"Yamal Happiness"

Recently, the beloved airline demanded urgently expanding bonus points accumulated over several years, promising to burn them on the other hand. Since in Siberia there are no traditions to plan summer vacations in winter, and I had no points that I had a lot to say, I decided to take the case and visit a cousin who moved all fifteen years ago from the poor Omsk to the rich gas city of Nadym in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

There is no direct flight to Nadym from Novosibirsk, flew to New Urengoy, and already from the airport there was taken by the "minibus", several times a day, traveling on a 250-kilometer trip from the "gas capital of Russia" (so proudly calls himself Urengoy) to the city of gas workers No. 2. The weather on Yamal was the same as in Novosibirsk, –35, with the only difference being that it was called "colder", and there it "warmed up". Yes, the Dydim “minibus, girl promised on the phone that if there is -50, then the bus will not go, and the price will be higher at –45, because they travel to such temperatures with two machines.

The track is clogged with technology thrown in the cold: turning into pieces of ice of Kamaza, Urals, Japanese trucks. Among the diesel equipment, whose drivers flooded the inappropriate type of fuel, gasoline cars come across - both ours and foreign cars. However, they say that everything is not so scary - the route by local standards is considered quite lively, and the Emcheees are working properly, save ...

From the very first day, the northern “exotic”, the present “Yamal Happiness” appeared in my diet: venison, muksun, all kinds of delicacies or, conversely, the usual dishes - like pilaf or cutlets, where ordinary meat is replaced by pike fille. However, having looked at the prices in stores, it is easy to understand that "exotic" is not a cheap thing. Olenina - about 500 rubles per kg, Muksun - from 500 to 900, depending on cooking, the most expensive look is smoked. Deer delicacies generally come from the Earth - from the city of Yalutorovsk under Tyumen, whose meat processing plant specializes in the production of such products. True, the sister said that many in the city do not trust the store assortment, preferring to buy everything from "their" Nenets. Representatives of the title ethnos (by the way, on Yamal, they live almost 2/3 of the total number, but there are still Naryan-Mar and Taimyr), although they entered the cities, they have not lost their Russian ties pretty much, they are not losing their native plague, and they are kept together, large clans. Therefore, there is nothing strange in the fact that the local journalist with the Nenets surname Anagurichi presents in the news the plot of an honorary fisherman with the same surname ... Through "his" Nenets and fresh fish, and venison is cheaper.

Sister - a doctor, works in a local Central District Hospital. I got used to the northern climate, even in such disadvantages before a taxi to work (at a temperature below 30, caring northerners do not start their cars) run out in thin tights. But angry: by local standards (and at local prices), her salary is quite modest - about 60 thousand. As a cool specialist is working on in a private clinic - he gets another 20-30. Says: "I help Putin to fulfill the May decrees." In hospitals, everything is like everywhere: clogged pipes, a fight among the departments for a place in the queue for repairs, the power of "economists" dictating to doctors their own rules and laws, gently say, do not always coincide with the treatment plan. And also - a total check on the topic "came - did not come to the polls" and an almost compulsory vote for the "necessary" and "right". In general, state employees.

Her husband works in Nadym-Gazprom-Dobych. In the week that I was visiting there, he was on a “output shift”, in a two-week vacation, after which the mandatory two weeks of the “working shift” will follow-somewhere in the area, in the prey of the “national treasure”. The watchman there, says, cozy - a hostel, a dining room inexpensive, even a bathhouse is own. True, it is worried that the trouble is with people - to the new Bovanenkovsky deposit, the advertisement of which the whole city was hung (who is “promoted” to it?), Drive all the best, who remains in the old workings. And to work on such a “short shift” is allowed only with a local residence permit - “from the ground” for two working weeks you won’t run, so only neighbors go: Tyumen, Omsk, Yekaterinburgers. All that Gazprom achieved with such a practice is practically Moscow speculations with stamps in passports.

So the dreams of St. Petersburg and their son live. At the same time, everyone understands that Peter is a "minimum plan." “The Maximum Plan” is where the eldest son will take his exhausted by the north and “Yamal happiness” ...

Nevertheless, the husband loves his sisters, the north does not scold - he grew up here, understands that he is almost doomed to live here until retirement, he is not going to “twitch” yet. How many such stories have seen enough here: a man will run away from frosts to the "land", and even somewhere in romantic places associated with Soviet childhood-in small towns in the Volga region or in the Urals, and all-10-15 thousand per hands. And here is still 150-200, earnings are more than worthy. Real "Yamal Happiness"! And the cold is not compensated for by summer vacations - in Sochi, in Turkey, and in the sister's family - also in car runs to St. Petersburg, Mountain Altai or Baikal. But something nevertheless gnaws northerners-they feel that life passes and there is something important with it, and the presence of a TV in each of the three rooms of the apartment is not compensated by something.

The sister has two children. The youngest, five -year -old is a classic “doctoral” girl: even in a hotly boomed apartment with +32, it is not allowed to walk barefoot on the floor on a room thermometer; But the young lady has classes with a speech therapist, boots and annual wrapping with a scarf in the very poppy before going out "into outer space". The eldest is a graduate of high school, a clever with obvious talent in foreign languages ... But he is going to go to study in St. Petersburg for "information technology". Why exactly on "ai-te"? Because it is a direct road “there”, and “here” (in the north in particular in Russia as a whole) the guy does not want to remain under any pretext. This generation is not only not generated, but also absolutely free in its decisions. With his father, who is unsteady, but still sure that “who, if not Putin,” Nadym eleventh grader does not even argue. The son simply lives in a different paradigm - it does not have a “clip”, mandatory baptismal bathing and hysterical holidays in patriotically significant dates. And there are no boundaries and stupid prohibitions, and the world can be seen in its entirety, and not just the eyes of propagandists from Channel One.

The second question. Why in St. Petersburg? In this, the older and younger generation is more or less unanimous. And mercantile notes are mixed with traditional Soviet-Russian love for the very European city of the country. The north-west of Russia is a traditional refuge for northerners and Far East, which health does not allow you to live in the Kuban heat, to whom Moscow real estate is unbearable and whom 10-15 thousand on the rest of the land is scared. And the fact that sooner or later will still have to leave, everyone will be aware of here. So the dreams of St. Petersburg and their son live. At the same time, everyone understands that Peter is a "minimum plan." “The Maximum Plan” is where the eldest son will take his exhausted by the north and “Yamal happiness” ...

The conditional is the happiness of Yamal, very conditional. Yes, real estate prices here are approaching the capital. In the same new Urengoy "Odinka" costs 4 and a half million, in Nadym, the city No. 2, of course, cheaper. But here you go along the main street of Nadym, and is directly replete in the eyes of the “rent” banners on all the first trade floors. What to do, they say, is also a crisis here. Here he may be even more noticeable. In the Yamal cities, even the population directly depends on the price of hydrocarbons. In the same Urengoy in 2013, 116 thousand lived, and in 2016-already 5 thousand less. But still, the Nadym House of Culture "Victory", converted from a bankrupt cinema, was a real symbol of "Yamal happiness" for me. Now he is on the balance sheet of the district administration, but there is still no money for “resuscitation”, so he was simply beautifully wrapped in a giant tricolor of the Russian flag and surrounded with shields with the very advertisement of the fresh Bovanenkovsky field. Here it is, victory, here it is - the future, here it is - happiness! ..

Andrey Pozdnyakov - marketer, Novosibirsk

The "Opinion" expressed in the heading of the point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial office