Report of Nadezhda Andreeva from the Saratov section of the border with Kazakhstan

In the Saratov section of the border with Kazakhstan, people live in cars for three days. For the fare out of turn, speculators take more than 100 thousand rubles per person.

The track to the winter risen in the direction of the border is almost empty. On a blue sign is an encouraging inscription: "Uralsk - 120 kilometers." It seems that Kazakhstan seems very slightly. The illusion disappears behind the district center. From the hill, the last roadside cafe shows that the road to the horizon is clogged with transport. Fores, Gazelle, buses, taxis, cars are crowded in two lanes in three or four rows.

We get into the tail. Immediately run up a brunette in a leather jacket of a model of the 1990s:

"Do not want to cut three to four kilometers for 5 thousand?" The price of the service floats depending on how close to the head of the queue the client wants to advance and how solvent looks.

“My guys climb in advance in line and keep a place. You drive up, transfer money and get into the column, ”explains the Saratov taxi driver Yerzhan, who is usually engaged in intercity transportation. - By friendship, I would give you the best place at the checkpoint itself for free. But I have partners. So - thirty. "

No wonder President Vladimir Putin said that the Russian economy has not lost anything from a special operation. At least for the Saratov bombed the border cork became a gift of fate. They never had such earnings.

The price of a car between the last kilometer in front of the checkpoint reaches 100 thousand rubles.

Standing on this site has good chances to cross the border within a day.

On foot fugitives are welded no worse. A taxi from the Saratov airport to Ozins on the day of the announcement of partial mobilization cost 5 thousand rubles. Now - 12-15 thousand. Passengers are planted in the last car in line. Having passed nine kilometers along the traffic jam, nonresident find out that at the local checkpoint you can not cross the border on foot. A few days ago, the suction cost 5 thousand rubles. Now - up to 80 thousand per person. For this money, the passenger will only be transported through the Russian and Kazakhstani checkpoints. If you want to in Uralsk, pay more.

Yerzhan does not experience any sympathy for those whom he tears. He is sure that he himself will not fall under mobilization as a large father.

"I have lost time of time"

On the sidelines, the traffic police car sparkles with flashing lights. At night, when speculators break through the line, taking places for tomorrow, the police for some reason disappear. People from traffic jams organized folk squads to protect against “fields” (taxi drivers are called so for approaching the highway along steppe roads). “Yesterday they gathered in a crowd, from each car for a man. They put checkpoints on the oncoming lane and on the sidelines. We’ll be on duty: if someone fell asleep at the wheel, run, knock on the window, otherwise a break is formed and someone will fit, ”says a strong man in a fishing suit.

On the car of the interlocutor - near Moscow numbers. The traffic jam does not move for two hours. A man with drivers from neighboring cars, spreading a gas burner on the sidelines, heats a pot of water for tea. The guys are drunk, tightly tighten the hoods - a strong cold wind blows in the steppe.

“What is the day of the week today? - the Muscovite asks. - Yes, yes, I have already lost time. We arrived here on Sunday at 7.00 in the morning. On the first day, even 300 meters did not advance.

Then it was already normal, a whole kilometer per day. We hope that today we will leave. ”

Foot refugees are coming past. Ahead - a middle -aged man, in an elegant coat and without a hat, carries a shaking york in the arms of a shaking york, tries to roll a huge suitcase on wheels. The sold asphalt of the Ozin road does not allow. Behind the man is a wife and two teenage girls. The family is overtaken by a young man with glasses with a pink backpack behind him. A young couple with two sons and a cat in a bag moves slower than all. The younger one is aching that he wants to be in Kazakhstan rather, but a long word is not given to him. “We are going there,” the mother reassures.

All these people, like a string of cars in the middle of a huge and empty space overgrown with burned outbuilding, look surreal. It seems that this is the set of a stupid film-catastrophe.

“Yesterday there was a woman-surgeon with her son. Her phone was discharged. I was looking for her a car through a checkpoint, ”says a girl from a car with Arkhangelsk numbers. One of the taxi drivers agreed to transport pedestrians for 30 thousand rubles. But they only had 25. “Still, it was possible to find a 10 thousand option for them for a place,” the interlocutor continues. - Now I'm worried: how will they arrange in Kazakhstan with the remaining five thousand in their pocket? I hope that on the other side, as they say, they really are waiting for our doctors. ”

The girl goes to Kazakhstan with her husband and child. “As we are not called us in Russia - enemies of the people, traitors. For what? Our men do not want to take a machine gun and shoot at other people.

Not so much afraid of death as they do not want to become killers. And we women do not want our children to remain orphans, ”she says.

Children from neighboring cars who have already managed to make friends play on the side of the road. The Internet here is weak - local transmitters of mobile operators were not designed for such a load - cartoons and games will not be loaded.

The interlocutor’s husband is coughing strongly. To the nearest pharmacy in Ozinki - more than 20 kilometers. Going behind the medicine means losing a place in line. We have to be treated with candies.

Having clarified whether the conversation will be anonymous, the young man takes on his most worried topic: “Look at what a blow is the ecology!” Indeed, the roadside along the entire length of the cork is littered with plastic bottles, packages from under the croissants, cans. Of course, there are no toilets in the steppe either. And the bushes are not enough.

The Arkhangelsk couple is not only lucky with their garbage, but also continues to sort it out of home. That's just the packages are already running out.

"Very ghostly ideas about the future"

Emigrants recall how in 2014 refugees from Lugansk reached Arkhangelsk. “They told how they went nowhere. We never thought we would have to. ”

The girl in a beige jacket from a car with Voronezh numbers tells that the way is already fourth day. “They made a decision after a 49-year-old father was taken from her best friend. Brother and groom are with me. ” For three days in Ozinsky traffic, five kilometers advanced.

Standing in line, Voronezh residents correspond with fellow countrymen who have chosen other ways to leave the country.

“Friends went through Vladikavkaz. It turned out very expensive - at every step they demanded 20-30 thousand rubles from them. As a result, they threw the car, walked with a one -year -old child in their arms.

Yesterday we went through the border. Today they already rented an apartment in Tbilisi! ”

In Kazakhstan, a girl, like most neighbors in turn, has never been. “How will it be there - very ghostly performances,” she shrugs. Directly from the highway, people send a resume.

“The majority chose Kazakhstan because for a trip there is not a foreign and visa,” the brunette explains in a white coat. Together with her husband, replacing each other while driving, they reached Ozins from St. Petersburg per day. In Astana, spouses hope to issue a passport at the Russian embassy and go to Europe.

Unfortunately, such plans are poorly rewarded. According to the Petersburger Timur, who flew to Kazakhstan on the evening of September 21, an electronic reception at the embassy has already been scored until the end of October. “According to the law, a foreigner can only be in Kazakhstan 90 days. It is unlikely that during this time it will be possible to break into the embassy and perform all formalities, ”he says.

Alien homeland

Time in the cork is measured by turns. For almost a day travel from one to another. “To the second turn,” that is, yesterday, volunteers came to the queue. Protestants distributed hot porridge with sausages and bananas for children. The company of secular guys without symbols brought water and chocolate. They said that they ended up in Ozinki on other matters and found out in what conditions people live on the highway.

The Saratov authorities and the Ministry of Emergencies probably also know. But neither drinking water nor heating points on the road, where almost 1.5 thousand cars accumulated and in many of them - children did not install.

The local business quickly appreciated the situation. A red coffee coffee house with checkered curtains was driven into the cork. How he drove 300 kilometers from the regional center - a riddle. The generator makes noise behind the car. Two guys inside, chewing pizza, say that they live here "since the day before yesterday." "Mark that we do not sell either alcohol or cigarettes!" - they repeat.

The Kurdish community brought plastic tables by arranging a mini-market. On the counter - lavash, sausage, kefir, grapes. Prices are two to three times higher than city. Bread - 100 rubles, mineral water - 150 for one and a half -liter bottle, cigarettes - 300 rubles pack. Gasoline is carried along the traffic jam in five -liter bottles of 100 rubles per liter.

On the border, not only the Russians running from partial mobilization, but also migrant workers, who are returning home at the end of the season are stuck. “We are going from Dagestan to Tashkent. They say that if they start to miss normally, we will stand for three days. If bad - a week. If this goes, we will spend everything that earned, ”says a young smiling worker. A large tourist bus he travels stood still for one day. The young man sympathizes with those who are sitting in tight "Largus".

The interlocutor heard about the procedure adopted by the State Duma for the simplified provision of Russian citizenship to foreigners who entered into a contract from the Ministry of Defense. “No, no, we, Uzbeks, are impossible,” he brings herself up. - How to go home then? We will give five to ten years of prison to the one who will go. If it returns alive. ”

“Usually I pass both borders in an hour,” says the driver of the Black Gazelle with Kazakhstani numbers, the second day. - And now everywhere is deaf!

In the Mushtakovo Role ( line on the border. - N. A. ) - 30 kilometers! There are already headlights beat each other. ”

The interlocutor says that he worked on trucks for more than 20 years and is not in vain has the habit of taking a weekly supply of crackers on a flight. The trucker talks with neighbors in traffic and is very dissatisfied with their level of patriotism. “These are all pro -Western,” he nods on the right row, clogged with cars. “I tell them for the“ DPR ”, for eight years, and they are silent.”

The driver says that “and he would go. For about 300 thousand rubles. But our president does not let us in. ” Then the traffic jam unexpectedly twitches. The man jumps behind the wheel. Ahead of the standing truck pulls him on the cable. On board the sticker: "We do not throw our own."

While the material was prepared, the cork on the border in the winter winter was significantly reduced. Firstly, because the ground roads, along which bombs wedged in the queue, dug up a bulldozer. Secondly, the mobile point of the military registration and enlistment office was deployed near the border, which gives the summons to men with a Saratov residence permit.