Scorched earth

“Some forest set fire and fel. Others are standing and waiting for the buildings to light up. Third there are no mention, and then social activists come and try to do something. ” This is how things are going on extinguishing fires in Buryatia and Baikal

In Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, there are more sunny days in the year than in Sochi or Anapa. Now, in April, the air is cold and transparent, the most sunny months will be June and July, but it will not work to sunbathe with local residents and tourists. The year is planned “dry”, as the past and the before, which means that the sun will be closed by a dense haze from forest and peat fires.

Ubushte

Torphyses are standing on Taxtus, a small village in Buryatia. Pavel Ilyich, a local resident and hunter, climbs onto the roof of his house and looks out for smoky pillars. “There was burning there in the morning,” he shows, “and there, I don’t understand yet that, perhaps, the garbage can be burnt, maybe local grass burning.” When volunteers from the Baikal Volunteer Corps in 2015 began to extinguish peat fires, Pavel Ilyich became a guide for them - he knows the surroundings well.

Datsan in the suburbs of Ulan-Ude Photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD On the left: Lenin’s head in the center of Ulan-Ude on the Square of the Soviets. Right: Ulan-Ude photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD

Once the Qaltus was a prosperous village-the built-up land reclamation system provided good mowing, the collective farm acted in order to work, it was not necessary to go to the district center or Ulan-Ude. “I used to go fishing at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour,” says Pavel Ilyich, slowly and carefully circling pits and stones on a broken road. He shows us the remnants of the dam overlap the river - the valves were cut and passed on scrap metal, a fisherman sits under a prohibiting sign. Pavel Ilyich believes that if the reclamation system was in order, there would be fewer fires.

- Look, here there was a gate, if it is blocked, let the river go in a different direction for a while - in an hour you can pour any peat bog.

- And now how are they extinguished? Local help?

- Yes, what is there! Nobody needs anything. When volunteers arrive, ours go to fools who are clumsy for free!

When volunteers arrive, ours go to fools who are clumsy for free

Solbon Sanzhiev, chief of staff of the Baikal Volunteer Corps, is indignant: “Pavel Ilyich tries to neighbors, writes letters in the instance, the cypezh raises, the authorities are trying to pull, but do you know what he is called in the village? Ubushte! " This Buryat word means “fool”, even “fool”. Not in the sense that the person is stupid, but in the fact that he needs more than all the time. Strange.

Pavel Ilyich, a resident of the village of Zakaltus and a volunteer in the fight against fires, in his room, where he is engaged in taxidermium photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD On the left: Pavel Ilyich on the roof of his house in the village of Zakaltus watches smoke from herbal and peat fires. Right: workpiece for a stuffed cabarge - a simple saber -toothed deer photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD

Volunteers in the understanding of local residents are also “strange”. Solbon shows two squares between the dried lemonail channels - the volunteers were extinguished last summer, and grass breaks through on the living ground, a forest grows on the sides. There was no longer enough hands on the second square, the land on it is black, failed, charred trunks stick out of it. “We work, but we see that we do not have time,” says Solbon. - And then just the locals drive on bicycles, ask what we are here. Guys, we say, let's give you shovels now, help. Nah, they say, will you pay us for this, or what? " Locals do not believe that volunteers extinguish someone else's land for free, and certainly do not want to work without money themselves.

“Whom we just did not try to attract,” says Solbon. - Parties, public organizations, local residents. There are Cossacks here, you know? They seemed to work with us, but almost immediately abandoned. One tells me - the wife does not let in, forbids! Imagine a wife forbids, is this a Cossack? Sholokhov would have found out - I would probably swear! "

Hot hobby

"Dad, is this a fire?" - Little Aryana protrudes from the window. Father forbade her not to get out of the car, but even open the door. A small forest burns between the railway tracks of the Trans -Siberian Railway and the Baikal federal highway.

While the grass is mostly blazing, but the jacket is already smoldering, the fire closes around the trees. In 2016 and in 2015, there were many accidents on this highway, including fatal outcomes. This section of Baikal was recently completed, the road is excellent in quality, but in summer and autumn visibility in some of its areas is zero.

Herbal fire in the Kaban district of Buryatia. April 8. Herbal fires, as volunteers say, often become the causes of more serious forest or peat fires photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD

“Dad, I want the fire to end,” the girl is worried, “I want firefighters to come!”

“I also want firefighters to come,” says Sanjiyev’s daughter. He takes a fire on the phone, indicates time, localization, scale. - If they do not arrive, in the sense of when they do not come, we will get them with these records. Or we begin to extinguish ourselves.

Salbon Sanjiev is dressed in a storm, but a collar of ironed shirt sticks out from under the green dense fabric. He is a businessman, a builder, a volunteer and a person who has no weekend - the season began. Even if there are few fires, you need to ride and monitor dangerous points, determine future foci of fire.

“Solbon, why did you decide to extinguish the fires?” Spend time, money on what the state should do.

Solbon revives:

- Great question! I just found the answer recently, because you know how often they ask about it? Even close people. And they still look: what a fool, crazy, while all the barbecue eat, he is picking with a shovel in the mud. Unpleasant, of course. I tried to explain myself, but now I just say that this is a hobby. I have this hobby, I like to run with a shovel!

Solbon Sanzhiev with children at home in Ulan-Ude Photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD Solbon Sanzhiev with children at home in Ulan-Ude Photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD

Two years ago, in the midst of forest fires around Lake Baikal, the volunteers of Buryatia began to extinguish them almost in shorts. There were no equipment, clothes, the necessary skills were not there either. Now Solbon himself is lectures on how to extinguish peat bogs, he has “crusts” of the local forestry college: it is not allowed to extinguish the forest fires without special training.

“But peat can be stewed for pleasure, because it is not interesting to anyone!” - Solbon again pares on the side of the road, opens the window and sniffs. It is easiest to detect a smoldering peat as smell - it smells like in an abandoned public restroom.

Detecting a smoldering peat is easiest to smell - it smells like in an abandoned public restroom

On the old right -hand drive, Solbon, we drive along the Kaban district, the largest in Buryatia - 13 thousand square kilometers. This is almost the territory of Montenegro, and Buryatia itself only did not reach the size of Germany a little. Most of the Buryat peat bogs are concentrated precisely in the Kaban district, so fires in the republic most often start with it.

Peats in Russia burn every year, but usually people notice it only in the summer, when it becomes difficult to breathe on the streets, and planes go to extra circles before planting - peat smoke dense and cloudy, it limits visibility and does not leave for a long time. In Buryatia, snow still lies in some places, Baikal under dense ice, but peat is on now. There is no one to extinguish it.

There are no firefighters in Russia

“Do you remember that last year the Ministry of Emergencies came to extinguish peat bogs? Such handsome men come out, in uniform, the boots are polished, they took shovels, they took them to the cameras, and then they abandoned, the shovels abandoned and immediately left? I tell them, guys, where are you? Well, at least fold the shovels! "

View of Ulan-Ude from Mount Shaman photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD On the left: Baikal in the Kaban district of Buryatia. Right: Zakaltus village photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD

We are standing in front of the administration of the village of Kabansk with Alexei Valentinovich and Zhenya, who are responsible for the local administration for working with emergency situations. Aryana watches cartoons in the cramped room of the duty officer, the magazine on the table lists incidents per day-when someone is gaining 112, the tube is removed here, and only then they distribute incidents in the departments. In one village, a car rolled over, in the other - the sewer broke through. The duty officer asks Solbon, where it burns along the road, and says that there have been no challenges yet. Zhenya complains that Solbon forgot to bring them thermal holes - special devices for measuring temperature in peat.

The Greenpeace of Russia gives them to volunteers, they are divided by devices and with “officials”.

There are no firefighters in Russia for a long time. There is a complex and confusing system of relations between departments responsible for fire extinguishing. There are many of them: RALH (Republican Forestry Agency), EMERCOM, Extraordinary Department in the districts, aircraft guard. You can’t just take and extinguish the fire - first you need to understand on whose land it burns, local or federal. There are still lands of the Ministry of Defense and Russian Railways, the lands of other large departments - for example, part of the lands in the Kaban district belongs to the Fano, the Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations. Coordination may not occupy hours, but even months.

You can’t just take and put out the fire - first you need to understand on whose land it is on, local or federal

Millions are thrown annually in the extinguishing of fires, and hundreds of millions of rubles on the country's scale. In 2016, there were only one and a half billion to extinguish fires in Siberia, although the budget involved only 212 million. There are a lot of means of mastering funds, they appear faster than public organizations manage to file complaints to the supervisory authorities. “Just in the Kaban district, they recently made beautifully,” says Solbon. - The administration entered into an agreement on extinguishing with a private company for 860 thousand rubles. Peat fires are burning on the lands of Buryatmelioration. The company rents a technique for meliorators for crazy money and is happy to extinguish these fires. And the son of the head of the Buryatmeliration is led by the company. ” Volunteers filed an application with the prosecutor’s office with a request for verification, but Solbon says that he knows in advance the answer: “Yes, he is his son. No, there were no violations. ”

The prosecutor’s office is generally a permanent participant in the resolution of disputes in fires. In August 2016, a court began in the Kaban district - the local prosecutor’s office “In the interests of an indefinite circle of people” demanded to oblige the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergencies to take measures to eliminate peat fires. The court ended in November by the victory of the Ministry of Emergencies, the case went further to the authorities, and in March 2017 the Supreme Court of Buryatia decided: the peat bogs should still extinguish this particular department.

Representative of the Ministry of Emergencies Evgeny Radikalsev photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD On the left: the window in the building of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergencies in the Republic of Buryatia. Right: Cabinet of the deputy head of the Republican Ministry of Emergencies of Buryatia to combat fires photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD

Evgeny Radikaltsev, the head of the fire extinguishing department of the Ministry of Emergencies, grins: “Well, we have obliged to extinguish - we will extinguish. True, these are not our lands, lawyers will still be protected. ” The colonel has been listing the successes of his department for half an hour, but still gets astray from the official, reporting language and says: “You see, I have three hundred and a small person here and a couple of dozens in Severobaikalsk. We must somehow build priorities, first of all our task is to protect people and buildings. ” From Ulan-Ude, the capital, to Severobaikalsk, the second largest in the city of Buryatia, you can only get through the Irkutsk region, this will take all day.

From April 19 to April 21, the exercises of the Ministry of Emergencies were held in Buryatia - now throughout Russia there is a "training in the elimination of emergency consequences caused by a flood and natural fires." The head of the Russian Forest Department, Alexander Yaroshenko, says that rescuers have chosen a great place to train - in the Kaban district, peat is constantly on, and now the fire covered almost 500 hectares. And then, he adds, something went wrong: the EMERCOM extinguished training fires while the real fire was burning ten kilometers from them. But the head of the Ministry of Emergencies Vladimir Puchkov is satisfied with the results of the exercises and calls the Siberian Federal District the leader in the field of fire safety prevention.

Don't get out of the room

They accept volunteers on the street named after the First Russian Revolution. On the left of the temple, on the right, a monument to Lenin, Solbon parks in the middle, near the old wooden house. In a reconnaissance trip, on some other broken road, shelter was torn off by the car, it clings to the wheel and rattles.

“Honestly, when the car falls apart, I will put it in this yard, a monument. How many volunteers transported, how many hoses I dragged! ”

A voluntary fireman in the house owns an abandoned gym. Solbon shows a bucket of shovels with charred cuttings, hoses, adapters, special clothes and a bunch of little things needed when extinguishing fires. Something was bought for donations, something with his money, something handed over to Greenpeace.

Herbal fire in the Kaban district of Buryatia. April 8 photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD On the left: the hall where the base of volunteers in the fight against fires is located. Right: Buuzi, National Buryat dish photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD

Svetlana Budashkayeva leads the house on the street of 1905 - it also heads the public fund “Health of Buryatia”, which deals with the problems of children with disabilities. There are generally many public organizations here - in the corridor he rehearses military songs by May 9, the choir, under the doors of their mother, expect their children from the "development".

“When in our volunteer building they decided who would be responsible for garbage, I, like a Chinese pioneer, immediately said - yes, of course! And she took under the visor, ”Svetlana says. Lastening garbage dumps is another cause of fires. Near each village there is definitely a huge landfill. According to the rules, says Svetlana, she must be fenced, localized so that a special operator for budget money regularly cleans it. In fact, the landfills are not only near the villages, but also in the most unexpected places, literally in a clean field. Delicious smoke goes from tens of meters of garbage heaps, leisurely red -haired cows go through the smoldering garbage. “To take out the garbage,” adds Svetlana, “the prosecutor’s office suits the region’s leadership, all this stretches, of course, the garbage is on fire. And then the garbage is taken out. ”

And after a pause, he adds: "Or not."

To take out the garbage, the prosecutor’s office suits the district leadership, all this stretches for months, and the garbage is on fire

Svetlana is sure that if the land belonged to people, there would be no fires: "They would work on these lands, or even if they were allowed to graze cattle ... And so they fulfill the recommendations of the authorities."

Last year, Svetlana asked at the next departmental meeting in fires: “And you, the authorities, what did you do not to burn?”

“The Ministry of Health informed the public that it released a fire booklet,” says the woman, “well, I ask, what's in the booklet?”

In the booklet, the Ministry of Health recommends not to go out during forest fires.

It's too late in the summer

Spring in Buryatia turned out to be protracted and dry. There was little snow, but there is no rain now at all. People, out of habit, developed for decades, burn dry grass. Throughout the republic, including near Lake Baikal, they cut the forest - it is taken to China, and the cuts are set fire to “write off” the forest to the fire.

“Of course, we have forecasts for fires for this year. So-so forecasts, ”says Alexander Egorova, press secretary of the Republican Forestry Agency. “But these forecasts have little effect, because we are always preparing for the worst.”

A field burnt from a peat fire in the Kaban district of Buryatia. April 8 photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD On the left: Scarecrow in the home museum of the Transbaikal nature of the resident of the village of Zakaltus Pavel Ilyich. Right: grass fire in the Kaban district of Buryatia photo: Vasily Kolotilov for TD

In Ralh with volunteers, they cooperate. In any case, they are trying.

“We love volunteers very much,” the girl says. - But the responsibility! Here is a tree on you, Solbon, will fall, and who will be imprisoned? Me, Sasha Egorov? "

Solbon promises not to meddle under the burning trees once again. “Then okay, stew,” says Sasha, “your peat bogs.” Both laugh.

In the evening of the same day, Solbon writes on the social network: “Those who are not indifferent to the fate of our Motherland, our Buryatia, our Baikal, who are ready to stand with a wall in front of any threat, who are ready to stretch out their hands to the trouble, who is ready to protect our children - this is the door to the volunteer building of Lake Baikal.” Solbon is upset that now, in the spring, there are few volunteers. People will begin to come when open fire will blame. “But June, July is too late,” says the volunteer. “We would have more people right now, then in the summer there would simply be no such fires.”

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This year, the Volunteer Corps of Baikal began to extinguish herbal fires. “They were armed only with semi -outlet shovels,” Solbon reports about the first exit in the season. “They are perfect for peat bogs, but here they showed themselves well, only the hand tires about waving.” The fire approached the buildings when the volunteers saw a fire engine.
“I joyfully approach them, I say, look, there the grass burns there, can you put out? - Solbon says. - And they answer: “No!” ”To the question of whether it was easier to extinguish the cause of the fire of the buildings, the volunteer replied:“ These are the rules. ”

“This is how we live,” says Solbon. “Some set fire to and are lying. Others are standing and waiting for the buildings to light up. There are no thirds, and then social activists come and try to do something. Yamar Bardak! "

Translated from Buryat - "What a mess!" But you probably understood it.