We are ours, we will build a new world

The Ingush refugee camp repeats the fate of the Chechen tents

On Friday in Vladikavkaz, the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian President in the Southern District, Dmitry Kozak, again discussed with the President of Ingushetia Murat Zyazikov and the head of North Ossetia Taimuraz Mamsurov the settlement of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict. The deadline for the “final solution”, established by Vladimir Putin’s November 2003 order, expires in nine months. During this time, regional and federal officials must provide citizens who left the Prigorodny region of North Ossetia as a result of the armed conflict in the fall of 1992 with the opportunity to return home or at least leave the dilapidated towns of construction temporary buildings that have stood under the snow, rain and scorching sun for more than 13 years. And to make sure that “in future there is no mention of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict, so that we no longer use this phrase,” adds Murat Zyazikov. Representatives of the authorities presented the plenipotentiary with many optimistic figures that give hope that the presidential order will be carried out on time. But on the spot, everything so far looks in full accordance with the law of the genre, which requires, first of all, to remove the most obvious manifestations of the conflict from sight: after all, as long as they remain in the field of view, victorious reports are meaningless. “Settlement” is in full swing: in the largest camp of “suburban” refugees - near the village of Mayskoye - cranes are loading trailers onto KamAZ trucks, which transport them to another outskirts of the same village. Following the presidential envoy, Vremya Novostey correspondent Ivan SUKHOV visited the Ossetian-Ingush administrative border.

"New" test

The capital of North Ossetia is Vladikavkaz, the capital of Ingushetia is Magas. And Mayskoye is the capital of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict. Or rather, not Mayskoye itself, but a camp of internally displaced persons on its outskirts. Mayskoe is no man's land. According to the map, it belongs to North Ossetia, but in reality it is separated from Ossetia by the Chermensky checkpoint, which is more strict than other crossings across the state border. Mostly Ingush live in Maiskoye. As well as in the trailers of internally displaced persons, who, even under the ex-president of Ingushetia Ruslan Aushev, were brought here from Nazran and the surrounding area, apparently as part of the then attempt at a final settlement. 212 families live in the trailers, most of whom, until 1992, had houses, apartments or places in factory dormitories in the Prigorodny district and Vladikavkaz itself. Or rather, now it’s half as much: some of the trailers have been moved to another outskirts of Mayskoye, to the so-called Novy village. There is also North Ossetia.

The village of Novy is an open field with three or four tightly compacted dirt roads. Along the roads there are lampposts and several dozen trailers: transported from the old location and new ones issued by the Federal Migration Service for moving. Not everyone has been issued new trailers yet. According to the owner of one of the trailers, Lena Marzieva, the crane operators unload them at random. And in order to deliver exactly, you need to give them 500 rubles.

Temporary wires run from some trailers to lamp posts: there is electricity, although not always. There is also water, but so far mainly in the form of pipes wrapped in roofing material brought to the surface, which will then have to turn into ordinary water pumps. In dispensers that are already operating, the water must be drained for some time so that its quality, at least in appearance, becomes relatively acceptable. Sanitary facilities, of course, are in the yard. There are no baths. There is no gas either: the settlers say that they promise to supply it when permanent houses are built instead of trailers. There was gas at the old place. “The Ossetians tried to bring gas in cylinders for 120 rubles to Novy,” says Tamara Nalgieva. “But people just don’t have that kind of money.”

The displaced people seem to have no money at all. In the food stalls along the Mayskoye camp, there are handwritten notices: “Goods are not sold on credit.” The saleswoman of one of them, an ethnic Ingush living in a normal house across the road, wearily says that recently the displaced people owed her 60 thousand rubles.

Tamara fears that they will also have to pay for the light in Novy themselves. In the old camp, electricity was actually paid for by the President of Ingushetia, although the trailers were located on Ossetian territory, and Vladikavkaz was formally supposed to take care of them. Murat Zyazikov, however, promised that even after rearranging the trailers, if the question arises of who will pay for the light, he will take it upon himself: “We are talking about human destinies, and not just about politics.”

“What do you want? This is a new village. Moscow and St. Petersburg were also not built right away,” shrugs Ermak Batyrov, an employee of the Vladikavkaz office of the FMS. “I would add the word “test” to the name “New,” says Khava Buzurtanova, who had a house in the village of Ir before the conflict. Now the house is destroyed, and Ossetian refugees from the interior regions of Georgia built their home in the courtyard several years ago. The Ossetian authorities are demonstrating their determination to expel such spontaneous settlers, but Khava no longer particularly hopes to return to Ir. — During these 13 years in Maiskoye, I have aged many years. We have no choice anymore." One of her neighbors, grinning, suggests that they all ask for political asylum abroad together. Khava waves it off: “When we are superfluous in our own country, who will help us abroad?” For her habit of asking awkward questions to visiting officials, Khava was nicknamed a militant. But she unexpectedly peacefully adds: “We lived well with the Ossetians. It’s not the Ossetians who are bad, it’s the elite who are bad.”

Volunteers

Representative of the “top” Ermak Batyrov promises that the principle of voluntariness will be strictly observed, and rumors about the camp being cut off from communications from April 1 are absolutely unfounded. He carefully watches the work of the crane operator, who decisively removes another old temporary hut through the dismantled roof of the house that has grown around it. The temporary hut, through the door of which a table with chairs and a light bulb swinging from the ceiling are visible, is placed on a loading platform. This is already the third loading of the day - a few more days of work, and there will be nothing left of the camp.

The owner of the trailer, 67-year-old Aishat Evloeva, is rushing around inside what was once a house. Ermak Batyrov assures that Aishat signed a waiver of her home ownership in Oktyabrsky, does not want to return there and is voluntarily moving to Novy. Aishat, who survived Stalin’s deportation as a four-year-old girl, confirms that she is not going to Oktyabrskoye: in 1992, her husband and son disappeared there. But her departure to Novy hardly looks voluntary. She says that the crane came to her in the morning without any warning. And he is afraid that he will have to wait a few more days for the new trailers promised for the move. Aishat has a disabled daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. She doubts that anyone from this company will help her build a house in a new place. “But I’m already used to living like this,” says Aishat. “I’ll build some kind of booth myself.”

Captain of the Ingush transport police Mussa Yandiev came to Mayskoye from St. Petersburg because his family lives here. The family cannot return to North Ossetia, since the villages where they lived before the conflict have been declared part of the sanitary zone of the Vladikavkaz water intake and are completely closed to habitation. According to Ossetian officials, this decision has been officially made, but can be appealed in court.

Meanwhile, Captain Yandiev is going to file a claim regarding the water protection zone and suspects that the New Settlement may actually turn out to be a scam: “They don’t give people any documents for these areas. In a year, cases will probably be initiated regarding the illegal seizure of land. They also encouraged me to move, then they found out that I was an employee and stopped coming in.” “All necessary documents are handed over against signature,” assures the FMS representative: from his point of view, the migrants themselves are interested in hiding the papers in order to then once again try to present material claims to the state.

But captain Yandiev is adamant. He says that he will remain in Maiskoye until he gets the opportunity to return to his “closed” village: “We will be sitting without electricity and gas, this is not the first time for us. If they try to remove my carriage, this crane operator - he is also an Ingush - will never drive again.”

Camp commandant Magomed Tsurov says that if forced resettlement begins, he will set fire to the remaining carriages. The Ministry of Nationalities Affairs of North Ossetia claims that nothing prevents the commandant from returning to his compound in Oktyabrskoye. But he is not going to leave Maiskoye and is closely monitoring what is happening around Novy. Magomed Tsurov is confident that the New one was created to prevent the return of the Ingush to the “problem” villages of the Prigorodny district, where the most acute situation arose in 1992.

According to the calculations of the Minister for Nationalities of North Ossetia Taimuraz Kasaev, of the 106 families remaining in Maiskoye, 64 have the status of forced migrants - the FMS is obliged to deal with them. The Ministry of Nationalities is responsible for 42 families who do not have status. According to the minister, the authorities are ready to fulfill the instructions of Plenipotentiary Representative Kozak and work with each case individually.

Excessive requirements

“Our legislation on forced migrants is extremely liberal,” Dmitry Kozak said at a meeting in Vladikavkaz. “As soon as a citizen falls into this category, the state has obligations towards him that are much greater than towards orphans.” Among the forced migrants from Prigorodny, in all likelihood, there are orphans. But adults, including those living in full-fledged families (of which there are not so many here - in almost every one, the 1992 war left a mark in the form of killed and missing people), believe that the debt in which the state finds itself in front of them is difficult overestimate.

“It is not the Ossetians or the Ingush who are to blame for what happened in the fall of 1992, and for the fact that we have been living in the open air for 14 years,” says 88-year-old Saadul Arsamakov, who was twice declared dead during the Great Patriotic War and twice survived deportation - under Stalin in 1944 and during the conflict in Prigorodny in 1992. He adjusts his constantly whistling hearing aid. - The Russian Federation is to blame for everything, from head to tail. They say that Stalin was bad. But this is nonsense, nothing has changed. The laws don’t work, people are not considered people.”

If not for two military shell shocks and a stroke suffered after a recent trip to Strasbourg, the old man from the place where his trailer now stands could see his yard in Chermen, now also occupied by Ossetians from internal Georgia. Just six months ago he hoped to return to this farmstead, but now, apparently, he has resigned himself and is ready to move to Novy. “A man must raise a son, and not just any son, but a good one,” I did. I must defend my homeland, no matter what it is - I defended it, although perhaps not very well. I didn't do two things: I didn't plant a tree and I didn't build a house. “I have no place,” says Saadul. “But now I’ll get a little healthier, move and build a house.” If they help, I will build it well, with a foundation, so that after death my descendants will remember me kindly. But I still want to live in it myself, at least for a little while.”

Plenipotentiary Kozak told the residents of Novy that the state has allocated a total of 1.7 billion rubles for the settlement and settlement of Ingush who want to return to North Ossetia (together with Maisky’s 212 families. - Ed. ). And from April 15 of this year, the money will begin to arrive, and the displaced people who need to build houses have the right to decide for themselves: to take the money in their own hands or to entrust the construction to contractors. Few people seem to prefer the contract method: “The money will be written off, and the walls will be built in half a brick.”

But for many, government assistance is a big question. “People have inflated demands,” noted Dmitry Kozak. - Some people ask that payments that were made five years ago be indexed. No, that's impossible. The money was paid, people had to settle down. If they didn’t do this, it’s their problem.” Despite numerous gentlemanly agreements between officials regarding the fate of Saadul Arsamakov, he may well find himself alone with his problems: in his own words, he long ago received money for a house in Chermen. There were only enough of them for four funerals.

In theory, migrants to whom the state has fulfilled its formal financial obligations lose their status as forced migrants and, accordingly, leave the balance sheet of the FMS. Liphan Kushtova had a house in Yuzhny (a suburb of Vladikavkaz - Ed. ). She lost her status in 2003. According to her, she never wrote a statement about abandoning this area. But at the end of last year she was given a certificate stating that she had paid the bill for the purchase of housing in any other region of Russia. Liphan assures that she never received this money, but she is not sure that she can count on at least a plot in Novy.

Her fellow sufferer, Alla, does not hide the fact that in 2001 she already received 200 thousand rubles for her apartment in Oktyabrsky. In 1992, Alla herself was among the hostages on the Ossetian side. At this time, her ten-year-old daughter was hiding in the wardrobe of her Ossetian neighbors along with her younger brother, and the neighbors themselves were beaten by their own compatriots for helping the Ingush. At the time of receiving compensation, the apartment in which, according to Alla, the deputy head of the Prigorodny district police department now lives, cost about 1.4 million rubles.

Obviously, for 200 thousand rubles. It was unrealistic to buy or build housing for a large family even in 2001. Now her only home is a trailer in Maiskoye. The trailer is furnished with utility rooms and carefully wallpapered, and by the porch there is a rose bush that has already grown old. The trailer opposite has already been removed by a crane, and in its place is a piece of land with debris clinging to it, left over after 13 years of “temporary” human life: a straight razor, a broken key fob, a rusty bicycle chain.

In 1992, Alla’s family had eight people, now there are ten. Adults have passports with registration in that same apartment in Oktyabrsky. In this sense, they were lucky. For many displaced people, the registration field in their passports is still empty - by refusing to put a stamp, the Prigorodny authorities for a long time actually left people homeless, depriving them of the legal basis for returning to their previous place of residence. Difficulties with obtaining passports still exist: in order to obtain a document, a citizen must provide passport officers with a certificate stating that he lived in the Prigorodny district before the conflict. Not everyone is able to obtain such a certificate. However, after Friday’s meeting with Dmitry Kozak, the authorities vowed to restore complete order to such “organizational issues.”

Natalya Archakova from Maisky fears that the agreements between the plenipotentiary representative and the presidents will help her the least. Natalya is a Russian from Chechnya who found herself in the “May” camp during the last assault on Grozny in 2000. Natalya was born in Chervlennaya - this is also Chechnya - and there, even before the first war, she married an Ingush. In Grozny, my husband got a job at a factory and rented an apartment. During the first war, we went to Krasnodar for four years - my husband’s sister was seriously ill. But it turned out to be impossible to pay for an apartment in the capital of the region, and I had to return to Grozny, just before the assault. Natasha has been living in Maiskoye for six years now. Her husband works in Nazran, her eldest son studies in Krasnodar, and her youngest son goes to a local school. Natasha says that the Federal Migration Service is inviting her to return to Chechnya, to a temporary accommodation center in a village whose name she and I have never heard. But Natasha really doesn’t want to go to Chechnya. She knows that Murat Zyazikov pays attention to Russians who once left Ingushetia, but she is not from Ingushetia. Her husband, an ethnic Ingush, could fall into the category of refugees from Chechnya who are allowed to remain in Ingushetia. “But he’s weak about it,” says Natasha.

Lost, Natasha follows her neighbors between the old camp and the New Village and really hopes that her trailer will also be moved to this unpleasant field, and not taken to the mysterious Chechen Berdo-Yurt. She heard Dmitry Kozak’s promise about a purely voluntary resettlement of the “May” trailers. But she remembers very well how three years ago the Federal Migration Service, 30 km from here, removed the tents of refugees like her from Chechnya, all of whom wrote statements about “voluntary return” and with tears in their eyes loaded the tents onto KamAZ trucks leaving for the zone, where the war was still actually going on. There was no choice: those who remained had their electricity cut off and the gas turned off.

By the way, the situation in the Prigorodny region of North Ossetia, although incomparable with the Chechen one, also does not look cloudless. While Dmitry Kozak was answering questions from Novy residents, an Ingush rally was going on in the neighboring village of Kartsa. Those gathered demanded that the authorities immediately investigate the disappearances of people, of which there have been nine in recent months. Dmitry Kozak was not taken to Karts.

Ivan Sukhov, Nazran - May - New - Vladikavkaz - Moscow