Victims of pig farming

One and a half thousand people against one hundred thousand pigs, dung "Lagun", the Pskov governor and his miliander protege

The south of the Pskov region is gradually turning into one large pig farm. Not because there are a lot of people - there are just problems here - but because one person is holding a lot of pigs - a billionaire Vladimir Podvalny. The LLC "Velikoluksky pig -breeding complex" belonging to him plans to bring production volumes to 2 million goals. But today, when the investment project was half implemented, the inhabitants of the Nevelsky and Usyatsky districts of the Pskov region are suffocating from dung stinks from open ponds-drivers, where production waste merges. People complain to the president of the country, but there is no answer. And the governor of the region Andrei Turchak continues to consider the project VSK priority and strategically important.

Residents of the village of Ryalvo, Nevelsky district of the Pskov region, always took water for watering and washing in the Kamenka River. Now they are afraid to do this.

Elena Yagurtova

“I don’t know, maybe nothing will grow in the garden after our watering ...” a resident of Ryalvo Elena Yagurtova shows a trough where the water from the heater was pumping up yesterday. The water foam slightly on top, and at the bottom and walls of the vessel - an even layer of thick brown sediment.

- Previously, in this water we rinse the white underwear, there the bottom was covered with pebbles, the pebbles are the highest! And now there is a layer of shit. You can't say otherwise ...

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Victims of pig farming. River with r ... nom

We go down to the river. Thick brown foam on the surface of the water confirms that Elena Anatolyevna is right: this is it. For the inhabitants of Ryalvo there is no big secret in where and what flowed into the stove. Three years ago, a kilometer from the village built the feeding sites of the "Velikoluksky pig -breeding complex".

Another explanation, except "the country is big, there is enough space," I can't find it

Production is impossible without waste, and waste - pork manure - should be disposed of. On the "Velikoluksky pig farm" the cheapest way was chosen: waste washed off in the so -called. "Laguna"-ponds-storage ponds, where liquid manure is exposed six months in the open air.

- Unfortunately, in Russia it is customary to pick holes in the ground and drop everything there. This is indeed a very fashionable practice, and, probably, another explanation, except for “a big country, there is enough space,” I can’t find this, ”says Alexey Kiselev , head of the Greenpeace Russia toxic program projects.

As the lagons are devastated, the inhabitants of Ryalvo recently observed: near the village they found a large diameter hose, from where a smelly slurry whipped. There was a hose straight from the side of the pig farm. Says Andrei Vikhman , deputy of the Nevelsky District Assembly ("Yabloko"):

- We recently left the initiative group, recorded this fact on the video. We submitted applications to the prosecutor's office and Rospotrebnadzor, asked to immediately go to the place, take samples.

In the samples of water from the drainage ditch of the Rospotrebnadzor research, the ammonia content was four times higher than the norm. Ammonia belongs to a group of sufferer and neurotropic substances - with poisoning the body, toxic edema of the lungs and severe damage to the nervous system is possible. It is ammonia that turns fresh pork manure into a matter of hazard class III (code No. 11251001333 in the Federal Waste Classifier).

At the same time, pig -breeding sites themselves are protected as secret objects. When we drove up to one of them, the guard immediately appeared: "This is a private territory, you can’t shoot here." But in the few minutes that we, having clarified relations with the guard, stood at the so-called pond-drive, the smell of ammonia dragged through the clothes, equipment, and the car interior.

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Victims of pig farming. Guardian guard

The owner of LLC "Velikoluksky pig -breeding complex" refuses to talk about the dangerous consequences of its production.

Go to the governor or president, let them explain everything to you there

“I do not want to answer you,” said Vladimir Podvalny in a telephone conversation with a correspondent. -My company-number one in the north-west, and with my hazard class-I’m not going to enlighten you on this score ... Go to the governor or president, let them explain everything about hazard classes there ... And I’m a farmer, I do my own business, and you will do my own.

Vladimir Abramovich farmer is unusual-with a fortune of 8.4 billion rubles (92nd place in the rating of billionaires of the publication "Business Petersburg"). LLC "Velikoluksky Pigo Complex"-the largest agricultural enterprise in the North-Western Federal District-is part of the basement of the Great Lucian agricultural holding (which also consists of a feed factory with an elevator group, OJSC "Velikoluki meat-processing plant" and the same trading chain-more than 600 stores in Russia, as well as the Park of attractions. "Wild island" in St. Petersburg).

View of the pig farm and "lagoon"

The construction of a pig -breeding complex with a design capacity of 2 million slaughter heads a year in the Pskov region began in 2010 under the governor Andrei Turchak. Ivest project is estimated at 50 billion rubles, including the 30-billionth loan of Sberbank, the interest rate at which the federal and regional budget in a proportion of 70 by 30 subsidizes.

Pir Tourchak and Podvalnaya during the Pigs of Pigs

The Great Lucian pig farms is strategically important for the governor of the region Andrei Turchak - this is good statistics on the volume of meat production and 1700 jobs. Andrei Anatolyevich accuses all critics of the project of populism and the desire to gain political points. "The opposition of the decade was quite rightly worried about ruined agriculture and overgrown fields, now it requires that we leave an environmentally friendly chapel and hogweed. You can’t, colleagues, let's agree, the region must develop!" - During the annual report, the governor pronounced to those who tried to convey to him complaints of residents of the Nevelsky district.

Swincomplex waste streams

It so coincided that the promotion of the governor’s favorite investment project turned into great problems for small farmers, who also engage in pig farming in the region.

In 2014, in the Pskov region, a flash of African swine plague was recorded. The budget spent on the fight against a disease of 18 million rubles, and the largest investment project of the north-west hung in the balance. At at least two production sites of the Great Lucian pig farm, over 20 thousand animals were destroyed and burned due to ASF.

On the shore of the dung "Laguna"

The authorities found guilty in the epidemic. Firstly, wild boars were announced by the peddler of the infection. Secondly, farm and personal subsidiary farms that allegedly did not comply with sanitary and hygienic requirements for pig farming came under suspicion.

Initiative group of local residents

In 2014, the administration of the Pskov region issued six orders and orders relating to the requirements for the conditions for maintaining pigs in private farms. Farmers and owners of personal subsidiary farms began to visit veterinarians with an insistent call to get rid of their pigs. Through the district press, the regional authorities called on people to change pigs to chickens or rabbits, promising subsidies to replace the number of livestock.

“They forced everyone to cut,” says the President of the Association of Peasant (Farm) Farms of the Pskov Region, a deputy of the Gdovsky District Assembly from the Yabloko party , Alexander Konashenkov . - Under the pressure of veterinary services, the farm services were actually put on the brink of extinction, did not have the opportunity to support pigs, and a very large number of pigs were cut out.

I was born in the village, what else to do - not to trade a moonshine?

One of the first victims was farmer Sergei Barkanov from the Velikoluksky district. The flash of ASF affected his farm - I had to destroy sick animals, but also healthy ones: too:

- 120 goals were destroyed. Of these, 25 sows that were supposed to be expanded.

For destroyed healthy pigs, compensation was relied by, and in total, Barkanov was paid about 600 thousand rubles with a loss of 3 million. At the same time, the authorities forced to sign the paper, which will continue to be pigs for three years.

- I was born in the village, what else to do - not to trade a moonshine? We had a year of quarantine, it was impossible to keep anything. I had to study chicken, calves, says Barkanov.

He never received the promised subsidy for the purchase of chickens and calves. At first they said that he brought the documents late, then the money ended in the budget.

Another object of VSK should appear near the village of Porechye

In Sergey Antipov from the Pechora region, all the pigs were healthy, but they were forced to cut it anyway.

- the veterinarian came, sent instructions to destroy. We signed that we would not hold pigs, ”says Sergey Yakovlevich. - We have these large pigs. Maybe they just had to remove competitors in this way?

I am sure who is the "roof" of this production in the Government of the Russian Federation

It is impossible to calculate how many residents of the Pskov villages and district centers as a result of persistent requirements of the state veterinary service.

“In our area, everything is done in order to complicate the lives of the people who hold pigs and prevent them from selling their products,” says Alexander Konashenkov.

He has no doubt that in this way the regional authorities lobby the interests of the Great Lucian pig farm.

The guard is in a hurry to drive off the journalists who shoot the pig farm

Lev Schlosberg , a former deputy of the Pskov Regional Assembly, the leader of the Pskov Yabloko, agrees with this. He carefully studied the governor's orders when, together with the farmers, he made requests to the OFAS and the prosecutor's office. (The Federal Antimonopoly Service, by the way, recognized the documents illegal and forced the regional administration to cancel them)

- Apparently, it was a technology developed in Moscow. These were huge documents, it was impossible to figure it out. Such texts with so many professional details could write only specialists who made a conscious legal provocation to destroy home pig farming. We do not have lawyers, specialists who can write such a document in the entire administration. It was written by people interested in servicing this production. And these documents were legalized by the signature of the governor.

The politician does not exclude that some federal investors are interested in Mr. Podvalny's business:

- I am sure that the "roof" of this production is located in the Government of the Russian Federation.

As follows from the governor's report, in 2015, 1.66 billion rubles were allocated to support agricultural production in the region, including almost 400 million rubles from the regional budget. The lion's share of these funds went to subsidies on loans of the Great Lucian pig farm.

Letter to the president

Andrey Mukhametshin

Andrei Mukhametshin and his wife moved to Velikoluksky district from Moscow four years ago. He chose the place for a long time, he says, traveled all the suburbs, the Kaluga region, the Ryazan. Finally I stopped your choice in the village of Porechye. “The irony is that this place was chosen according to one criterion: cleanliness,” Andrei recalls.

Velikoluksky district of the Pskov region

Next to Porechye, 30 km from the great onions, among lakes and forests, there have never been harmful production. There was no, however, that Mukhametshin was not too embarrassed - he earns technical support and the creation of sites. In Porechye, he also got a job in the fire department, a day through three. He began to build a house. Already here, in Porechye, his daughter was born, and soon the family adopted another girl.

It seemed that the dream of a real village life came true - good neighbors, a brand new church nearby, space and fresh air.

Church in Porechye

But in February of this year, construction equipment suddenly began to run near, and soil roads were covered with crushed stone. So the inhabitants of Porechye learned about the plans for the construction of the next site of the Velikoluksky pig farm.

Unlike previous objects of VSK, this one is planned in densely populated, by Pskov standards, in the area - in the only Porechye of 1,200 permanent residents. Near the future sites of another 20 residential villages. Personnel from lagoon drives can fall into 14 lakes, including a particularly valuable Uritskoye, next to which are children's recreation camps, as well as to the river, only 30 km above the water intake of great bow.

It turns out that I will lose everything except the family

Already knowing what the "lagons" are, the inhabitants of the Porechensky volost went to the struggle of a united front. Andrei Mukhametshin, as a young and competent person, became the leader of the initiative group. He created the site "I-Porechye.rf" , the VKontakte group of the same name, registered on the website of the governor Turchak.ru and created a petition on Change.org . The initiative group sent fifty statements to the official structures and recorded a video message to President Vladimir Putin.

“I'm going to fight to the last,” says Andrei Mukhametshin. - If we do not win, then I, in principle, do not have options. That is, you have to throw everything, to take away the children from here, because sooner or later, but some epidemic will begin. Moreover, I, most likely, will not sell the house-already now there were announcements, they say, “not to offer a porech”, but to start earn a new place in a new place at 40 ... that is, it practically turns out that I will lose everything except the family.

Against the backdrop of protests and appeals to the president, the construction of the next site of the Velikoluksky pig farm was recently suspended. But locals do not really expect that it is for a long time. They have not received an answer to their appeals from the president.