They simply daub the name of his hated political foe – Alexander Navalny – in the snow, and teams of local authority workmen arrive in no time to clear it away.
Anti-corruption campaigner Navalny has been banned from standing in next month’s elections and has urged Russians to boycott the poll which is widely expected to lead to another six year team for Putin.
The strongman loathes 41 year old lawyer Navalny so much that he never mentions him by name.
Muscovite Varvara Gryaznova said: “My neighbour got fed up with communal services ignoring to requests to clean the snow.
“So she took a decisive step herself and wrote ‘Navalny’ right on a pile of snow and on a path.”
Soon afterwards she posted a video of the snow being cleared.
“So you can indeed clean snow in Moscow simply by using Navalny’s name. Checked and tested.”
Now pictures have appeared of Russians saying snow with Navalny’s name – written in Cyrillic – elsewhere in Moscow, as well as St Petersburg and Angarsk in Siberia.
The result is the same – the snow is soon cleared.
Navalny said: “This is simply unbelievable”.
It showed the state’s “decrepitude”.
More than a month’s worth of snow fell in Moscow in early February.
Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin – a close Putin crony – ordered it to be cleared by 11 February – but his snow cleaners couldn’t cope with the quantity of snow.
Navalny is a thorn in Putin’s side by regularly revealing details of alleged mega-scale corruption by senior figures in his circle.
He is seen as the most credible and charismatic opposition figure who might successfully challenge Putin in a free election.
He has been banned from standing by a court because of a previous conviction which he claims is trumped up.
Six years ago he led a wave of protests over alleged rigging of elections.
Navalny is regularly detained at anti-Putin protest rallies.