"Our city is dying"

Employees of the bakery in the suburbs announced a hunger strike due to salary debts. A day later they were persuaded to disperse

In the dining room of the Sergius-Posad bakery, about 40 people. But they were going to eat here. They, on the contrary, hold a dry hunger strike. In such a radical way, employees achieve payments for February, March, April and May 2019.

The bakery belongs to the agricultural holding "Nastyusha". In August 2017, the owner of Nastyushi Igor Pinkevich was arrested on charges of particularly large fraud. In February 2018, the holding was declared bankrupt.

The delay in the salary became familiar for factory workers, even when Pinkevich was free. But that delay was “stable,” tells me the deputy director of the plant Mikhail Lyapushkin, a quiet man in a blue shirt with a short sleeve, similar to the chapter of Rosneft Igor Sechin. In the past two years, the delay has become “serious”.

“At the end of November [2018], Nastyusha put us before the fact: we don’t take any bread,” says Lyapushkin. - Since we worked for retail chains, and the entire implementation was on Nastyusha, the volume of release fell from 30 tons per month to eight. For five months we held on, but on May 6, 2019 we were turned off the gas, the 13th-the light, and the plant stopped.

In addition to retail chains, the Sergiev Posad plant delivered bread to all kindergartens and half of the district’s schools. Institutions had to urgently switch to manufacturer products from a neighboring region.

According to the employees, customers are unhappy with it: "Everyone felt that other bread is so -so."

From August to December 2018, more than half of the employees resigned from the plant. The remaining 165 enterprises owed a total of about 14 million rubles.

On May 20 and June 6, 2019, employees already held meetings and demanded payments, threatening with a hunger strike. The next took place on the morning of June 17. The witness of this meeting was the local journalist Andrei Trofimov. In the video that he recorded, Lyapushkin convinces his subordinates: the district administration and the regional government found a new investor who will transfer the monthly salary before the end of the working week. And the gas will be given as soon as the money falls to the supplier's account.

“Here Gazprom doesn’t take a step without money, and for some reason we must believe again,” the employees answered him and announced a hunger strike.

I come to the plant in the evening. Employees decorously sit on chairs around the perimeter of the dining room. The dining room is decorated with several dusty landscapes and a brand new poster "City - Plant, Places - Workers."

At first, employees of the plant react to a request for an interview with caution. They explain that they are simple people and do not want popularity, but they want the plant to work and be salary. But the word for the word, and after a few minutes, the outraged employees no longer need any questions - everything is connected to the conversation at once.

- I got a job in 2018, in May. And I received the first advance in August. You understand already, huh? - says the packer Zhenya, a tanned guy of thirty years. - Then: low salary. What is 20 thousand? About nothing. At the same time, three -month delays. What else to explain to you?

Baker Alexei, an angry man in the Manchester United T -shirt, has been working at the factory since 1994 with a break for the army. He believes that the problems began when the “non-Russian” ”settled on the plant (they did not endure delays and had a long time ago; the problems remained). According to the baker, only Vladimir Putin can help the plant.

“If Putin does not help, then there is no confidence in the authorities at all,” agrees Margarita, a technologist with 12 years of experience.

“In Sergiev Posad, all plants closed,” the woman adds. - It seems that we only need churches. Our city is dying, turns into the territory of the laurel.

- Orthodox Vatican! - with evil irony is inserted by Svetlana, a fourth -dough dough.

Olga Bugreeva, a technologist, at the factory for 20 years. Ilya Shurshalin, a repairman-repairman of the sixth category, at the factory for five years. Natalia, the yeast of the fourth category, at the factory for 12 years. Elizaveta Vladimirovna, head of the heat and technological service, at the factory 52 (fifty-two) years ... In total, 48 people on the list for a hunger strike.

I ask what they will do if the salary does not come before the end of the week.

- Take the hostages! Or blow the factory! -Employees laugh, immediately stopped and almost seriously ask not to write about it: suddenly something will light up at the plant, and it will come out that they seemed to warn about it.

“I believe that a hunger strike is a wrong decision, I do not see it in it,” Mikhail Lyapushkin tells me in his office. He has been working at the plant since 1987. 11 years, until the end of 2018, Lyapushkin was the director, and the workers continue to call him that. - Yes, it turns out that we promised [pay debt] several times, but did not know that all this was not so fast. We have never encountered this. And the patience of people ends. I understand this and therefore will stay overnight with everyone. This is my native factory.

Lyapushkin believes that the reason for the bankruptcy of Nastyushi is too low the price of bread. “Yes, there were large volumes, but there were no profit. Of course, I’m not a businessman, I am an engineer, but before the fare cost five cents, and bread - twenty. What is the ratio now? "

At 22.00, workers diverge in the corners of the dining room and sit down to play cards. Someone is already moving chairs and fitting to sleep on them. Half an hour later, Mikhail Lyapushkin comes to the dining room and extinguishes the light: "I have paid for my own, I must save."

PS

On the morning of June 18, the Investigative Committee of the Moscow Region said that a criminal case was instituted on non-payment of salaries to employees of the Sergiev Posad Bakers.

The local authorities took advantage of this opportunity to put pressure on the factory workers. The head of the district, Mikhail Tokarev, arrived at the plant. “He spoke rather aggressively, said that if the employees did not stop the hunger strike and the investor will“ break ”, then they will be to blame,” the activist of the revolutionary working party, Sergei Sokolov, who spent the night with the striking.

After a meeting with Tokarev, the workers agreed to curtail their action. Their rhetoric has changed somewhat.

“We were not crushed, this is our decision,” one of the starving told me by phone. “We parted and we will wait for the salary on Thursday, as we were promised.”