"Muromtsev's Dacha": waste removal

The People's Museum of Venedikt Erofeev was destroyed by officials, migrant workers and policemen

On March 7, from 7 o'clock in the morning in Tsaritsyn, the "dacha of Muromtsev" was demolished. Bulldozers. Fifty meek migrant workers with crowbars. A whole police bus, all the gates and manholes in the country fence are blocked by a cordon. And three ambulances: defenders of law and order,...

On March 7, from 7 o'clock in the morning in Tsaritsyn, the "dacha of Muromtsev" was demolished. Bulldozers. Fifty meek migrant workers with crowbars. A whole police bus, all the gates and manholes in the country fence are blocked by a cordon. And three ambulances: the defenders of law and order, it seems, were seriously preparing for battle.

“Go, go,” the police officer says to the crowd behind the cordon, “otherwise you won’t be in time for all the rallies.” What do you want here? Let's go home, have a beer...

And, looking at the faces of the "Protestants", he adjusts the sight:

- I would have a coffee. A green tea...

By 10 o'clock in the morning, the demolition is in full swing - and the law enforcement officers have already relaxed. At 7.00, those who spent the night in the house and two change houses in the garden were dragged out in the snow, wringing their hands. Blogger Ivan Mitin and Arkhnadzor coordinator Alexander Mozhaev, along with nine other people, were detained and taken to the Biryulyovo police department. At the police station, Mozhaev wrote a paper about the illegal demolition of an object declared as a cultural monument. In the meantime, furnaces were being broken at the facility.

MEPhI graduate student Kirill Boldyrev climbed up the charred beams onto the roof and sat there for two hours: special equipment rumbled downstairs and bit into the walls.

Kirill's family has lived in the Muromtsev House since 1938. For the Boldyrevs, this demolition is like the flooding of a small town under a hydroelectric power station in the 1930s. Then, too, the townsfolk tied themselves to the gates with reins: and the ideological militia, the vanguard of industrialization, untied the citizens and dragged them away.

In the name of which and whose particular hydroelectric power station the ruins of Muromtsev's dacha are being demolished - we will probably find out in the spring, when new developers are swarming on valuable acres near the fence of the Tsaritsyno State Museum Reserve. So far, on March 6, Saturday, the Southern District Prefecture issued an order to "take apart construction debris." And on March 7, on Sunday, on the eve of the holiday, the workers carried out the order. Under the protection of dozens of policemen: the colonel's epaulets flashed by, the garbage was sorted out and personally by the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Tsaritsyno State Museum Reserve N.N. Antipov. They worked at such a pace that by the evening the migrant workers rebelled and left the ashes in formation: from seven in the morning they were not given a quarter of an hour to break. However, the deed was done: the house was destroyed.

Recall: a two-story wooden house stood on the foundation of S.A. Muromtsev, chairman of the First Duma, well-known public figure, co-author of the first Russian Constitution of 1905. The garden here is centuries old, with lindens planted in the 1890s, with lilacs up to the second floor. In this garden in the early 1900s, Ivan Bunin first met Vera Muromtseva, the niece of the owner of the dacha, his future wife. In 1964, Muromtsev's intricate dacha (by that time - the housing of Tsaritsyno teachers) was demolished. A two-story house was built on its foundation: there, the dissidents-pochvenniks made the Veche magazine, there, in the Boldyrev family, Venedikt Erofeev lived and wrote Vasily Rozanov through the eyes of an eccentric.

Yes, the house has long been considered settled: since 1971, the city of Moscow has not invested a single ruble in it. But the optical physicist Nikolai Boldyrev (today the father of five children) and several other residents remained in these rooms, with their ladders, passages, a crazy mixture of antiques and Soviet junk, with hundreds of books. Fired with firewood. They bathed in a bathhouse built in the garden. Roof and other repairs themselves. The folk museum "Dachi Muromtsev" was opened in the house. In the summer of 2009, “Erofeev holidays” began to be held in the garden: the authenticity of everything that survived here, the power of memory of the decadent 1900s and dissident 1970s was stunning. Arkhnadzor has filed an application for the recognition of Muromtsev's dacha as a protected object.

... And on the night of January 2-3, 2010, the house burned down in a rather strange way (see Novaya Gazeta, No. 80 for 2009, No. 2, 7 for 2010).

The Boldyrevs did not leave the ashes: they lived in change houses, dismantled the icy ruins of the museum with the help of volunteers. And even hoped to rebuild the house in the spring.

... But then, on the eve of a bright holiday, - and the order to sort out the garbage followed.

At the same time, forklifts took away the cabins. And the bath was rolled out on logs.

According to one version, there will be a parking lot for harvesting equipment of the Tsaritsyno State Museum-Reserve. Why (yes, for any activity here) is it necessary to cut down a century-old garden.

New Moscow, like the princess from the fairy tale "Swineherd", cannot stand anything genuine. She needs dummies of gardens and museums. The real one is falling apart.

... The wild game "Zarnitsa" was on March 7 in Tsaritsyn. Half a dozen television cameras filmed the demolition - and the wrinkled hands of those who were dragged out of the cabins in the morning. Cameras clicked. Information in the morning went through blogs, then through information feeds.

And the police blocked the cat holes in the country fence - shoulder to shoulder. They knew we would write anyway. And we knew they would take it down anyway.

... A jeep flashed by with two well-groomed men under forty. An aunt from the prefecture tirelessly voiced the official position: garbage sorting. The officers in gray were sincerely interested in the crowd: “What have you forgotten here?”

And behind the cordon, an excavator roared and beat quiet migrant workers with crowbars.

Everything was like in "Riverman": there is a certain social stratum, which can do anything. And there is another one, always ready to “garbage sorting” for fifty dollars without question.

And there is a dumbfounded population with a different algebra of being and biochemistry of concepts. In this case, it included gray-haired Arkhnadzor lawyers, 20-year-old bloggers who had been waiting for the invasion since the night, film crews from six TV channels, and a dozen sympathizers.

But for 20 years, it seems that a breed has been bred in the country that cannot even be explained what is being defended here? And in the name of what did they live here without running water?

By the hands of these people, "garbage sorting in Tsaritsyn" was successfully carried out.

With each such episode, the process of general dehumanization goes deeper and deeper.