Open Manholes

I have bitched at some length about all the shopping malls and office buildings springing up in my neighborhood here in Vodkaberg, but the streets and sidewalks are still a rubbish-strewn, crumpled, collapsing mess of potholes and uneven concrete. And there are open manholes everywhere, often difficult to see because they're in the middle of vacant lots and/or hidden by either the high snow in the winter or all the overgrown shrubbery everywhere in the summer.

(Pictures, including one of open manhole.)

There is a story, perhaps an urban myth, of an English teacher working in St. Petersberg who fell down an open manhole while drunk one evening and died (either from the fall, the cold, or drowning, depending who tells you the story.)

Anyway, just as well he fell down the hole. If he'd fallen asleep in the snow, the stray dogs or rats would have eaten him.