12 of our best stories of 2018

All year we talked about the most important, from our point of view, the events that occurred in Siberia and the Far East. Today we publish 12 stories of this year, which caused the greatest reader's interest, and try to understand why these events and phenomena seemed to our audience the most important and relevant.

The story of Major Skubak, who picked the reception of the President of Russia in Novosibirsk. Major of the missile forces Vladimir Skubak went to Ukraine for the son of his ex -wife, who left the child in an orphanage. For this, he was deprived of access to military secrets and he had to quit the service. The military authorities did not forgive the major visit to the "enemy territory." Trying to challenge this decision, Vladimir Skubak went through all the courts, but did not achieve anything and decided to go to the picket.

- If the President cares about his reputation so much, then let him ask his judges, whom he appointed with his decrees. At the prosecutors. The generals whom he appointed. Let him ask why such a disgrace is happening! - Vladimir said to the correspondent "Siberia. Reali".

In February, tens of thousands of views were collected by a carnival story with indecent subtext. The prosecutor's office tried to attract a resident of Krasnoyarsk Irina Kudimov to administrative responsibility for insulting Orthodoxy. The cultural scientist by profession, Irina took on her VKontakte page a repost of a photograph, which depicted a giant Easter cake with two painted eggs, installed on one of the squares of Kharkov.

I, as a believer, did not see anything reprehensible in this

- The text on the Internet was about how city spaces are designed. As a scientific worker, this, of course, was interested. The photo depicted an ordinary cake, ” says Irina Kudinova ,“ I, as a believer, did not see anything reprehensible in this. But some representatives of Orthodoxy were offended, they saw the phallus in the picture. In place of this holy object, something indecent. I do not understand how this could be seen there.

The Soviet District Court of Krasnoyarsk considered the prosecutor’s claims unreasonable and ordered the Ministry of Finance of Russia to pay Irina Kudimova 22 thousand 780 rubles as compensation for moral damage and payment of the services of a lawyer.

The fire in the Kemerovo shopping and entertainment center "Winter Cherry" began on March 25, at about 16.00 local time. The fire source was on the fourth floor where children's playing rooms, an ice rink and three cinema halls are located. CCTV cameras recorded the rapid spread of thick black smoke around the whole floor. About three hundred people, mostly children who came to daytime film show, many of them without parents, ended up in a fiery trap. According to eyewitnesses, the protection of the shopping center was not engaged in the evacuation of people, and rescuers arrived at the place of the tragedy only an hour after the start of the fire.

- The administrator in a panic stood and did not know what to do. Some man shouted that there, in one of the cinema halls, his children remained. Finding someone a dropped hat, Dima wet it with water and tried to go to the hall. But the density and causticity of smoke were so high that the hat simply did not help. "Do you have a gas mask?!" - He began to ask from a distraught guard. But he only spread his hands. An attempt to get to the children turned out to be in vain, - as Anna Zarechneva, an instagram user, described what was happening in the Winter Cherry.

As a result of the fire, according to official figures, sixty people died, of which 41 are a child. The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case under Articles 219, 238 and 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violation of fire safety requirements; providing services that do not meet safety requirements; negligence). Seven people are accused in this case, including the management of the Kemerovo Confectionery Combine, which is the owner of the Winter Cherry, and a security center, who did not fulfill his duties to notify visitors about the fire.

The video about Nikita and Ana from Khabarovsk, ten years ago adopted by the American couple living in Virginia. The children miraculously survived after their mother left Anya, Nikita and their older brother on the railway tracks when the train was supposed to go there. The older boy died, but managed to push his brother and sister from the rails. After that, Anya and Nikita lived in the orphanages of the Khabarovsk Territory until they met with the Americans, Sylvia and Steve, who managed to draw up documents about their adoption until the State Duma of the "Law of Dima Yakovlev" adopted.

The foster parents took Anya and Nikita to Virginia and spent a lot of effort to adapt children to a new life, as well as the treatment of advanced childhood diseases.

- In the orphanage, no one knew that Ani had vision problems. She didn’t even have points, ”says Steve. - One eye saw almost nothing. We carried her to the famous medical center, and, fortunately, the doctors managed to save his eyes.

Now Anya is graduating from school and is going to enter the courses of nurses. Nikita prefers the humanities, especially the history of the United States. In this subject, he is one of the best in his class.

The correspondent of Siberia. Real went to the village of Loshchinka (Krasnoyarsk Territory) to find out why all the inhabitants of this depressed rural settlement unanimously voted for Vladimir Putin in the presidential election. There has long been no store, no kindergarten, no school in the hollow. Vodokachka burned down, the only lantern on the main street is broken. Of the 25 adult residents, only three work. The rest are pensioners or unemployed. Nevertheless, people living in such conditions are the correct electorate of the current president. The supporters of Putin from the hollow themselves tried to explain this paradox:

And what in our hollow everything is like this-so in the Kremlin they don’t know that we are somewhere on the map

- I'm for Putin. Let it command, ”says Andrei Egorov. - And who else? And what the use of Grudinin, for example, to vote, he would not do anything. But Putin commands. What to sort them out? And that everything in our hollow is like this-so in the Kremlin they don’t know that we are somewhere on the map.

“I don’t know why everything is for Putin.” Well, for whom was it necessary to vote at all? I, too, of course, for Putin. Because ... Well, what to vote for this Sobchak, for example? What will she do? Putin is necessary, let Putin. He, as to say, knows the world around and all this. Well, let him rules, ”thinks Valentina Egorova, who worked on the voting day at the polling station.

Documentary reconstruction of one of the worst episodes of Russian history of the twentieth century, a symbol of meaningless cruelty of the Gulag system. In just a few weeks of May-June 1933, five thousand special migrants died on the island in the middle of the Ob. Many of them became victims of cannibalism. Since then, the inhabitants of the Narymsky Territory have called this place "island of death" or "a island of a nobility". On the barges under the escort, six thousand people were delivered here, arrested on the streets of Moscow, Leningrad and other cities only because they did not have a passport with them.

"Salnikov Kuzma Antonovich, born in 1911, from Novokuznetsk, worked at the mine, was married, had two children. Once he went to Novosibirsk, went to the central market. At that time, the market was surrounded, arrested and arrested those who did not have documents with themselves. They, including women and children, were loaded to the barge and did not take the Ostrov. There were hunger. "

"Once we also visited the old woman from death. She was taken by a stage. We had a hallway, a room and two bedrooms in our hut. The woman was led to the far room for the night, and I saw that the old woman was cut off the caviar on her feet. She answered my question:" It was cut off and roasted it. "All the pulp was cut off. The woman wrapped them with rags.

(From the memoirs of the Siberian old -timers recorded by the expedition of the Memorial society)

The crime of the GPU could remain unsolved - who will believe the stories of the peasants? - If it were not for the investigation, which, on his own initiative, was conducted by Vasily Velichko , the instructor of the Narymsky District Committee of the Party. In July 1933, in hot pursuit, he interviewed dozens of people related to organizing the death camp on the island near the village of Nazino, and also recorded the testimony of local residents. Then Velichko printed a report in triplicate, which he sent: to Moscow - Stalin, to Novosibirsk - Robert Ahehe, in Narym - the secretary of the district committee. And then for six months he disappeared in the taiga.

The story of Maria Butina, graduates of the University of Altai, arrested this summer in the United States on suspicion of "conspiratorial activity in Russia's favor." Maria gained relatively wide fame in the narrow circles of young politicians several years ago, when she headed the Interregional Movement "Right to Weapon". This "weapons" campaign brought Butin closer to people of various political views - from liberals to nationalists. The energetic and ambitious girl in her native Barnaul was crowded, she sought to participate in big politics, but in her way an obstacle arose in the form of American justice.

However, people who know Maria believe that she will be able to find a way out of the situation and still show herself:

“Masha is a very purposeful person, who knows what she wants,” says Sergey Mamaev , a former deputy of the Barnaul City Duma, who studied with Butina at the School of Real Policy. - Therefore, I do not exclude that this arrest in the United States, Maria, when it turns out to be free, will be able to use it to the fullest. Perhaps after the release she will be in the State Duma, and there - who knows ...

Maria Motuznaya, another girl from Altai, who found herself in the top of Russian news this summer. In August, Siberia. Reals was the first to tell that the pictures published on social networks are judged by two articles: "Violation of the right to freedom of conscience and religion" and "arousal of hatred or enmity." On one of the pictures that formed the basis of the criminal case, smoking nuns were depicted with the signature: “Come on faster, while there is no God”; There were also memes with Patriarch Kirill and a photograph of the procession along the dirty road, accompanied by a comment: "Two main troubles of Russia."

In an interview with Siberia. Realii, Maria Motuznaya assured that she had no intention of monetizing the situation of the “victim of the 282nd article”:

“Everyone is saying that I“ Haipan ”, but I want to scream at these people,” said Maria. “Because I didn’t want this, and I don’t get high from that.” After all, they also write to me, but in my situation it is additional stress. Sometimes in the evenings I begin to cry from nervous exhaustion. I will not extract any benefits, because in principle I do not support this.

Nevertheless, this year, the motorcycle left Russia to Kyiv, and recently, with the support of its "followers" on Twitter, raised money for a "ticket to Europe".

The really simple story of the father and son from Tomsk who made a car racing around Europe on a small "Oka". In three weeks, Alexander and Dmitry Vergeics drove 14 countries, saw Nice, Madrid, Milan, Berlin, Paris, Prague and other European cities. All this time, the Siberians practically did not leave their “Oka”, which served them with a means of movement during the day, and at night - a capsule hotel.

“Of course, in Europe, our car was very distinguished from the total mass,” recalls Alexander Verheik . - But there was one special case. In Monaco, we suddenly found ourselves in the stream of supercars. Bright red Ferrari and Lotus surrounded our zhuzh, like a herd of purebred stallions. If she could feel something, she would probably be at a loss and was frightened. But drivers reacted very positively to our beauty - they photographed us and expressed their admiration.

Instagram-diarrhea, who was led by Dmitry Verheik, full of the enthusiasm of the discoverer during the trip. A view of the world from a tiny car is a completely different angle that a tourist trip cannot give: a plane - a transfer - hotel. Thanks to road meetings with compatriots, the father and son learned that they were not the coolest extremes from Russia. It turned out that one Russian company got to the Oka to Iceland, and the other rolled around Africa at the Six.

Nevertheless, hundreds of Instagram users from Siberia followed the European tour of Oka with interest.

Link in Narym. Escape. Many day wandering in the taiga. New arrest. The death sentence, replaced by a ten -year term in Norillag, behind the polar circle. This is just one episode from the life of Euphrosinya Kersnovskaya, who has passed through all the horrors of the twentieth century and left the memories of the experienced - 2000 pages of the text and 700 drawings.

Kersnovskaya’s book “How much a person costs” - a bright and unforgettable story about the fate of a person resisting the Gulag system - translated into many European languages. And in October of this year, the Moscow crew went to the Siberian taiga to go through the Euphrosinya Kersnovskaya route, who wandered in the Narymsky Territory in 1942 without food and documents.

“I read something myself, something Euphrosyne Antonovna told me personally,” said Daria Chapkovskaya , The author of the script for the film "Escape". - Everything was interesting, but it was the moment of escape that captured the most. These scenes immediately developed in the head as a trailer for the film. So a dream appeared. No, do not make a film, but go through the same route. And even if I realized that I would do it partially by car, partially in good equipment, and not half -starved, but I still wanted to know what Euphrosyne experienced then.

In the spring of 2019, the "Escape" will be completed, the premiere of the film will be held on one of the federal television channels.

Nina Traps, 73-year-old pensioners from Tyumen, did not want an employee of the Investigative Committee to search in her apartment. She allegedly told the investigator Sergei Kolesnikov: "Leave it, or I’ll cut off the head." The investigator, a young man of twenty -four years old, took the threat of a pensioner seriously and achieved the initiation of a criminal case under the article "Threat or violent actions in connection with the administration of justice or the administration of a preliminary investigation." Since Nina Trappsh ignored the summons from the police and was not at the court hearings, the district court decided to elect a preventive measure for a pensioner in the form of detention. Nina Fedorovna was detained on the street and taken to a pre -trial detention center.

You are a particularly dangerous criminal, you threaten everyone. I say: what are you crazy, or something, have you gone?

“I went for bread, I’m walking along the street, a car drives up, they grab me, someone set me a bandwagon, I fell,” Nina Traps said in an interview with Siberia. Realiyam. - They say that now you will go to the police, you are put on the wanted list. You are a particularly dangerous criminal, you threaten everyone. I say: what are you crazy, or something, have you gone? I can’t get up, I resist, they swept the asphalt with my body. I was dragged by the hands and feet in the car.

Nina Traps turned out to be the oldest among the prisoners of the Tyumen pre -trial detention center. According to her, the employees of the insulator expressed her sympathy for her, but they could not do anything, and the institution itself reminded the pensioner’s horror or concentration camp. The result of her two -month ordeals was the verdict of the Kalinin district court, who sentenced the pensioner to a fine of 30,000 rubles. However, taking into account the time spent in the pre -trial detention center, Nina Trape was released from the fine of the fine.

The writer and journalist Ivan Tolstoy told the story of the Tomsk athlete Pyotr Patrushev, who in the summer of 1962, without any special equipment, managed to swim from the Soviet resort Batumi to Turkey, the only country at that time - a member of NATO on the Black Sea coast. The history of this escape entered the textbooks of all intelligence of the world. About Patrushev, the film The Who Swam from Russia was shot ("The man who sailed from Russia"). In the USSR, swimmers were sentenced in absentia to the death penalty, but it turned out that Pyotr Patrushev survived the Soviet Union and, after rehabilitation in the nineties, visited his homeland several times, and in addition, wrote a book of memoirs "sentenced to execution."

I felt the fire of another wine in the blood. It aggravated feelings and poured tone into the muscles

“ I felt the fire of another wine in the blood. It aggravated feelings and poured a tone into the muscles. The sea rhythmically swayed the body when I moved forward. My heart caused the only word:“ Turkey ... Turkey ... Turkey ... Joy, so sudden and so unusual recently embraced me. I did it! I ran away! The palms crashed into the water, the body moved by flippers glided through the water almost without effort. "

Peter Patrushev, "sentenced to death."

Such a variety of stories about people and circumstances in which they found themselves, especially interested our readers in 2018. We value your attention and trust. We will be happy with any feedback with you in the new year: write to us, offer your topics and stories, share your problems.

We try to talk about the life of Siberia objectively and comprehensively, providing the word and the opportunity to speak out of the most diverse heroes of our stories. This is not just the name of the site - "Siberia. Realities" . We really talk about the real life of the region, such as it really is today. And we really hope that in 2019, life in Siberia will change only for the better. Happy New Year!)