How residents of Krymsk, not warned about the flood, saved themselves, neighbors and just strangers

How residents of Krymsk, not warned about the flood, saved themselves, neighbors and just strangers

Rescue Technology

The Electron store is located in the very center of Krymsk, on Vishnevaya Street. Everyone in the district knows that store employees saved dozens of people. But the workers themselves are embarrassed by my questions. “Come on, we are not heroes, why write about us?” - says director Nikolai Popov. The same guys gathered around me who pulled 70 people out of the water: brothers Alexei and Stanislav Anikeev, Sergei Rastorotsky, Andrei Rasinsky, Alexander Lugin.

On that terrible night, the roof of the Electron became a springboard for salvation. The store is located on the first floor of a high-rise building, but the roof protrudes several meters forward. From it to the ground about ten meters, which allowed the guys to be close to the water, but not drown themselves. “The stream carried cars, logs, dogs, vacuum cleaners, cabinets, people. You know, such a terrible mess, in which sometimes the living came across, ”says Alexei Anikeev.

The technology of salvation came immediately. People from the upper floors threw clotheslines and water bottles onto the roof. The guys on the roof tied a bottle to the end of the rope, and at the sight of a floating person they threw it as far as possible, perpendicular to the water flow. The drowning man had to grab onto it, and then the guys together pulled him to their roof. From here there was an exit to the second floor.

One of the guys was tied with a rope. He jumped into the water in those cases when the swimmer did not have time to grab the abandoned means of salvation and the only chance was to grab the drowning man with his hands. People were filmed from trees, poles, passing cars.

Among other things, the residents of the house threw air mattresses and warm clothes onto the roof. Andrei Rasinsky still cannot understand what was happening: “This is some kind of telepathy. People from the upper floors, we are on the roof, drowning, we all understood each other without words and in a fraction of a second. I didn't have to explain anything to anyone."

Opposite the Electron stood a KamAZ, in which three people were sitting: the driver Ivan and two passengers - a man and a woman. The place turned out to be on a small hill, because the truck was flooded not immediately, but gradually. The people in the cockpit waited patiently. When water began to flood the passenger seats in KamAZ, one of the store employees got into an inflatable boat. They tied a rope to the boat and lowered it downstream towards the truck. So the driver and passengers were saved. “None of them voted, did not call, did not ask. They understood that now others need help more than they do. No panic. We are not heroes. They are,” says Alexander Lugin.

There were a lot of people on the roof. The father of the Anikeev brothers, Viktor Valentinovich, saved three people on a rubber boat. Who else was in the boat? Who jumped into the water? Who held the rope on the roof? Who came up with the idea of ​​tying a water bottle? I constantly ask, but the employees of Electron are like partisans: “Why do you need it specifically? Specifically, we saved everything, it’s impossible to single out anyone here.”

Not with a single checker

When the big water came, the Crimean Cossacks turned out to be the most organized force. But the city ataman Oleksandr Vinichenko at first does not want to tell anything: “Why do you need these names? It was everyone's duty to save. And any normal person would have done the same. And they saved everything, you know? All! There are hundreds, thousands of heroes in this city.”

Then he manages to talk to his assistant, coroner Anton Grichnev . He says that only KamAZ could pass along Furmanov Street that night. “We saw a woman with a baby on the roof. We drove up in a truck. She managed to hand over the child to us, and then the water hit! We have a child in the cockpit, and the woman was cut off by water. And we realized that it couldn’t be like this in the world, you couldn’t leave a child an orphan. The three of us jumped into the water and let's swim to this woman. Because it's better to drown yourself than to know that you could save and did not save. And we also eventually pulled this mother out, and in the cabin we gave her a baby. But I don't know their last name. What's the difference?"

Anton Grichnev still does not sleep at night. Can't forget the house between Shevchenko and Lunacharsky streets. It was closed, and the water was above the windows. Grandma was screaming inside. The Cossacks dived many times. But the water was stronger.

...While Anton Grichnev was working on Furmanov Street, the city ataman Vinichenko was able to break through to the Don federal highway. He stopped heavy vehicles and asked to go to the flooded city, to save. And the trucks were moving. “It was complete darkness. Screams. Floating cars. But not a single driver refused to go here,” says the ataman.

While I am talking with the Cossacks, a limping man passes by. This is Maxim Slyusarev . He arrived from Krasnodar at dawn on July 7, as soon as he learned about the tragedy. Sitting on a motor boat, Maxim Slyusarev filmed people from the roofs. He is all punctured and cut up, but he still has not left home. Now Maxim helps the Cossacks to collect humanitarian aid for the victims.

There are probably thousands of such stories. They are in every surviving house.

Ekaterina Yarysh from Furmanova Street is the mother of six children. He says: “I woke up because someone seemed to be pouring water into my nose. I look, and I already have to swim out of the house. And the door is closed. And the key is on the floor. I then kicked the window with my foot, so the frame flew out. We all made it to the roof. I still don't understand how I did it all."

in Krymsk There is also a legendary tractor driver , who drove through the streets, transplanted people from the roofs to his bucket and took them to a safe place. “I don’t remember his name ... Yes, there he is!” the Cossack shouts to me when he sees a tractor on Vishnevaya Street. I run to the tractor, pulling out my camera as I go. Seeing this, the tractor driver turns the tractor around, makes a sharp turn and gives me a tear.