Rostov burns again

A series of strange fires continued in the city, in which someone's business interests are traced

The largest clothing market in the south of Russia was extinguished for almost 17 hours. The message about the fire of the shopping rows in the Verkhny Temernik region was received by the Rostov rescuers at 21.08 on Sunday, October 8, and completely with the fire they coped by two o’clock in the afternoon of the 9th. Eyewitnesses say that fire engines who arrived at the place could not break through to the place of emergency: all entrances to the market were occupied by merchant cars.

Information about the fire spread instantly: many of the market workers live in high -rise buildings opposite. By the time of the arrival of firefighters in the market, an operation to save the goods was underway. Those with whom they managed to talk on the morning of October 9, they say that the shopping rows were filled with looters, who seemed to be preparing for an emergency.

“When the fire began, electricity was cut down throughout the territory. We saw how people grabbed things and ran away. My neighbors stole a bag of fur coats. We saw men with axes who ran to the containers and knocked out castles from them. It was not clear what to do: to endure things or chase criminals, ”says one of the victims, calling himself Julia. Its trading place is placed in the old part of the Temernik - as the Vostochny market, located in the Verkhny Temernik microdistrict, is called in Rostov. On Sunday, October 8, its newer, upper part burned, where the wholesale market was formed several years ago, then retail trade flourished. The most frugal Rostov people here bought themselves things that often turned out to be cheaper than in the old market.

Tenants do not believe the preliminary version that the cause of the fire was a spark from electric welding. Although repair work was carried out in the sector, entrepreneurs believe that they helped the fire a lot.

“As always, there were no water in hydrants! - says one of the merchants. - Firefighters stood with empty sleeves and watched how it all burns. People shouted to them: “What are you not stewing?!”, And they say: “We are waiting for the team.” Then it turned out that there was no water, and I had to pull the sleeves from the residential sector, all this took too much time. That's all burned. ”

On Monday morning, fire extinguishing continued, water was supplied from the residential sector, which is 150 meters from the first shopping rows.

According to official figures of the Ministry of Emergencies of the Russian Federation in the Rostov region, 6,000 square meters of the market territory were covered by fire. There is no damage data yet.

Entrepreneurs told Novye that the rental of one trading place in the market costs 60-80 thousand rubles, depending on the location. Separately, the "services" of the market for the protection, the content of fire alarm, etc. are paid. - This is about 20 thousand monthly.

“You can buy a trading place, it costs about 1.5 million rubles, but the“ services ”of the market still have to pay, and the transaction itself looks very conditional,” traders from Vostochny tell on anonymity conditions.

Rostov officials proposed several times to transfer Vostochny away from the residential neighborhood. Over the 20-year history of the “Temernik” existence, this would already be his third movement along the outskirts of the city. During this time, a real microdistrict has grown around the market, where mainly immigrants from Asian countries have been trading, and their children have already come to replace the first migrants-traders-perfectly talking in Russian, Russian citizens. The transfer of the market would have released new areas for residential development and would add to the microdistrict of attractiveness in the eyes of buyers of real estate: while apartments here are in demand only for those who connect their lives with work in the market.

After a fire in the old center of Rostov, when 117 buildings were destroyed as a result of arson and more than 500 people were left without a roof over his head, in the Don capital, every news of a fire is perceived with special nervousness.

So, on the night of the fire on the “Vostochny”, the governor of the region Vasily Golubev and the head of the city administration Vitaly Kushnarev arrived at the scene of the emergency, but they did not make any official statements later. The authorities prefer to pretend that the burned millions of rubles of small entrepreneurs are nothing more than a special case. At the time of preparation of the material, the main version of the causes of the incident remains a violation of the rules for conducting technical work.

As in the case of the market, the authorities “did not pay attention” to the causes of a large fire at the Thorne House hotel, which was reconstructed to the 2018 World Cup and burned down on September 21. As a result of a fire, two people died in a 10-story hotel and seven cars were completely burned out, parked nearby. The hotel is located several tens of meters from the Rostov City Hall. As it turned out, it belonged to a married couple of entrepreneurs, which is in the process of divorce.

And in the evening of October 9, the pavilion caught fire in the spontaneous market of Bataysk on the street. Kirov. According to firefighters, the fire covered 30 square meters. meters. Nothing is known about the reasons for the fire, but the townspeople were not slow to connect what happened to the series of strange fires in Rostov, to which 10 km from Bataysk.

“It is difficult for me to say what is really happening in Rostov, there are no expert conclusions,” says Alexander Khuruji, the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Arrested Entrepreneurs. - In the case of a large fire in the private sector, it is already confirmed that it was arson. I will not be surprised if they find arsonists. But it is unlikely that we will see this crime on the bench on the bench. This is the main problem: many high -profile crimes against private property and business in Rostov remain unprotected. And impunity is intoxicated. There is nothing new in the scheme when criminals set fire to the objectionable to take possession of the land plot or take away the business. I repeat - this is done by criminals, not businessmen. But in Rostov no one is going to fight this. Immediately after the fire in the area of ​​theatrical square, many experts said that Rostov could not be avoided. Now we have a fire in the Temernitsky market; It is not clear what happened in the market in Bataisk. It’s good that there were no casualties. But what a blow to the reputation of the region! ”

Elena Romanova - especially for "New",

Rostov-on-Don