Radio Liberty - Programs - Correspondent's Hour

In this issue:

- Orel and Kursk are not ready to share the last piece of bread with Novgorod;
- An unprecedented case: in the Bryansk region, the court defeated censorship;
- If you want to see a Pyatigorsk doctor, pay 5 rubles;
- Kostroma is drowning in a sea of ​​garbage;
- Tyumen power engineers are fighting for independence from Chubais;
- The story of how a Georgian Chechen became the new Ostap Bender;
- Yekaterinburg: the bulldozer attitude towards artists lives and wins;
- Omsk: governor’s propaganda against the independent press;
- Syktyvkar: how many State Duma deputies does the Komi Republic need?
- Barnaul: who will save the “yellow” children?
- Kirov: to drink or not to drink underground water?
- Lipetsk: housewarming party in gas masks;
- Tula: American hunters buy cartridges from the descendants of Lefty

On the air Veliky Novgorod, Aelita Toshkina:

The Committee for Agriculture and Food of the Novgorod Region intends to declare a state of emergency due to drought and loss of crops. This year, 60% of spring and grain crops have already died. According to experts, the harvested crop will not be enough even to procure seeds. Damage from drought, floods and frosts amounted to 80.5 million rubles - this has never happened in the history of the Novgorod region. Farmers call this situation catastrophic.

In addition to the treacherous weather, the situation was also aggravated by the government. The peasants spent the spring sowing without loans; the Novgorod branch of the SBS-Agro bank in everything refers to the Central Bank, which did not allocate stabilization loans.

“The government has no money, and there is no money in the banks,” concluded Igor Ivanov, head of the SBS-Agro credit department.

This year's black joke: grains will soon be included in the Red Book. 26 farms out of 270 in the Novgorod region completely refused to sow this spring. In the Shimsky and Marevsky districts, unoccupied arable land is 62%. In general, in the region there has been a very sharp trend towards a reduction in sown areas.

The long-awaited humanitarian aid from America did not significantly improve the situation. Out of 35 thousand tons of grain, the Novgorod region received 20 thousand tons with a very low gluten content. To bake bread from such grain, you have to add your own durum wheat.

Recently, the Black Earth Region regions, concerned about drought, announced at a meeting of the Black Earth Region Association in the city of Voronezh the creation of their own grain fund. Deputy Governor for Agriculture of the Novgorod Region Administration Alexander Boytsov was very alarmed by what he heard:

“It was decided by the heads of the administrations of the Kursk and Oryol, Tambov, Lipetsk, and Voronezh regions that all the grain that they grow should be put into food funds to provide for the residents of their regions.”

- Will the neighbors be left without grain?

“I asked Alexander Vladimirovich Rutsky and Egor Semenovich Stroev exactly the same question. Well, we have gathered here today not to go to corners and provide only for our population, but the Novgorod region has never produced its own grain, we have always bought grain in your regions. To which Egor Semenovich Stroev answered me... and Rutskoy too: if you have money today, then we will Novgorod region We won’t leave you in trouble. Of course, we will supply you with grain in the full amount you require.”

Alarmed by the situation, both internal and external, where everyone still thinks for themselves, Novgorod farmers are exploring the possibility of purchasing grain in the Kuban; in addition, traditional grain suppliers from Kazakhstan remain. Although the Novgorod authorities reassure the population that there is no threat of famine in winter, no one can guarantee that bread will not rise in price. Now the price of bread and rolls in grocery stores in the region ranges from 3 to 4 rubles. The regional administration intends to keep this price until September-October, and then it is unknown how suppliers from the southern regions of Russia will behave, and whether grain prices will skyrocket from 3 rubles 20 kopecks to 5 rubles per kilogram. No one gives guarantees or forecasts about how the situation will develop further.

On air Bryansk, Yuri Faev:

Nadezhda Voinova, a correspondent for the small regional newspaper Selskaya Nov, recently achieved what many journalists secretly dream of. They dream, but they just don’t dare try. In the Pochepsky District Court, Voinova managed to protect her copyrights, winning a lawsuit against the editor of her own newspaper. Moreover, the district court, represented by Judge Pyotr Bushmelev, not only recognized the journalist’s correctness, but also punished the defendant, acting editor Natalya Krasnoselskaya, with a fine of 10 times the minimum salary (about 900 rubles). Because, in violation of copyright law, without informing the author, she made corrections to Voinova’s text and distorted its meaning.

The head of the Bryansk Human Rights Center, journalist Pyotr Polonitsky, told me that he assesses the story that happened as rare, and for Bryansk, completely unique. Of course, even today journalists often go to court, but these are always disputes about work, about money, and now, for the first time, a journalist was able to defend both her own dignity and the dignity of the journalistic profession.

The essence of the dispute looks like this: on the eve of the Russian Press Day back in January, Voinova prepared a reader survey dedicated to her native newspaper. A number of readers spoke very negatively about the quality of the newspaper’s materials, reproaching it for dullness and unprofessionalism. It was these critical opinions that the recently appointed acting editor, Natalya Krasnoselskaya, deleted from the article without the knowledge of the author.

Then a similar liquidation of criticism, without the author’s knowledge, befell another of Voinova’s materials - about the session of the district council. The journalist tried to explain herself to the young editor, but she said that she considered herself right. Voinova went to Bryansk, hoping to get a professional assessment of the conflict from the regional Council of Journalists. However, this union has long been a rather mythical organization and has not helped it in any way. Then she decided to go to court. The trial dragged on for quite a long time; representatives of the press committee of the regional administration came to Pochep from Bryansk to defend the editor from the journalist. Let us add that at first the judge did not even have a copyright law on hand, so the journalist had to help the court with this too.

Be that as it may, the court's decision was perceived as quite unexpected in the Bryansk journalistic community. The fact is that in a short time, thanks to the efforts of the current regional authorities, almost the entire Bryansk press was returned to its original state of slavery. Independent publications can be counted on one hand, and even those are located in Bryansk; all the others instantly learned again Griboyedov’s formula that “they should not dare to have their own opinion.” That's how they live. The speed with which most of the Bryansk press, in exchange for money from the authorities, abandoned their direct responsibilities, rights, and freedom is disconcerting. This is probably why the generally absolutely normal act of journalist Voinova from a small newspaper is surprising.

“What, perhaps you think that we should have endured it and remained silent?” - Voinova asked me. - “But then why work in a newspaper if you don’t try to express the truth?”

And really, why?..

On air Pyatigorsk, Alexander Yakovenko:

What to do if you have health problems? The answer to this question seems obvious: see a doctor. But for residents of Pyatigorsk, especially for those who belong to the category of low-income people, it does not seem so simple. According to a recent decision of the city health department, together with the regional department of compulsory health insurance, in three clinics and the central hospital, before seeing a doctor, you have to pay 5 rubles.

“I came on Monday, and they tell me: pay 5 rubles. I say: I was robbed, beaten, I came to the traumatology department, I say, and you have to pay 5 rubles. Call the police, otherwise I will come to you with the police then.”

The cash levy affects all categories of citizens, regardless of available benefits. Doctors argue its introduction by the lack of funding. Now in the city's clinics the budget allocates 50 kopecks for the purchase of medicines for one patient, and 20 kopecks for ophthalmological ones. Galina Radkovich, chief physician of the dental clinic, says:

“According to the governor’s decree, patients treated in the outpatient clinic network purchase medications at their own expense. Due to the specifics of our production, it is impossible to write a prescription for half a gram of filling material, for a small amount of ether, alcohol, chloramine and other things.”

Compared to last year, the price of medicines increased 2-3 times, and budget funding decreased by 58%. In addition, the chief physician of the regional clinic No. 1, Lyudmila Nesterets, notes that all the money collected goes to a special account and is spent on the purchase of medicines, without having anything to do with the salaries of employees.

“All patients who went to see a doctor for the first time had to pay, but only once. That is, practically the patient paid 5 rubles per month.”

Due to numerous complaints from Pyatigorsk residents, the city prosecutor's office became interested in this innovation and conducted an investigation. Assistant Prosecutor Irina Shevlyakova says:

“The lack of budget funding, or insufficient funding to cover the costs of implementing the new law, cannot in itself be a reason for refusing to grant city citizens the right to free medical care guaranteed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation.”

A proposal was sent to the head of the city, instructing him to eliminate existing violations of the law within a month and punish the perpetrators. Two weeks after the prosecutor signed this document, there were no changes in the price list for services in medical institutions in Pyatigorsk - patients still pay money for admission to the doctor.

On the air Kostroma, Arslan Saidov:

Every day, more and more, Kostroma begins to resemble a huge landfill: for a week now, no garbage has been removed from the city. The municipal order service is cleaning it up, but the company does not have the money to fill the cars with gasoline. The funds allocated to the special vehicle fleet from the city budget for the purchase of fuel are not enough. Fuels and lubricants have become so expensive that the service has already reached its annual limit. As a result, only clients are served who pay for garbage removal immediately and with “real” money. In Kostroma, only the central market can afford this. Residential areas are literally littered with waste, containers in the courtyards of houses are filled to capacity, and specialists at the sanitary and epidemiological station are justifiably afraid of the spread of infectious diseases. Residents of residential areas have the worst situation: the garbage chute compartments are so overcrowded that their contents spill out onto the street. The entrances have a suffocating, fetid odor that attracts rats. These creatures are no longer afraid of people and walk along the sidewalks in broad daylight, scaring impressionable passers-by. Local kids have a new game: rat hunting. They compete in the dexterity of throwing homemade spears at live targets. Increasingly, citizens are deciding to get rid of garbage dumps on their own. The only way to do this is to set fire to the garbage in the containers. So at night in Kostroma there is a red glow from many mini-fires.

This is the first time such an emergency with garbage collection has occurred this year. Director of the municipal procurement service Alexey Kruglov does not rule out that this may become the norm. According to him, the enterprise is in a deep crisis; in order to get out of it, a huge investment is needed, and there is nowhere to get money. All funds received by the city treasury are used to pay salaries to public sector employees. Housing and communal services are financed at best to a third of what is needed. The mayor of the city, who urgently interrupted his vacation, managed to allocate only 50 thousand rubles from the budget for special vehicles. This money is not enough even for a few days of operation of the enterprise. In addition, the deadline for the payment of wages to employees has arrived; they have repeatedly warned that they will stop working if they continue to be delayed. So, when money is found for gasoline, the enterprise can start again, but for a different reason.

On the air Tyumen, Alex Neymirov:

The Tyumen region is one of the few regions of Russia that have a surplus of electricity. As an obedient member of the Unified Energy System - a unified energy system - it is always ready to share extra kilowatts with its neighbors, which cannot be said about money. The financial issue is a stumbling block in the relationship between the subsidiary Tyumen-Energo and the parent, RAO UES of Russia.

The latest example is the conflict over the subscription fee charged to electricity consumers. The tariff has two parts: operational and investment. The second part of the fees is explained by the provision of services for the organization, operation and development of the Unified Energy System. Every year, billions of rubles are irrevocably spent on subscription fees from the Tyumen region, which are so insufficient for their own needs, for the construction of power lines beyond the Arctic Circle, for example, or the repair of steam pipelines at the Surgut State District Power Plant-2.

A year ago, by decision of the council of governors of the Tyumen region and its constituent districts, the Tyumen-Energo joint-stock company stopped paying the investment component of the subscription fee. The management of RAO UES of Russia called for help from prosecutors at all levels. Until recently, there was no information about the results, until power engineers from the Urals and Siberia gathered in Tyumen to discuss issues of preparing the industry for the coming winter. At this meeting I was able to obtain first-hand information. The Tyumen authorities and power engineers have achieved their goal: from July 1 of this year, the investment component is again included in electricity tariffs, but on the condition that half of the money collected will be returned to the region. Answering a question about the relationship between “daughter and mother,” Anatoly Kobtsev, a member of the board of RAO UES of Russia who arrived from Moscow, said:

“All the issues were settled before the annual meeting of shareholders of RAO UES of Russia. I believe that all the dots have been settled there, and there is no need to return to this issue.”

However, according to the chief engineer of Tyumen-Energo, Viktor Vasiliev, during the negotiations between the Chairman of the Board of RAO UES of Russia, Anatoly Chubais and the General Director of Tyumen-Energo, Valentin Bogan, it was not possible to find a common language on a number of business issues. This was made clear by the governor of the Tyumen region, Leonid Roketsky, who spoke at the meeting. He reproached the management of RAO UES for refusing to finance work to prepare CHPP-1 for winter: supposedly this power plant heats half of Tyumen, so local authorities should have a headache about its performance. As for other controversial issues:

“There are people responsible for the condition of power plants, fuel supplies, equipment repairs. They should be engaged, and there is no point in leading them into squabbles or political jungle.”

Preparing for the harsh Siberian winter is a sacred matter. It seems that at this time the parties entered into an unspoken truce, but the “mother-daughter” problem remains. In particular, Tyumen energy specialists see the future of cheap electricity through the use of the so-called residual gas deposit. Serious investment will be required in the construction of new facilities in Nizhnevartovsk and Surgut. Today, the Tyumen authorities associate these plans with the economic independence of Tyumen-Energo.

On the air Grozny, Khasin Raduev:

The work of the unforgettable Ostap Bender will not die - this is confirmed by the appearance of more and more new followers, getting a piece of bread for food, wanting to live comfortably, say, somewhere on the coast of their native Black Sea. Ostap Suleiman Bertha-Maria knew more than 400 methods of relatively honest making money, Gogi Osishvili added one more to them. True, it’s hard to call this method honest, even relatively. No, Gogi does not work for the son of Lieutenant Schmidt and does not steal bronze crosses from abandoned cemeteries in Grozny, Gogi Osishvili is a hero of the Chechen war, a militant, a field commander who held council with Generalissimo Dzhokhar Dudayev himself during the war.

But Gogi was unlucky - during a hot battle, having shot all his ammunition and losing all his comrades, he did not have time to fire the last bullet into his temple and was captured in an unconscious state. He served three years and several months in one of the Russian outback prisons and was finally released. There are still Chechens in the prison who were captured in Grozny during the war and who are probably considered missing: after all, this prison is secret, not a single prisoner has ever left there.

Therefore, ethnic Chechen Gogi Osishvili from the Akhmetovsky region of Georgia, who fought for the freedom of his second fatherland, writes to Chechnya to report that their sons, brothers, fathers are alive, but there is not enough money for a ticket. He should be flying home with good news, but he is sitting at the station, hoping only for the mercy of Allah. Gogi tells this story, which he came up with, dozens of times every day, and knows it down to the smallest detail. Bender's student will never confuse a Vainakh with other persons of Caucasian nationality; he acts unerringly. But tell me, what Chechen, especially far from his homeland, would refuse a former defender of the fatherland, a militant who fought shoulder to shoulder with Shamil Basayev himself, some 2-3 hundred rubles? Moreover, he really does have tattered lists with the names of Chechens allegedly languishing in captivity, and he takes them out at the climax before the touched interlocutor with noodles on his ears reaches into his pocket for his wallet.

Gogi Osishvili was not even too lazy to visit Grozny and get information about the missing. According to official data, 1,424 people are currently on the wanted list. Gogi is perhaps the only person who remembers them all by name and for whom they have become closer than family.

The other day, an employee of the presidential administration, while in the Akhmetovsky district of Georgia, tried to make inquiries about Gogi Osishvili, but a person with that last name had never lived here. In almost any Russian city you can find Chechens who are ready to fork out money in order to help their compatriot-hero get home, but Gogi Osishvili is in no hurry to go to Grozny: his work is outside Ichkeria, since big troubles await the swindler in his imaginary homeland.

On air Ekaterinburg, Sergey Kuznetsov:

The ability of the authorities to once again step on their own rake is truly amazing, just like their reluctance, inability and unwillingness to solve their own and other people’s problems, and most importantly, to choose the most appropriate moment for this.

Literally on the eve of the 5th World Congress of UNESCO Clubs, widely advertised as a significant cultural event in the life of the Northern Urals, which brought together guests from almost all countries of the world, a cozy corner where dozens of amateur artists and craftsmen sold their paintings, drawings and other crafts disappeared from the Central Square of Yekaterinburg. At first, the city authorities explained this by the need to clean up the city fountain and the adjacent park area. However, upon completion of construction, it suddenly became clear that no one was going to return the artists to their seemingly rightful and well-established place, which caused bewilderment, grumbling and indignation not only of the artists themselves, but also of those who were deprived of such a free open-air exhibition.

"I think the city just lost a lot. We had some kind of exotic place where people vacationed."

“This is art - it gives joy and the desire to live on. I want there to always be paintings here.”

“This is where everyone relaxed and everyone watched.”

“I got used to the fact that they were here, it suited me.”

“They want to bring it to the Central Market, popularly called a “bazaar”. Let’s - there’s a symphony orchestra in the Philharmonic, let’s bring it to the bazaar. How can art be compared with fruits and vegetables?”

Indeed, the administration of Yekaterinburg invited craftsmen to move to the territory of the Central Collective Farm Market, since, as the acting mayor of Yekaterinburg Alexey Luzhankov explained, most artists have nothing to do with art.

“It’s mostly not artists who sell here, but resellers or those hired by artists. Artists don’t sit here. If there are artists here, then who really paints portraits is 2-3 people.”

However, it is no coincidence that the artists themselves - formerly unemployed, pensioners and disabled people - fear that the rent at the Central Market will be so high that it will leave them far beyond the point of physical survival.

“People work, don’t pay taxes, why not rip them off? If you don’t want to pay, you’ll die of hunger or go steal.”

“When I went to the labor exchange after I quit, they told me: why did you come here? There are so many teachers! We won’t even register you. It’s good that I can do something with my hands, I came here and did it. I didn’t receive a penny, let’s say, I didn’t receive any benefits. I earned money on frames myself, on canvas, on paints. After all, paints cost 40 rubles a tube! Where can I get them? One brush costs 100 rubles! Did they count it?"

Sometimes it seems that authorities and artists speak completely different languages, and the arguments of one are completely not perceived by the other.

“Why trample the lawns, why put very large, awkward tripods on the lawn? Why hang pictures on trees? Let them go into this little park again? It’s this little square again... in a week it will turn out to be a garbage pit.”

“Chernetsky is collecting some kind of pseudo-UNESCO, inviting culture from all over the world, but his artists have been driven out onto the roadway. What kind of culture can we talk about? I personally will vote against him, against Governor Rossel, so that these people in power do not stand here, because they hate their culture! I simply have no words.”

It is not surprising that rivals are already rushing to take advantage of this situation in the midst of the election fight for the governor’s seat and say that this is a good example of the reluctance, inability and unwillingness of our authorities to solve their own and other people’s problems, and most importantly, to choose the most appropriate moment for this.

On air Omsk, Tatyana Ilyina:

In Omsk on July 19, a transmitter from the private television company STV-3 was arrested. The attention of the prosecutor's office to the television company intensified after a report by a STV-3 journalist from a carbon black plant, the director of which, in a conversation with the mayor of Omsk, announced the involvement of the regional deputy prosecutor Viktor Grin in financial violations. The very next day, the regional prosecutor publicly called this information blackmail and, without waiting for the completion of the internal investigation, contrary to the law, he deprived the journalists of accreditation at the prosecutor's office. During the internal audit, naturally, all the missing documents and witnesses were found, and the prosecutor's office opened criminal cases of libel against those who published and disseminated information that cast a shadow on the uniform. The television company, despite this, continued to disseminate information that was unflattering to the boss’s ears. Therefore, no one was surprised by the next step of the prosecutor's office: an appeal to the Arbitration Court with a claim to invalidate transactions with property as part of the investigation of an old criminal case and a demand to secure the claim to arrest the transmitter of the STV-3 television company.

For almost a week, the governor's media have been savoring the prospect of dismantling and turning into state revenue the transmitter of a "socially alien" TV channel. And - they overdid it. Brutal pressure on the opposition publication forced various political forces and independent journalists to rally in defense of glasnost and freedom of the press. The governor's agitprop was forced to retreat and, obviously, out of impotence, stopped noticing this problem. Under the explanation that there was no malicious intent, the transmitter was nevertheless arrested, but was not dismantled.

This arrest logically complemented the series of actions taken by security forces and marked the beginning of the gubernatorial election campaign. The arrest of the STV-3 transmitter creates a dangerous precedent of reprisals against an opposition publication at the hands of security forces and demonstrates firsthand the content and purpose of the information security policy pursued in the Omsk region. It is characteristic that the local branch of the Union of Journalists did not express any attitude to what was happening, so it was quite logical to revive the idea of ​​​​unifying independent Omsk journalists.

On air Syktyvkar, Nikolay Zyuzev:

The authorities and public of Komi are trying to return to the republic the second deputy seat in the State Duma, which it lost on the eve of the previous elections. Now this is theoretically possible, since the Central Election Commission has reduced the number of polling stations in the Murmansk and Chita regions, and the seats are still vacant. Formally, Komi can be rejected, since according to the norms of representation, she, even if only a little, does not reach the second mandate, however, like other contenders for these places. In favor of Komi are the specifics of the northern region. One deputy cannot cope here - it takes almost the same time to fly from Syktyvkar to Vorkuta as from Syktyvkar to Moscow. These nuances, according to the chairman of the local election commission, Antonina Sazykina, were not taken into account.

“In my opinion, many factors were not taken into account, including the fact that the Komi Republic is located in the Far North, has a low population density, but a huge territory... the lack of a highway network in the republic... Therefore, I think that by losing one mandate, we, of course, deprived our voters of the opportunity to solve the problems that arise for them.”

These reasons were indicated in the official application to the Central Election Commission. Chairman of the Council of the Republic Vladimir Torlopov emphasizes that the two polling stations in Komi essentially formed themselves a long time ago.

“Traditionally, our republic is divided... still conditionally, but nevertheless - into the northern and southern parts. It will be very difficult for the deputy who passes to combine and defend the interests of both the northerners and the southern part of the republic. Therefore, of course, it was most correct and expedient - and from the point of view of the national characteristics of the republic - to have two mandates.”

It is the issue of national representation that particularly aggravates the problem. Under Soviet rule, Komi automatically had indigenous representatives in the House of Nationalities, but now it is easy for competitors to block any rivals if they represent national minorities. The leader of the Komi national movement, Valery Markov, states that the Finno-Ugric peoples, including the Komi, are actually not represented in the State Duma.

“Currently there is no mechanism for the representation of peoples in a certain sense in the Federal Assembly. I would really like for, say, at least one of the representatives to be from that part of the population that has always lived, lives and will live on this territory. We just need to pay tribute to the people who gave the name to this republic.”

Komi, living mainly in rural areas, is now experiencing particularly difficult times. In the last elections, former assistant prosecutor Rita Chistokhodova received unconditional support here, who, being Russian, gained the trust of the villagers by exposing corruption among local authorities. And this, according to many, is another reason for the excitement at the top - receiving a second mandate. It is difficult for the authorities to get their candidate through in the current situation; if a second precinct appears, the chances will increase. In addition, Komi does not have a single Duma deputy on party lists, and in the future, the most realistic chance of getting through the lists is with Yabloko representative Nikolai Moiseev, a member of the republican parliament who is sharply opposed to the local elite.

On air Barnaul, Oleg Kupchinsky:

“Start with your home” is the name of the children's environmental expedition. Dozens of schoolchildren from all over the Altai Territory, with the support of Altai State University and the environmental service of the region, have been traveling through the open spaces of Altai for the second year and getting acquainted with environmental problems.

This time they appealed to the Russian government to save the children of the small town of Gornyak. This town appeared on the map immediately after the war. On the border with Kazakhstan, deposits of polymetallic ores began to be actively developed, a mining and processing plant gave birth to the city of Gornyak, but no one then suspected that it would literally end up in a deadly place - salts of heavy metals in the soil and water, long-term nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site (nearby the stages of rockets that are launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome separate and fall).

As a result, 10 years ago Gornyak and its surroundings shocked the whole country with the scale of child mortality. Here, so-called “yellow” children began to be born with diagnoses of jaundice and lesions of the central nervous system. Over the years, doctors have learned to defeat this terrible disease; now children do not die from it, but remain weakened for the rest of their lives and unable to give birth to healthy offspring. Now in the city 65% ​​of children are “yellow”, and their number is increasing.

The mining and processing plant managed to be in the hands of several owners, including one Swiss company, and meanwhile, everything they could from the bowels of the earth was taken and the mine was closed. The city and the region do not have the money to mothball the mines. There is toxic dust over the city and villages, and at the same time the city is being flooded with water that contains polymetallic salts. If water is not pumped out soon, it could flow into the Alei River, and from there into the great Ob River, from which half the population of Western Siberia drinks.

Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin visited Altai to celebrate the anniversary of Vasily Shukshin and promised to find funds for the rehabilitation of Altai regions affected by nuclear tests and to continue financing the so-called Semipalatinsk program. But this doesn’t make things any easier for city residents. It is impossible to find work here, most enterprises are idle or closed, there are many beggars, drug addicts and child beggars. Sergei Popov, a miner with 30 years of experience, admits:

“I feel like a man whose heart has been taken out.”

On the air Kirov, Yulia Karamazova:

In former times, it happened that the Vyatka River, on which Kirov stands, overflowed 5 kilometers in width, so that the entire settlement of Dymka, the birthplace of the famous Dymkovo toy, found itself in the water and moved on boats, like Grandfather Mazai.

Now, river floods similar to seas are a thing of the past, and the quality of water in Vyatka leaves much to be desired. What did the sanitary epidemiologists find in its waves? Almost every summer, Vibrio cholerae floats downstream. Not today or tomorrow, toxic and radioactive waste buried by the Kirovochepetsk chemical plant in the floodplain just above the regional water intake will break into Vyatka, and yet the city water supply is fed with water from Vyatka.

Concerned with the problem of clean water in the taps of city apartments, local authorities found a new, hitherto unclaimed source. Or rather, it was not local authorities who found it, but a space satellite, which in the late 80s spotted a fresh drinking water deposit in the Kumensky district of the region from a height not even a bird’s eye view. Subsequent geological studies confirmed the presence of water, and, according to different versions, it is either a fresh underground lake or an area with so-called water-saturated horizons. Popular rumor even claims that beneath Kumeny lies a whole sea, which, if it came to the surface, would turn the Kirov region into a second Atlantis.

It was with this fresh sea that the authorities decided to water Kirov by installing a water pipeline. This is, of course, cheaper and easier than building new treatment facilities. However, the dam on the way to clean water was the public opinion of 20 thousand residents of the Kumensky district, who in 1997 held a referendum and unanimously opposed the construction of a water pipeline. But the Kumenis understand that underground water does not legally belong to them; Subsoil development is the prerogative of the state, and next year’s regional budget has already allocated 23 million rubles for design work.

The existing experience of using such deposits is very sad. Our neighbors in the Bereznyakovsky district of the Perm region experienced soil shrinkage and other environmental changes when water was pumped out. The future of the Kumen underground lake, in the event of its active exploitation, is also quite bleak: rising groundwater will soon cause a significant shallowing of Kumenka, Bystritsa and Kyrmyshka, artesian wells in villages where today only old people live. The forest will begin to dry out, say the foresters. There will be nothing to water the fields with, farmers complain. By the way, here in the floodplain there is a sanatorium with healing mineral springs, Nizhny Ivkino, famous throughout the country - what will happen to it? What will happen to the fish, birds and other creatures of God that live here? Cutting off the branch on which you are sitting is so similar to a person, but so inhumane in relation to living nature, and even to oneself. Does any of us enjoy hearing the words: environmental disaster? But when 200 thousand cubic meters of water per day are taken from the Kumensky land, these words will cease to be just words.

Kumentsev has one consolation: neither the region nor the city has money for projects today. Kirov residents remain unconvinced and remain silent, the quality of tap water does not satisfy any of them, some pass it through Rodnichok, some transport water from country wells and springs, but the majority, feeling sorry for the Kumenis and nature, are ready to live like this in the future.

On air Lipetsk, Andrey Yudin:

By order of the mayor of the city, Alexander Korobeinikov, on July 16, homeless people are moving into family dormitories. They are given warrants, but are not warned that the house in which they will live is located in the sanitary protection zone of the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant.

A little history. Back in 1976, the city council of people's deputies decided to categorically prohibit residence, registration and exchange of living space located in the sanitary protection zone of the Novolipetsk plant. However, little has changed since then. On July 5, the administration of the Lipetsk region held a meeting to determine sanitary protection zones for industrial enterprises in the city. The fact is that on July 1, the project on maximum permissible emissions of harmful substances from the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant expired. In this regard, it was proposed to introduce penalties, which, according to the administration, should force the management of the plant to return to solving the problem of sanitary protection zones.

Thus, today, within a radius of one kilometer from the Novolipetsk plant, there is an excess of the maximum permissible standards: carbon monoxide - 2 times; hydrogen sulfide - 2.4 times; ammonia - 3.8 times; nitrogen oxides - 3.2 times; The dust concentration per day exceeds the norm - 2.3 times. And the acting General Director of the plant, Mr. Nastic, believes that the current standards on maximum permissible concentrations of harmful substances determine the quality of atmospheric air, and not the activity of the plant. It turns out that the atmosphere above the plant seems to be on its own, and the plant has nothing to do with it.

Chairman of the State Committee on Ecology Valery Astakhov and chief sanitary doctor of the Lipetsk region Stanislav Savelyev sent a letter to the chairman of the board of directors of the Novolipetsk plant Lisin, chairman of the city council Gulevsky and the mayor of the city Korobeinikov. The letter says: “Based on the law on environmental protection and sanitary well-being of the population, we warn: in case of failure to implement measures to reduce the degree of air pollution, in accordance with current legislation, measures will be taken to terminate the production activities of individual workshops and areas. It is necessary to streamline emission standards for all indicators no later than 2001.” In short, the plant was given a head start of a year and a half, and while the regional administration is trying to solve the problems of sanitary protection zones, the mayor of the city, Alexander Korobeinikov, is moving people into family dormitories, where they cannot live based on the town planning code.

On the air in Tula, Sergey Novikov:

If weapons have been produced in Tula for 400 years, then Tula cartridge production is a relatively young business, it is just over a hundred years old. Until 1995, cartridges were made mainly for domestic consumption - I mean hunting and sporting cartridges. In recent years, the bulk of production goes to the United States of America. Tula cartridges have displaced products from companies such as Remington and Winchester on the American market.

“This market is today the main market for our products, these are sporting and hunting cartridges. The market for sporting and hunting cartridges in the United States and US weapons is the largest market in the world, and its development has significantly influenced the rate of conversion at our enterprise. We were forced to navigate quickly and develop a number of new products, export-oriented exclusively to this market, which allowed us to find our niche in it and work successfully over the past years.”

The head of the department of external economic relations of the Tula Cartridge Plant, Alexander Trishkin, told the story. During his visit to the United States, Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin famously called on American firms to pursue an active investment policy in Russia. The Tula Cartridge Plant is one of the few real objects of such a policy. It has already mastered the production of Remington cartridges, the so-called “police cartridge” - a cartridge with increased penetration.

“Today, the following picture has emerged: in principle, according to the information we have, we have achieved the greatest success. Thanks to a well-structured marketing policy at our enterprise, we have found a good partner in this market, which today helps promote our products.

You see, if we consider this indicator from the point of view of attracting foreign exchange funds to Russia, then we sell all the foreign exchange earnings received - almost 100% - on the interbank currency exchange, replenishing Russia's foreign exchange reserves."

And in conclusion - about what gives an ordinary Russian enterprise work for export. Just numbers: over the past 4 years, production volume at the Tula Cartridge Plant at comparable prices has increased 5 times; average monthly salary - 5.5 times; the number of employees has increased by 200 people in the last year alone.