviced by the housing and utilities administration of the housing operations department of the Baku Executive Authority.  There are also commercial organizations, so they should be held responsible.  The funds for maintenance of children's playgrounds are part of housing maintenance fees.  As we know, residents pay this monthly.  So the housing and utilities organizations should use this money to keep playgrounds in good condition," said the head of the municipality.

The Baku Executive Authority, on the contrary, says that maintenance of children's playgrounds is the prerogative of the municipalities.  "The housing and utilities organizations are responsible for the cleanliness of yards, waste removal and apartment services.  We cannot buy new equipment for children's playgrounds."  This is why any question about national standards in Azerbaijan for the equipment of children's playgrounds, which have probably not been revised since the Soviet period - metal parts, rigid surfaces and other anomalies - sounds ridiculous.  It is another matter that the allocation of areas for children's play in the Soviet era was an obligatory requirement of urban planning in residential areas.  Today, however, there are many cases when construction projects are launched exactly where playgrounds used to be.  But this is a topic for a different discussion.  As for standards: in Russia, for example, these were revised only in 2004, and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that seesaws and other children's delights have not been renewed in the Russian Federation since then.  Equipment in Azerbaijan's children's playgrounds has not been renewed for even longer, only repainted with the money raised by local residents themselves.  "Internal collections for the yard's needs" is quite a widespread system in Azerbaijan.  Thus it is not surprising that there is no money for proper maintenance of the yards and, accordingly, of well-equipped children's playgrounds.  So it seems that unless moms and dads watch their kids, injuries are inevitable.  By good fortune, there have not been large numbers of accidents during play in children's playgrounds.  However, this does not mean at all that the childhood of our kids is safe - although attitudes towards this issue in Azerbaijan are exceedingly relaxed.  This is just the kind of negligence which resulted in the deaths of two children at the circus: the tragedy occurred during the intermission of a New Year show, when the cable supporting a mobile box in which circus workers drove the children failed.  They fell from a height of 15 metres - the survivors were seriously injured.  This is also the kind of negligence which resulted in the deaths of a mother and her child in 2006, when they fell from the Ferris wheel on the boulevard:  the girl was simply not buckled up and fell out of the cabin.  The mother tried to catch her daughter but she also fell out.  In 2008, a tragedy took place in the Amircan area of Baku:  Alizamin Aliyev fell from a seesaw in a yard and died.  And in April 2009, in the village of Yuxari Daskasan in the Daskasan District, 6-year-old Elgun Asqarov died in an accident.  Swinging on a swing, the boy fell, and the rope supporting the seat broke.  It twisted around the child's neck and suffocated him.

Just recently, a child hurt her leg on a rusty nail in a playground in Berne, Switzerland.  The insurance company provided free medical aid to the child but, for its part, sent a bill to the landlord who was in charge of the playground.  And the landlord paid for everything without objection.  Newspapers reported this, for the information of the whole of Europe, so to speak.  "Accidents and injuries are never accidental" - this is the main principle applied by the German authorities when it comes to injuries to children in children's playgrounds.  Luckily, this happens very rarely; first and foremost because playgrounds are always supervised.  There is always an organization in charge which is accountable with its euros for the safety of children.  And the rules for the maintenance of playgrounds are very strict.  Fines are collected both for rubbish which is not removed in time or trees which are not cut down in time (gusts of wind might break trees and they may fall on children).  All the children's rides and swings in playgrounds are "licensed equipment" which passes special technical tests.  No one has the right to install any self-made equipment, no matter how skilled the maker might be.  At least once a year, all the swings and rides, sandpits and toy houses are re-certified for fungal damage to the wood, the rigidity of support, reliability of fastenings and bolts....  If they fail the test, the responsible body pays a fine.  And the list is continually being lengthened.  Not so long ago, a 4-year-old boy who climbed a chute fell off and suffocated in a suburb of Kassel, Germany.  He was throttled by the fastenings of a cycling helmet.  From that moment, the operators of playgrounds had to install signs forbidding the presence in playgrounds of children in cycling helmets.

On the question of standards

So what should a children's playground be like?  According to Russian quality standards (these standards are closer to Azerbaijan as a post-Soviet country - writer), if the playground is intended for children of kindergarten age, then it must be at least 10 metres from the windows of residential or public buildings.  And if the playground is for schoolchildren, it must be at least 20 metres away.  There must be no pedestrian passageways crossing the playground, and it must be isolated from passages, u-turns, waste collection, garages and parking lots.

Access to children's playgrounds cannot be organized from streets or driveways.  If the playground is surrounded by hedges and lawns, waste collectors must be at least 15 metres away, and u-turns and parking areas at terminuses on municipal public transport routes must be at least 50 metres away.

The law also contains a mandatory list of "components of comprehensive layout" of a children's playground.  Besides the abovementioned "soft" covering materials, this includes so-called "components of conjugation of the playground with the lawn," (for example, a curb stone), hedges, seats, litter bins and lighting equipment.  Equipment in the children's playground must meet national safety standards (if these exist).  It turns out that there are standards not only for the quality and durability of the materials with which chutes, swings and other items are made, but also for their design.  They must all be absolutely safe.  Special attention is paid to making certain that children's limbs and clothes do not get caught in any part of the equipment.

And one more thing:  a children's playground must be lit by the sun for at least 5 hours a day and be situated in a green area.  Trees must be no closer than 3 metres from the east and north, and no closer than 1 metre from the south and west (from the edge of the playground to the axis of the tree).  Playgrounds for preschool children should be free of plants with thorns or poisonous fruits or berries.

If there is a sandpit on the playground (which is rare in Baku -- writer), the sand must be free of admixtures of pebbles, gravel, silt or clay.  Only washed river sand can be used, not mountain sand.  Any organization which has the appropriate permission and certification for the product can supply sand for sandpits.

In Russia, for example, sanitary and epidemiological services take samples of sand from sandpits twice a year - before the opening of the "sandpit season" and after the summer, and it is replaced every year.  If the supplier has a certificate, sand tests are not conducted.  If any of the local residents suspect any irregularity (for example, that a cat has urinated or defecated in the sandpit) or is displeased with the quality of sand for any other reason, he or she may go to the epidemiologists who will conduct tests.  If the results are unsatisfactory, the sand will be replaced.

Only those organizations which win tenders in the city are allowed to equip children's playgrounds in Russia.  And the condition of playgrounds is monitored by housing organizations and the Union of Administrative Technical Inspectorates.  Accordingly, there are organizations responsible for them.