If anything, the ad campaign of the Delivery Club seemed to be working, as pictures of the placards spotted in the streets of Moscow and in the capital’s metro promptly appeared on social media. The ads claim to feature people working with the delivery service and showcase their profession and interests, in an apparent attempt to “humanize” the faceless business of fetching foodstuffs.

But the contents of these unlikely placed CVs quickly raised some eyebrows. One such advertisement featured “literature teacher Abdisattar,” said to be raising three daughters and enjoying mountain tourism in his free time. Many online doubted the moral of the story, seemingly glorifying the premise of a trained professional having to resort to part-time student jobs to survive, while others considered it outright racist.

The latter was rather untrue, as the ad campaign actually included people of various nationalities, genders and backgrounds. It featured a “reporter with 7 years of service,” a “football fan,” a “Cossack” and a “polyglot making jewelry in his free time” – who all for some reason decided to work as couriers.

The Delivery Club admitted that its ad campaign was designed as highly controversial on purpose as it came out to explain the idea.