Three years ago, a 40-year-old entrepreneur from Chelyabinsk moved with his wife and three children to the outskirts of the Katav-Ivanovsky district in the village of Serpievka. Here he built two houses. One for yourself, and the other for guests. Now he offers agrotourists shelter and natural food, and in return asks them to work for the benefit of their farm and the entire village. Alexander Mashkovsky told how to revive the Russian hinterland, and what advantages he sees in village life.
Alexander, why did you leave the metropolis?
We've been thinking about living away from the city for 11 years, but we still couldn't find a place that we liked. True, at first they just wanted to buy a dacha so that the children could spend the whole summer outdoors. When my wife was pregnant with her third, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Thank God, the doctors managed to operate on her and save her, and a daughter was born. It was then that we finally decided that we needed to move. We were looking for a village within a radius of 150 km from the city. And then we came to Serpievka, which is 300 km away, and it hooked us.
What attracted you to this village?
There is incredible powerful energy here. Beautiful nature, taiga, a clean river nearby, springs flowing. And what air! When you get up in the morning, it smells like winter because the air is fresh. We really like the place. I now remember with horror life in a gray nine-story building.
How did your relatives and friends react to your move?
Until recently, no one believed in this idea; they said that we were doing nonsense. And when we sent the older children out of the city school and transferred them to the rural school, we already realized that everything was serious. Already resigned. When I first brought my wife and little daughter here, I was a little scared. It was winter, there was not a single lamp on the street. I think: “What am I doing? Where did you bring them?” But then I overcame my fear and everything worked out.
Has life in the village benefited your wife and children?
Of course, they like it very much. In addition to the fact that they began to get sick less often, I noticed that the children became completely different. They are calm and constantly communicate with animals. They play on the street all day long, we don’t even worry about them - there are no cars here. They can go sit quietly in the gazebo and make something. I take them with me fishing. There's a whole world out there that they're exploring. In winter we go to the taiga on snowmobiles.
What were you prepared for and what were you not prepared for when you arrived at your new place?
We were prepared for the fact that we would not be welcome. Because the local population does not know what to expect from us. That there will be problems with electricity, which is periodically turned off, the voltage is low. That there will be stove heating, there is no gas, that no one will clean the roads in winter. In principle, we were ready for anything and didn’t expect any special problems, to be honest.
And how did the local population receive you?
It's cold at first. We didn’t know many local laws. For example, that fires should not be lit; we were even scolded for this. They explained to me that there are forests all around and there are strong winds, everything can burn. Then when I put up the fence, he went out half a meter further. I had a serious conversation about this with the chairman. Some townspeople arrive and start fighting. I realized that I need to be friends with everyone, and now there are no special complaints against me. And when he began to invite tourists, offering in return to do good for the village, the locals really liked it.
Why did you decide to open a guest house?
We bought a house for ourselves using “maternity capital”. We began to repair it, and we are still doing it. By the way, I concluded that it is better to build from scratch than to take an old house, because then you pay 2.5 times more. When my wife and I got to know these places better, we learned that there are caves and peaks that people actively visit. And they realized that tourists had nowhere to stay. They took a risk. Before that, we were engaged in different types of business. The last time we were so bankrupt that the bailiffs seized all our property for debts.
I restored an abandoned collective farm building and turned it into a hotel. Investments were minimal. The furniture is made from ordinary boards, craftsmen from Ust-Katav made it conscientiously, beautifully and inexpensively. My wife and I came up with the setting ourselves. They began to invite guests, launched a website, people responded from all over Russia, and people came from Kazakhstan. More than 100 people have already visited us. Now we even want to build small houses for family holidays. In the first year we reached self-sufficiency in products. So gradually everything grew into a promising business project.
What do you offer your guests?
Guests relax fishing, go to the forest, hike, to the river, to the bathhouse. In our area there are more than a hundred underground grottoes and about 15 caves. The most famous of them is Ignatievskaya, where Elder Ignat once lived. On the wall there is the miraculous face of the Mother of God and ancient drawings of people. A local historian conducts interesting excursions here. We also have a scout’s house in our village. According to old-timers, one day people came here in black “funnels” and brought a man. They built a house for him by the river. Then, from time to time, a car came for him, which took him away, apparently on business. He died soon after, but the house still stands. We want to make it a tourist attraction.
Here you can both have a good rest and work hard. I organize “Live for free - work in return” campaigns. People perform socially useful work. They clean the streets, cut the grass on playgrounds, and help prepare firewood. Here we have a brigade formed from city volunteers, which will go to haymaking. We didn’t even think that there would be so many people interested. Well, they help me with housework and construction.
Is the farm large?
Not yet. We have chickens, three Nubian goats and an Alpine goat. They are unusual and interesting to tourists. Husky dog. We now want to develop a breeding farm for purebred African goats. Collect valuable milk and make cheeses. Next year I will build a small processing plant and a smokehouse for 450 kg.
Before we were faced with cancer, we didn't care what we ate. Then my wife and I began to think about what we were doing to ourselves. I never thought before that in the village you could not only live without money, but also earn money.
So, from selling milk from just one goat I get 10 thousand rubles. People are willing to buy it, it is healthy and tasty. I thought, if one goat gives so much, then 10 goats can give 100 thousand rubles a month, and 100 goats can give a million. I have already started building a goat shed for 50 goats. I am gradually attracting local people to the business. Previously, I took my milk and cheese to the city to sell, but now I grab the products of my fellow villagers. I’m already thinking about putting a refrigerator in my pickup truck so I can bring as much as possible.
Now many people are leaving villages to earn money...
Yes, in Soviet times, 2.5 thousand people lived in Serpievka. Now there are 250 left. This is the situation in many villages in the country; they are slowly dying out. The problem is that there are not enough people with an entrepreneurial spirit who could raise these villages. The local population does not want to work. An elementary example, I say, pick the berries and sell them. And they said to me: “Why is this necessary, it’s hot, it’s eating midges.”
I also couldn’t find a local manager for my hotel. I had to hire a person from a neighboring city who travels 60 km away. I attract villagers for money to chop firewood and bring hay, but so far no one is capable of more. There are no people responsible, it’s difficult to stir things up. But there are many opportunities to earn money. Locals walk around and don’t notice the fireweed. And during the time of Tsarist Russia, it occupied fourth place among raw materials in exports. The British loved it very much, but it grows only in mid-latitudes. Please grow, sort, process, sell.
What do you see as the future of the village?
In the revival of traditions. Next year, with the support of the administration, I plan to hold the Serpievsky Festival of Folk Drinks and Food. This idea came about after I visited Oktoberfest in Germany. There, the Germans stand up for their traditions. The whole world gathers to prove that their beer is the best. Why are we any worse? We also have something to brag about: delicious bread from the Russian oven, mead and kvass. And pickled cucumbers from an oak barrel? Where can you find these abroad? We will attract people to the village with food and drinks, to prove that it was and is not lost. To revive the village, we need people who are willing to invest their money and soul here. I dream of doing this, I didn’t come here for a lot of money. As a patriot of my homeland, I want everything to be good in it.
Assol Mukarova, Chelyabinsk
PROJECTS IN THE REGIONS. REVIVAL OF THE VILLAGE
The main emphasis should be placed on the revival of peasant (farm) farms. To restore local (municipal) government.
It is necessary to use the experience of peasant farms and local authorities - zemstvos.
It is necessary to restore the economic model in the regions.
It is necessary to return taxes from the center to the localities and purposefully (regional and federal investment programs) invest in the rural economy.
Tax deduction at the location of production, and not the location of the office or legal address..
Village reconstruction (infrastructure, forms of ownership, peasant self-government - peace)
To restore justice - to return land, livestock, and tools of production to the descendants of those robbed and destroyed by the Bolsheviks.
It is necessary to return the land to the residents of villages and villages; they will have more rights to return the land and experience working on it. Return (increase) of land and property to village residents, taken away N. Khrushchev from personal farms.
It's time to revive the territories communal (municipal) lands to solve problems for residents of the entire village: land for grazing livestock, forest land for picking mushrooms, berries, hunting, and providing fuel, or a damless mini-hydroelectric power station on a neighboring river (land for public (municipal) enterprises).
Return of lands of regional and federal significance to municipal (public) ownership to ensure basic needs (lands taken by the Bolsheviks from people, from villages).
Projects in the village. Increasing the volumes and areas cultivated by peasant farms
Allocation and redistribution of resources from regional and federal funds to municipal ones (finance, land, equipment and livestock) for villages and regions showing positive dynamics.
Implementation of successful economic schemes and projects in the village.
Formation (financial (interest-free mutual funds), purchasing) for personal and peasant farms.
Also the formation of successful forms of socially oriented municipal enterprises (energy plants, resource enterprises (according to the most common local resource).
Assistance in training and formation of local personnel.
Creation of information and investment development centers in the village
Such centers can be formed on the basis of new village information and community clubs (centers). .
Such centers (provided at the expense of the village zemstvo), first of all, will include:
- Internet access;
- room for meetings, events, training;
- information boards with news, offers and projects.
Personnel. Peasant farms and private farms
Human potential must first of all be sought on earth, i.e. among those who know how and work on the land (peasants, private farms, dachas).
First of all, you need to decide on those who want and those who can feed themselves on earth.
Therefore, those interested should be divided into those who will live there permanently and those who will come to relax and work on the land.
First category These are villagers who work at nearby enterprises and live off of, among other things, personal farming. These are also those who have experience living in rural areas and are ready to move if there is an opportunity to feed themselves on the land.
Second category These are summer residents who also have houses with land plots and come to places to relax and grow vegetables and fruit and berry crops. From the second group it is possible to move to the second group under favorable conditions.
The development of the village should be based on the first category.
There is also a small farmers category , farm workers (peasant farming). They can act as an example of an effective project and share their experience.
All those wishing to move Constantly on land, you should try yourself in the 1st category: run a private farm (chickens, sheep, rabbits, goats, etc.) or work in the garden. Let's see if they can cope with a 10-12 hour working day in the countryside.
HISTORICAL PARALLELS
It is necessary to take into account the negative experiences of the past. Those pathological changes in power, tragic pages of history that affected the village and the country as a whole.
There are 2 main layers here: and the capture by the Dutch from the Muscovite kingdom.
The Bolsheviks with their destruction of the peasantry and driving those who remained into serfs (into collective farms).
Creation of a repressive over-centralized state with a developed system of punishing disobedient people. The countdown here can begin from the February and November revolutions. - the Bolshevik project was controlled from England, where the owners of the colonizing East India Company, before that the Republic of Genoa, were located (Holland and England, Crimea were previously colonies of this trading corporation).
This is the seizure of the Moscow kingdom by the false Tsar Peter 1, the transfer of the capital to the Baltic coast in the Varangian (Baltic Slavs) city. The infection occurred by the Genoese Republic from Holland, which placed its own man on the throne of Muscovy.
Subsequently, the Genoese moved to England, renaming their organization the East Indian. They have retained the flag, symbols, and charter; their flag is now flying over England. Having carried out the project of the Great British Empire, capturing more than half of the globe.
Now the owners of this project have moved to Europe and are recreating the Holy Roman Empire in the form of the European Union.
Power reform. Decentralization
Therefore, the system of power should be reformed. The current colonization structure is clumsy and convenient only for siphoning funds from the regions. We need to return the right to distribute our resources to the regions and to the municipal level.
You can take the (Varangian) model with its competent distribution of financial and information flows.
This is the revival and strengthening of municipal (zemstvo) and regional authorities. This is a reduction in levels of management in government, expansion of horizontal connections.
Gradual reduction of part of the current federal power to the implementation of projects, the election of government representatives only for the duration of the project, and then their return to regional power.
According to the 2009 census, not a soul lives in 6% of Belarusian villages. Most often, such villages are found in the Vitebsk and Gomel regions. 72% of settlements in rural areas have a population of less than 100 people. Large villages with a population of over 5 thousand people are rare in Belarus. There are only 10 of them, about 80 thousand people live in them.
Various scenarios may await the dying Belarusian village. We counted five options:
5. Village, old houses attract the attention of antisocials.
A prime example of scenario #1 is Tithes. Daughter of the last resident of the village Zhanna Krivosheeva talks about his village like a real advertising agent. " One and a half kilometers to one village, one and a half to another. The store is nearby, but you can remain in peace, privacy and comfort! There is no forest, no river, and therefore no mosquitoes.". Since her mother had no neighbors left, Zhanna and her sister Lyudmila have not stopped thinking about how to bring residents back here.
In the spring, the Krivosheev sisters contacted the village council to find out who owned the abandoned houses. We found the owners through telephone directories and discussed with them the option of selling unwanted property to interested summer residents. Thanks to the efforts of the sisters, the lights are now on in two previously abandoned houses on weekends - townspeople take a break from the noise in the village. But it has not yet been possible to completely populate the village.
The Krivosheev family gives us a tour of the village to show how life gradually died out here and how it appeared again.
“The house was made with love, and we really wanted it to come to life.”
The last house at the entrance to Desyatiny six months ago looked more like ruins. According to Zhanna Krivosheeva, there were no windows or doors, only dilapidated walls. Once upon a time there lived a married couple who surprised the entire village with their reverent attitude towards each other. "She died first, he became sad, turned to the stove, did not react to anyone and died 9 days later. As they said, from melancholy. Here is such a little story of life and death. This house was made with love, and we really wanted it to he came to life."
The sisters managed to find only the granddaughter of the deceased owners, and she did not need this house at all. According to the documents, he turned out to be a nobody's property; the right of inheritance was lost long ago. As a result, the village council allowed potential buyers to lease the plot for 99 years. Those interested were found through an advertisement that the Krivosheevs left on the Internet.
Residents of Bobruisk - Georgian Kakha and his wife Valentina Apriashvili - have been looking for a dacha for a long time. In total, they paid about 3 million rubles for registration of the site. All that remained was to decide what to do with the old house. The commission from Mogilev spoke in favor of demolition. The Apriashvilis decided to revive it, and on their own.
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The house requires a lot of investment, but the family is in no hurry. At first, when we came to work, we spent the night with pensioner Galina Krivosheeva, who was very happy that she would finally have someone to exchange a word with |
– Aren’t you scared that only one person lives here?- we ask.
“Before we came to look at the site, we looked at the navigator. It was written there that 120 people lived, but it turned out there was only one! – Kakha still never ceases to be surprised; he speaks with a characteristic Georgian accent. According to him, there are no abandoned villages in Georgia, and he does not understand how you can run your house and your yard, even after the death of your parents.
“To be honest, we were looking for just such a place, so that it would be quiet and calm,” Valentin supports her husband, she works at Belshina, and Kakha is a driver at Belmetal. – Our work is noisy, we are already quite old, so we want to come and just relax and unwind. Then maybe we’ll move forever. The only thing that is a little confusing is the bad road. Well, there is not enough light - the street is dark. Only thanks to Nikolaevna it is clear that someone is here.
Sometimes it's easier to build a new house than to restore an old one
Opposite the house of the Apriashvili family is a pale copy of it. A family of collective farm workers lived here: after the death of their parents, the heirs sold this house without documents. The buyers forgot about it - no one had seen them here for a long time. The Krivosheev sisters failed to find them.
The women appealed to the village council with a request that the house be recognized as ownerless and sold to those who really need it. The village council explained that there was no point in this: according to state coefficients, an ownerless house would become so expensive that no buyer would be able to afford it. It is much easier to demolish the “ruin” and build a new one in its place. Talking about this, Lyudmila can barely hold back her tears. She is very afraid that if all the abandoned houses start to be demolished, their village will turn into a collective farm field.
“Our late father often spoke about this village: “Children, this is a piece of paradise, when it’s hard for you, you will come here and remember me and your mother.” When we were young, we didn’t think about it, we were too busy, we came only when it was convenient to come. But with age, you begin to understand that under these centuries-old linden trees are your roots, your peace, your spiritual joy. And I can't allow there to be a field here that will eat me.
Russians are showing interest in abandoned sites
Speaking about the disappeared houses, Lyudmila means the entire next half of the village, where there are either traces of the foundation left on the plots, or nothing can be seen at all - just weeds. One house was transported entirely to a neighboring, larger village. Another one burned down along with a well-known mathematician throughout the region. The next two were sold for demolition - the houses were used for firewood and for a bathhouse.
Those who wish could easily build on the vacant plots, argue the Krivosheev sisters. They also left advertisements about the possibility of renting land. They say that the Russians showed interest in the village, but the women themselves would not be happy about their arrival in Desyatyna. They are afraid of entertainment and noise.
The house opposite Galina Krivosheeva with the only well in the entire village - according to no one's documents. But his owner recently appeared - the son of an alcoholic who died here. He has no light or electricity because the house is not registered in anyone's name. Comes very rarely. The site looks abandoned, although there seems to be an owner, so the family cannot attract buyers.
“There’s a very beautiful garden here – centuries-old linden trees, and he started cutting them down.” I came and said: what are you doing? Let's just cut off the branches. He replied that this was his territory, don’t even take a step here.
Sold for demolition for money offered by summer residents
Another neighbor's house also brought a lot of tears to the pensioner. The children of their deceased parents sold it for demolition, despite the fact that the Krivosheev sisters brought buyers who were ready to undertake its restoration.
“But, of course, in front of us they gave such figures that were completely unrealistic.” As a result, they sold it for demolition for the price that buyers were actually willing to take. A luxurious house with a good vineyard, a well, a bathhouse, and water. And they live nearby, in an agricultural town, in a cottage... To be honest, I don’t understand this. Agricultural towns, in my opinion, are completely faceless, cold, soulless. This is the same type of village, there is no color there, there is no Belarus there.
– Oh, if only you would come here in the spring, when the linden trees bloom! This is something incredibly beautiful. Nowhere do nightingales sing like they do here! My friends say that here the whole village is simply buzzing with nightingale trills, it’s such a feeling of a choir,” Lyudmila enthusiastically describes Desiatiny.
"Hares are running, roe deer, of course, I like it here"
At the very end of the village, almost on the farm, an old house is being rebuilt by a summer resident from Bobruisk named Denis. He looks to be 40-45 years old. He refuses to be photographed, but is happy to show off the fruits of his labors: the renovated façade of the house, the original gazebo, and flower beds. Finding a smart owner in this house turned out to be easy. Zhanna Krivosheeva found the heiress and asked what plans she had for the house. She didn’t mind selling the property, but didn’t know how to do it.
The Krivosheev sisters took the photographs themselves, posted an ad and helped find a buyer. As a result, the house was sold for one and a half thousand dollars - for the same money it could have been sold for demolition. The new resident of Desyatin is very pleased with his purchase.
– Hares are running, roe deer, of course, I like it here. There is no traffic here, no cars, nothing, I’m resting, I’m generally on the outskirts, alone. He hired people to clean the well. I am restoring the house myself. The material is, of course, expensive, but tolerable.
“You know, it’s, of course, unrealistic for young people to live here,” Lyudmila picks up. – But for older people who are tired of the city, who are retiring, this is a great option!
If you set a goal, buying a house in an abandoned village is not difficult. Zhanna and Lyudmila Krivosheev advise:
1. Find a suitable option and find out through the village council who is the owner of the house, and negotiate with him about the purchase directly. As a rule, we are talking about small amounts. In the case of Tithes, houses cost between 1.5-2 thousand dollars.
2. If the house does not have an owner, contact the village council to recognize the property as ownerless with the right to subsequently purchase it. The option is not always profitable, but it is one of the possible ones. Advertisements for the sale of abandoned houses can be found on the websites of some district executive committees.
3. In addition, you can rent a plot of land and build a new house in its place, thereby marking the beginning of the revival of the village from scratch.
An entire village for 1 basic amount - reality or fiction?
The bravest can buy the entire abandoned village - this proposal was made by Deputy Minister of Sports and Tourism Czeslaw Shulga in 2012. His idea was to sell to interested people entire empty villages for tourism purposes. The price of the issue was called symbolic - only one basic amount for an entire village (in 2012 - 100 thousand rubles, or 12 dollars).
The chairman of the board of the Belarusian public association "Rest in the Village" Valeria Klitsunova has not heard of transactions for such ridiculous money. But she knows examples of the revival of entire villages through the efforts of individual enthusiasts. One of the most striking projects in this direction is the village "White Meadows" in the Korelichi district of the Grodno region.
– Father and daughter bought an abandoned village of 8 houses (directly from the owners. - TUT.BY), bought another 7 abandoned houses in the area and transported them. Now we have a very beautiful village consisting of authentic houses. A large tavern has been built there, farming is being organized, in general, it will be a real tourist village.
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Another example is the Veselaya Khata estate in the Kopyl district of the Minsk region. The owner Andrey Kruk bought several houses in the area and created an estate that is popular. I saw the prospect of expanding further and reviving the village. The residents remaining in the village help him.
According to Valeria Klitsunova, these are more projects to revive the village than a business. As a rule, this business is carried out by non-poor people who want self-realization. The expert emphasizes that buying an entire village is a headache; for this you need to find all the owners and be able to interest them. You have to really want this. So far, the initiative comes only from private owners.
– There is also interest on the part of Russian capital, for example, in Vidzy, a Russian investor is restoring an old estate, as well as buying houses from old residents and involving them in the revival of the village.
Can low-income people get empty houses for free?
In some cases, abandoned houses can be obtained for free. In the Vitebsk region this spring, those in need - large and low-income families - were offered to choose empty housing in the villages of the Gorodok district. So officials intended to go to “Dozhinki” to deal with ownerless and abandoned housing. As the chief specialist of the economics department of the Gorodok district executive committee told TUT.BY Tatiana Gusakova, the experiment failed. Those in need with a decision to settle in abandoned houses did not contact the district executive committee. At the same time, as it turned out, no one personally voiced the proposal to low-income citizens: "We had an ad on our website".
But the summer residents were ready to reanimate the old housing, but all of them were refused. “This housing was built with economic loans, and how can we give them all this for free as a dacha? This is state property.”. Selling empty housing for little money to interested people, according to the expert, is also not an option. “They have a certain value on the balance sheet. This decision should not be made at our level.” As a result, the houses are still empty.
Demolish the village to give the land for agricultural use
However the most popular measure In relation to dilapidated housing in the Belarusian village, the only option left is its demolition. In February 2012, Presidential Decree No. 100 “On measures to improve accounting and reduce the number of empty and dilapidated houses in rural areas” was adopted. Vacant houses are defined as houses in which the owners have continuously lived for less than one month in a calendar year over the past three years. Dilapidated houses, according to the decree, are “maintained in disrepair”; their owners have not lived in them for the past year and are not engaged in their restoration.
With the consent of the owner, the village council can demolish these houses. If there is no consent of the owner, then the dilapidated houses are subject to forced purchase by the executive committee through the court.
Thus, the “cleansing” that the Krivosheev sisters spoke about is indeed quite real. For example, in the Gomel region in July of this year they promised to demolish 5.5 thousand abandoned houses and bring the vacant land into agricultural use.
Leaving the village to quietly die its own death- is also not an option, the Krivosheev sisters believe. Their late father once fought against antisocials who took a fancy to abandoned houses in Desyatyny, for which he was severely beaten. The culprits suffered criminal punishment. There are no guarantees that bad people will not come again - to a village where only one pensioner permanently lives.
How do you see the future of Belarusian villages?
- Father Kirill, do you have village roots?
- I was born in the mining village of Artyomovsk in the Donbass. My father is a native of the village of Perezdnoye, Voronezh region, and my mother is from the village of Staroye Melovoe, Belgorod region. As a child, I often visited these villages, especially Perezdny.
In the Pavlovsky district, where Pereezdnoye is located, there were two functioning churches, but many churches were destroyed after the revolution. In the village of Rassypnoye, neighboring Pereezdny, I saw many bullet marks on the dome of the bell tower. One day, a priest from there came to Perezdnoye to bless Easter cakes and eggs on Holy Saturday, and drunken men locked him in a barn, where he sat all night. The Easter service was disrupted... Several decades after the mass closure of churches in these places, the servant of God Theodore, Fedor Kipriyanovich, baptized children and performed funeral services for the dead. I was told that he was a fearless man who suffered a lot for his faith. It used to be that after the next christening, the local authorities would scold him, take him to a field away from the village, and the next morning he would pray for the deceased in another village. I never lost heart.
- When did you begin to take care of villages as a priest?
- Since the summer of 1991, then I decided to come to Pereezdnoye to prayerfully remember my grandmother - my father’s mother - on the day of the 20th anniversary of her death.
- How did you see the village then?
- I remember the conversation with the milkmaid. She complained about the extremely low cost of milk; this completely devalued her work. Then resellers appeared in the village, buying animals for pennies. Refugees flocked from the republics of the former Union. Theft began to flourish.
I talked to many leaders. They said about the same thing: high fuel prices make peasant labor meaningless, young people are leaving the village, people are drinking themselves to death. The head of the farm in the village of Leskovo - I consecrated his house and the building where the board was located there - told how not long before he fired milkmaids - for drunkenness (!). The latest news from there is disappointing: the farm in Leskovo completely collapsed, all the livestock in Perezdnoye was slaughtered.
- Is there really nothing that can be done to stop this evil?
- The same leader said: everyone knows in which houses in the village they distill moonshine or sell low-quality alcohol. And the police are inactive - the inviolability of a private home! Drugs have appeared in the village... After the disco near the club, syringes are lying on the ground. I am absolutely sure that people are being deliberately soldered. The mortality rate is horrifying.
- Why did you install several worship crosses in rural areas, what do you see as the meaning of their appearance in these places?
- Worship crosses in villages have become the center of spiritual life. In total, we installed twelve such crosses in the Voronezh region. They organized small communities and provided people with liturgical books. Thus, by gathering at the crosses on Sundays and holidays, the residents of these villages will not be cut off from the common congregational prayer of our people.
- Have you also been involved in the restoration of rural churches?
- More precisely, they gave impetus to their revival. They came to some village where the temple lay in ruins, hung bells on a tree, and began to ring. At first people did not understand anything, then they gathered to church. A prayer service was served, then a sermon, and a common meal. Then we invite everyone to a labor hour. There were real miracles. After our appearance in the village of Eryshevka, a month and a half later I received a letter. Local residents report that they have already covered the roof, laid the floors, installed windows and even planted flower beds around the church.
- What are you going to do next?
- I remember how in the village of Seryakovo the first service was performed on the throne day for the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, and people asked us: “When will you open the temple for us?” And we say: “We have already opened this service.” They: “What’s next?” - “And then within a few days we will carry out a general cleaning here and build an iconostasis. You come here every Saturday and Sunday and, after praying, reading the prayers according to the charter, wipe the window sill, put a jar of flowers, and then do the same with the next one.” window sill. That is, we are sure that thanks to regular prayer, people will begin to be drawn to the temple. This often happens. Obviously, you need to start not with drawing up huge estimates, but with prayer. Prayer works wonders.
- Where do you work now?
- In the Tver region. Here the community has several houses. We have installed a dozen worship crosses and are digging through the ruins of several temples in endangered villages. Here the situation is even worse. The magazine "Russian House" wrote that every year about 40 villages disappear from the map of the Tver region. One disappeared before our eyes - Raiki in the Likhoslavsky district. One can still understand the temporary suspension of the emergence of new settlements, but when those where people have lived for centuries disappear, it’s terrible! The main reason for degradation and extinction is horrific drunkenness and unemployment. There are a lot of abandoned villages. This winter many southerners came. Land shares are being bought for next to nothing. On paper, there are more than one and a half hundred farmers in the region, but in reality there are three people, but everyone received subsidies and benefits.
Drunkenness is rampant. A local resident, a 50-year-old man, said that half of his classmates had already died from burnt vodka. I say: “Well, wait here for a couple of thousand Chinese who will populate your land.” “Oh, don’t,” he objects. “Then why do you become an alcoholic and not have children?” I ask him. But the answer is obvious: out of despair.
- What to do? You painted everything so dark...
- It’s difficult to give comprehensive recommendations. But... we must finally begin systematic work to limit drunkenness; do not choke the remaining rural Mohicans with taxes, but subsidize them only for the fact that they still live on the earth. Look what happens: from one endangered village to another there are several tens of kilometers. The village is our rear, a reserve, in view of the inevitable future cataclysms. We wrote off Mongolia's debt of $6 billion, Iraq's $23 billion, and we are allocating $1 billion for a national agricultural development project. Absurd!
The energy supply controller talked about how grandmothers in villages, who suffered hardships in the war, worked on collective farms for several decades, receive a pension of 1800 rubles, and they are also forced to purchase new meters for 600 rubles!
The village needs serious material support. It is urgent to carry out emergency work in collapsing rural churches, rural schools, post offices, and libraries. If they don’t exist, the village will die out by leaps and bounds. Targeted financial assistance is needed. It is important to unite people. I believe in the power of the influence of Orthodox village communities, in the fact that they are able to heal any festering wounds...
Interviewed by Vladimir Aleksandrovich FROLOV
http://www.russdom.ru/2007/200712i/20071233.shtml
HOW TO REVIVE A VILLAGE? The other day, an article by the famous journalist Dmitry Steshin appeared in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, dedicated to the problem of the gradual disappearance of Russian villages. The problem is common to all of Central Russia, and does not concern only the Tver region, where a Komsomolskaya Pravda special correspondent visited, deeply affected by this topic. The ranking of dead villages, compiled based on the results of the population census, can be found on the Internet by anyone. Judging by the published data, in Russia today there are 20 thousand villages in which there is not a single inhabitant left, and another 36 thousand where only one person lives... WE NEED TO GIVE PEOPLE LANDS AS ESTATES. His comment on this topic, in particular, was given by the Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov), Metropolitan of Pskov and Porkhov: – At one time I had a farm in the Ryazan region, and people returned to the village and received decent salaries. But I have another job - swinging a censer, and for twenty years I rushed around these fields, collecting alcoholics and bringing them to their senses. But in the Non-Black Earth Region... A tragedy occurred when these regions were declared unpromising, and they began to invest money in virgin lands. Although you should invest in them. And not only in agriculture - it was necessary to raise large production. I fought like crazy to get 25 centners per hectare, then - 45, now - 47... I come to the Krasnodar Territory, and they have 80 centners! And the cost of grain is absolutely ridiculous - compared to the Ryazan region. And they tell me: Krasnodar region, Stavropol region, Volga region and Altai will not only feed the whole country - there will be surpluses. I now see the only way out is to connect roads, gas, and electricity to the beautiful lakes. And give these lands as estates to ordinary people. How much do you need - 10 hectares? And here’s a non-refundable subsidy for your house. There is no need to suffer with commercial agricultural production. Just live, keep the beds, goats, rabbits! A small farm on a family estate, a guest house... I told the president this too - give the land to the landowners for safekeeping! In the same Pskov region they lived traditionally - on farmsteads. THE EXODUS FROM THE CITIES WILL INCREASE The readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda did not remain indifferent to this publication. They left hundreds of responses and letters under the article on the website and sent hundreds of responses and letters to the editor. Here are fragments of some of them. – Here, they say, in the Russian Federation, agriculture north of the 55th parallel (Ryazan) is unprofitable. They say that it will remain only in the Krasnodar Territory, in the Belgorod and Voronezh regions, in Altai. But this is not true! A number of agricultural crops grow better in the middle zone. This is flax, rye, almost all vegetables plus various herbs (mowing up to three times during the summer season), milk is not as fatty as southern milk, but only from it excellent Vologda oil is obtained... And this is like beluga among fish! And these products are much tastier than those from the south. Even southerners admit it! Moreover, all of them can be passed as “eco”, which means that at least they can and should be given to children. – I think that the extinction of villages will continue. But it is not all that bad. A thin trickle of immigrants is already oozing out of the swelling megacities, settling in abandoned villages. I think the exodus from the cities will increase. So all is not lost yet. – 150 years ago – this is the middle of the 19th century. At this time, there was a rapid growth of the population of Russia and, above all, the rural population. To this day, in the villages there are houses built at that time, including stone ones. The buildings of zemstvo hospitals with carved platbands, iron roofs and bronze door handles have been preserved! After the Great Patriotic War, the village also quickly recovered: from 1945 to 1955, the population grew by 28 million people! The Russian countryside began to degrade under Khrushchev, when the peasants were taken away from their personal plots, crushed with taxes, and collective farms were forced to buy back old equipment from MTS at inflated prices, and new ones were sent to virgin lands. That's when the people fled from the village. Brezhnev also made his contribution to the state of affairs in the countryside: it was under him that Central Russia became an “unpromising Non-Black Earth Region.” Now all national republics, especially in the North Caucasus, receive increased subsidies. Invest a small fraction of this money in a Russian village, and it will pay off a hundredfold! – The only way out, as Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) says, is to distribute the land. There are a lot of willing people, the same Muscovites and summer residents. He himself has a house in the Tver region. Summer residents arrive, and jobs appear for the locals (those who don’t drink, of course). I would take several hectares in addition to my 40 acres. I’m unlikely to grow anything myself, but I won’t let the land become overgrown with weeds, which is also not bad. WE CAN'T DO WITHOUT THE FEDERAL PROGRAM Our newspaper also decided to join the discussion of the problem, since it concerns everyone, including residents of the Rzhevsky district. By the way, our region also appears in the Komsomolskaya Pravda article - however, as a positive example. However, this does not alleviate the acute problem of villages disappearing from the map of rural areas. The Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist raised a very large and complex problem in this conversation about the Russian village. This is not about whether it is worth developing agriculture. Everything is clear and understandable here - you need to invest money, issue targeted subsidies, preferential loans, etc. By and large, the conversation is about what our country will be like in the near and more distant future. For example, Alexey Kudrin, one of the leaders of public opinion in Russia, who was the Minister of Finance and even Deputy Prime Minister for many years, believes that the entire country should turn into several agglomerations. People there will be provided with employment and cultural recreation, but the fact that they will communicate with nature when going somewhere to Turkey or Thailand is normal. It’s clear that this man doesn’t know or understand the Russian village, and he doesn’t need it for nothing. Moreover, he does not understand the Russian soul, as they say now, the Russian mentality, but this, in the end, is his problem. A much more important issue than the ideas of a single official is the main path of development of Russia. Is it connected with the rise of the Russian village, or is its fate to remain on the sidelines and eventually disappear completely? But then the Russian code may disappear along with it - what makes us a special people, with our own customs, traditions, and views. In megacities, maintaining one’s uniqueness is extremely difficult, if not impossible - they unify everything and everyone, “brushing” them with the same brush. I don’t really want to become a neuter person. This means we need a Russian village. But then the question arises: what should it be? While discussing this topic, we will not talk about the Oleninsky district, where the Komsomolskaya Pravda special correspondent visited - it would not be entirely correct. But, for example, the Rzhev village of Zvyagino, which for a long time did not live, but survived. Now a pig farm is being built next to it, and the residents don’t know whether to be happy or sad about it. They don’t trust the authorities, they are afraid of environmental damage; There are also enough people who have simply forgotten how to work and do not want to work. In the neighboring village of Zaitsevo, there was also disintegration for many years and nothing was created. But then active, energetic people appeared who wanted to breathe new life into the village, which was once the center of a large estate. True, they turned out to be outsiders. Even so, the village suddenly felt the pulse of life, and its inhabitants had hope. The hope is that with the help of tourism, the mossy stone of a stagnant atmosphere can be moved, and then something that has not been there for many years will appear - prospects for a better life. Or the Kolembets, who are discussed in the newspaper article, the owners and creators of the guest complex “Chertolino Estate” - who are they trying for? For myself? Yes, probably. But they can give jobs to ten, and in the future, many more people. Not to mention the fact that their labors and efforts improve not only the natural landscape, but also human relationships. By their example, they show that it is possible to live differently - more beautiful, more honest, more noble. All of these are islands of new life, it’s a pity that they are just islands. And we need a whole continent called “The Revival of the Russian Village.” And here we cannot do without a federal target program, because no local authorities can solve this immense problem alone - even if they are smart. The creation of such a program should start from the bottom, when the regions themselves would determine where it is more promising to engage in agricultural production, where to place processing and storage of products, and where to focus on the development of tourism. Then it will be possible to combine all these areas and create a single federal target program. Regarding the distribution of land, there is something to think about. The idea is not uncontroversial, but if a number of conditions are met, it can work. You can use different approaches. There should be only one thing - an indifferent look at the disappearance of Russian villages from the map of the country. Perhaps our descendants may not forgive us for this. In the pictures: there is still hope for dying villages - for people who are ready to revive them. One of the most striking examples in the Rzhevsky district is the Kolembet couple, restoring the Chertolino estate (in the second photo). P.S. We invite concerned readers to also speak out on the stated topic.