This article examines the development of “citizen applications” and analyses the articulation of these devices with the digital infrastructures of public administration. The focus is on the Russian application “RosYama” [“Russian Hole”] which allows users to signal and map problems on the roads. Designed by a collective of opponents to Putin, RosYama partially merged in 2013 with the official platform of the Municipality of Moscow, via the city’s API. To account for this paradoxical collaboration, the author distinguishes two ways of building citizen-administration digital communication, called “long chain” and “short chain”. While the short chain appears to be an efficient means of repairing and “depoliticizing” potholes, the long chain builds and maintains them as a political actor and public problem.