‘Patriotism must come before all else’

Residents of one of Russia’s poorest regions fundraise hundreds of thousands of rubles for the Russian military — even though some struggle to pay for food.

Zabaykalsky Krai, located in Russia’s Far East, is one of the regions with the lowest quality of life in the country. Despite widespread poverty, its residents regularly donate money to pay for drones used by the Russian military in Ukraine. In the past, they’ve raised 700,000 rubles (around $8,740) to help the Russian army. The independent Russian outlet Novaya Vkladka sent a reporter, Yakov Bykov, to the villages of Priargunsk and Novotsurukhaytuy, located near the Chinese border, to learn more about local life and why the residents give money to the army, even though some of them barely have enough to cover their own basic needs. Meduza is publishing an abridged version of Novaya Vkladka’s reportage.

‘In times like these, you’ve got to help’

The small village of Priargunsk, with a population of about 7,000, is a four-hour drive from the city of Chita. It sits by the Argun River, which runs along the Russia–China border, but there’s no official border checkpoint in the village. During the summers, locals swim in the river, occasionally drifting over to the Chinese side of the border and back. From time to time, the coast guard arrests these inadvertent “tourists.” When the river freezes in the winter, iron poles are placed on the ice and strung with barbed wire, marking a makeshift border.

The villages of Novotsurukhaytuy and Priargunsk are four kilometers (2.5 miles) apart. The road between them is lined with tree stumps left from the poplar trees that used to grow there. The pavement is covered in cracks and potholes: the road was last repaired 10 years ago.

Since September 1, 2022, schools in Novotsurukhaytuy start each week of classes by lining up the students to sing the Russian national anthem — this helps the school comply with the Education Ministry’s new “patriotic curriculum.” In shop class, children make trench candles (to provide light and heat for soldiers on the front) and sew armbands for soldiers to identify each other by. The school’s assistant principal gives the candles to local volunteers, who pack them up and send them to the front, where their mobilized fellow villagers are fighting.

In an interview with Novaya Vkladka, the Novotsurukhaytuy school’s assistant principal Irina Plyukhina, says:

Our shop teacher taught the students how to make trench candles. Now, the kids can make almost 300 of them per month. They’ve been making them since the fall. Before [mobilization], they didn’t understand what they were for.

At the school principal’s initiative, the school runs a monthly fundraiser for Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. The school asks each family to donate 50 rubles ($0.62) to the cause. Sometimes, they manage to collect 15,000–20,000 rubles ($186–$248), but on occasion some parents may contribute 10,000 rubles ($123) at once. The assistant principal, Irina Plyukhina, says people in Priargunsk and the rest of the region have grown “more united” as a community since the start of the invasion.

Plyukhina is convinced that “in times like these, you’ve just got to help.” She herself earns around 30,000 rubles ($370) per month, of which she donates several thousand. “There aren’t many adults who don’t help out. The good people — those who understand we must help — outnumber the bad. And if someone doesn’t help out, it’s usually because of their financial situation,” she explains. Plyukhina’s two cousins and nephew are fighting in Ukraine. She admits she’s scared they might not come back alive. One of the school’s recent graduates came back home in a coffin last March.

Another resident of Novotsurukhaytuy, Svetlana, has three children. She’s one of the few people in the village who gives no money to the army. “My own money doesn’t always stretch enough to buy food. Every so often, I’ll borrow from my mom or from friends and then pay it back from my next paycheck. The school asked us to donate money, but I don’t send any,” she explains.

After divorcing her husband in 2019, Svetlana has been raising her children mostly by herself. Svetlana works in an orphanage, where she makes 25,000–27,000 rubles ($310–$335) a month. She gets an additional 11,000–13,000 ($136–$161) in child support for her three kids. Svetlana says she “doesn’t know everything” about the war, but hopes it’ll end soon.

‘Moved to tears’

Vera and Lyudmila (names have been changed) live in Priargunsk. Both of them have worked in the border service for over 10 years. Because they met with Yakov Bykov, Novaya Vkladka’s reporter, on their day off, they invited him to drop by for lunch. Sitting in her kitchen, Lyudmila shared a recent experience:

Volunteers asked local business owners for help with the “special military operation,” and this woman from Uzbekistan, a local trader, was standing by listening in. As soon as she heard what we said about raising money for the military, she sneered in this nasty way. I felt so disgusted I wanted to tell her off.

Vera agrees with her:

These people just keep coming. They should all leave. What are they doing here if this is how they behave? They sit here, make money off of us, and then have the audacity to laugh! Patriotism must come before all else. If you live in our country, be so kind as to respect our president and what he does.

“I, for one, donated because I support our president,” Lyudmila chimes in. “If not for him, we would’ve been trampled over a long time ago. We’d all be driving rickshaws by now,” she muses, imagining the miseries of life without Putin.

“For some reason, young people don’t understand who the enemy really is,” Vera muses. “There are, of course, many injustices about this war. But has any war ever been just?”

Both women say they donate part of their salary to the army. Each border employee must hand over 2,000–3,000 rubles ($24-$37) from every paycheck. Lyudmila and Vera consider this amount insignificant, since they make 50,000–55,000 rubles ($620–$680).

In the first two weeks after mobilization started, their office collected two million rubles ($24,800) to help those called up from the reserves. Vera says they were able to collect 700,000 rubles ($8,687) at a fundraising fair for the war in just a few hours, while local ensembles played and sang World War II era songs. Local residents and business owners brought baked goods and handmade crafts to the fair. “I was at the concert, listening to our people, and moved to the brink of tears,” Vera said.

Just money and drones

The village residents say that humanitarian aid rarely reaches the front lines. One of the locals who was called up in the mobilization told his neighbors not to donate anything except money and drones. Another local who returned from the war said that in his half-a-year in Ukraine, he only received humanitarian aid twice: “That’s why I’m telling you — send only money and drones.”

Elena, a hairdresser, works at a hotel hair salon and coordinates volunteers who send donations to the front. “We’re social activists,” explains Elena while coloring her client’s hair. With the donations, she explains, they “order Chinese drones online and send them to Rostov-on-Don. There, local volunteers pick them up and send them to the soldiers.” Elena cannot “turn away when her countrymen need help,” she says. In order to balance volunteering and work, she works late and also collects donations from clients.

I think people contribute because they understand it’s necessary to help. Seniors come too. The oldest is 80 years old. She doesn’t know how to transfer money by messenger, so she brings 4,000 rubles ($50) in cash.

The mother of a soldier who was killed in combat once brought 100,000 rubles ($1,240). Her son is now buried at the local cemetery, one grave over from her own father.

Tatiana, the client whose hair Elena is coloring while speaking, also chimes in: “My son has already served in the army,” she says. “Sometimes when he calls I just hope it’s not because he got a summons. This is the only thing I think about now,” she sighs.

Tatiana’s husband Alexey was among the first voluntary conscripts sent to Ukraine in March 2022. He spent one month in the combat zone and brought back over 100,000 rubles ($1,240), just enough to cover what the family had paid for his uniform and other preparations for the front. Last February, Alexey wanted to go back, but his wife talked him out of it. She told him she wouldn’t be able to take care of household duties by herself. “In Putin’s last address on February 21, we were waiting for him to announce another round of mobilization,” she recalls.

Everyone was afraid. The number of people who ran away in September! I didn’t expect there would be so many. They showed cars lined up at the Verkhny Lars checkpoint and I asked my husband: “Are all those people running away?” He told me, “Of course!” Only our fellow villagers in Priargunsk didn’t run. They all support our homeland.

In the cramped room across the hall where humanitarian aid is kept, boxes sit on the floor. One box contains empty tin cans, and the others contain ready-made trench candles. There are also children’s letters, folded into triangles in the style of the Second World War.

Victory disco

Just before 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday, Valentina, a community center manager in Novotsuruhaituy, meets with the Novaya Vkladka reporter to talk about the dance night fundraiser she’s organizing. No one is there yet, but Valentina assures the reporter that dancers will show up.

Since November 4, 2022, large letters “Z” and “V” hang in the community center’s windows. For New Year’s and Victory Day, “all decorations are wrapped around those letters,” Valentina explains.

According to Valentina, 14 people in Novotsuruhaituy were called up for service during the September round of mobilization. Nearly all of them received their summons on the night of September 23. “They took away our art director’s husband at night. She was left alone with her daughter, a first grader,” she recalls.

Since the start of the war, the center hosts discos, concerts, and fairs to raise money for the war. “Occasionally, people bring 500 rubles ($6) apiece. That makes me happy,” says Valentina. “Now, nearly all low-income families receive large child support payments. That’s why they give most of it away,” she speculates (contradicting Svetlana, the only low-income person who agreed to talk to Novaya Vkladka and admitted that her money is barely enough to pay for food).

So that she could celebrate two “victories against fascism” at once, Valentina asked her fellow villagers fighting in Ukraine to win the war by May 9, Russia’s cherished Victory Day.

Story by Novaya Vkladka

Abridged translation by Sasha Slobodov