Karelian Madagascar. The history of the dying village

In the village of Panozero in the north of Karelia, people are cut off from the world of the river: it shares the village and the road leading to civilization. In the offseason, the residents of the panozer move to the other side on thin ice, products, firewood and mail are carried on sledges. In summer, they are melted on boats or on a ferry. There is no connection in the village, and the only point of connection to the Internet is near the school. The Radio correspondent spent three days in a dying village and found out how the locals live.

On the evening of December 28, 2018, when federal television channels said that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed amendments to the Law "On Communications", in the village of Panozero in the north of Karelia, 76-year-old Valentina Stepanova became ill. Her grandson Daniel called an ambulance. It was 8 o’clock in the evening. He was answered that there were no free cars. Daniil found the number of the 24 -hour hotline of the Ministry of Health of Karelia. I did not get through. He tried to recruit the head physician of the Kemsky district hospital. I did not get through. I called the ambulance again. Doctors agreed to meet a woman along the way, the call was recorded at 21:20. Daniil moved his grandmother across the river. Near the nearest settlement - the village of Krivoy threshold, 100 kilometers from the panozer where Valentina Stepanova lived, they were met by an ambulance team. On the way to the hospital, the woman died.

The grandson of Valentina Stepanova risked when the woman was driving in a car on thin ice: the village was cut off from civilization by the Kem River, the only road goes to the city. The ice crossing for cars is opened in January, after a couple of months it becomes pedestrian, then ferry. While ice is leaving, patients are transported by boat. Last year, the old ferry broke down, and a criminal case was opened on a ferryman who transported people.

There is no connection in the village. The connection point to Vifau is one for the entire village. In response to a phone call by home number, you can often hear the answer from local residents:

- I went to the Internet, call later.

Village

The village of Panozero is located in the north of Karelia five hundred kilometers from Petrozavodsk, somewhere halfway to Murmansk. The road is tolerable while you drive along the highway. By the ground leading to the village, in the offseason, you can only get on an SUV. But in winter at low temperatures it is perfect. Locals say: "Santa Claus made the way to us."

If the wind, you don’t have to shine at all, whistles so that the curtains are swaying

On the day of our arrival in the village is minus thirty degrees. The inhabitants of the panozer set us in the still unfinished hut. There are buckets with water on the bench, and a crust of ice on top. We are sitting in clothes. While we drown the stove, a local resident Raisa Gavrilova warms his hands. It has an orange scarf, a red quilted jacket and buckthorn.

“The son says, cling the windows for the winter, and come in the summer if you love your collective farm so much,” she says. - And in winter what to do? While these sheds are heated. And do not get up in the morning, it’s very cold. If the wind, you won’t stumble at all, whistles so that the curtains are swaying. After all, houses were built quickly. Is it so close to put at home - you go out on the porch and hold out your hand to your neighbor?

Raisa Gavrilova was born in the village of Panozero next to the village. The ancient Karelian village on the banks of the Kem River appeared at the beginning of the 16th century. The village survived the Russian-Swedish war and the invasion of Finnish soldiers. From the local church, built in honor of the Prophet Ilya, in 1933 they made a club. Instead of domes, they put a gable roof.

In the mid-1950s, a kilometer from the village for a developing timber industry industry, a village with the same name Panozero was built. In the village they built "Templar" - the same type of wooden houses for workers. They came here to work from Karelia, from other regions of Russia, Belarusian, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova, a club, a sawmill, had its own creative team.

Once they brought nudists. Imagine, nudists - to the village?!

The life of the village was designed for 40 years, until the forest will be cut down within the radius of thirty kilometers. After perestroika that the village was temporary, they forgot. And the locals were stuck behind the river. Raisa Gavrilova says that in the 1990s, tourists began to carry to an old village.

“Finns began to be taken to the village by buses,” says Raisa Gavrilova. - Once they brought nudists. Imagine, nudists - to the village?! Grandmas were stunned, grandfathers stared: "Oh-ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhi

But today, due to the crossing, tourists come to Panozero less and less. The village church stands with a triangular roof, but now worship is being held in it. Many houses in the village are empty. In a hut where local residents once gave birth to children, today they sell souvenirs. In the middle of the village for some reason there is a taxophone-they like to photograph the Finns. In the village neighboring village, only mail, two stores, a fire station, a boiler room, a bakery, a school in which 24 children are studying, and a kindergarten remained.

Crossing

All their lives, local residents move across the river on boats, ferry or on ice. In Soviet times, in winter the ice was specially increased with water, as a result, it had to be exposed in the spring. Now the crossing is enough for a couple of months. For most of the year, firewood, products, mail residents take from the other side. In winter on sledges, in the spring on boats. The paramedic arrives in the village once a week. The village periodically floods the village when the water located on the river is drained water. Even in winter it is necessary to rush water with ice.

Today in the village there is no work. Many residents start cattle - for themselves, for the soul: it is not profitable to deliver compound feed across the river, to sell to neighbors too. Still people collect cones, hand them over 35 rubles per kilogram. In the summer - they collect berries, but last year it was lean. They catch fish, but due to hydroelectric power plants it becomes smaller. Local authorities wanted to move people in a curved threshold - people did not agree.

We immediately said, do not even offer a crooked threshold, no one will go there, we better drown here

“Rural residents are asked about the city,” says Raisa Gavrilova. - Nobody wants to go there. And so, where can you go if they begin this great relocation here? But where? We will not go on the curve definitely. We immediately said, do not even offer a crooked threshold, no one will go there, we will better drown here. If Ira and I did not post a video on the Internet, they would quietly here. How they drive a herd between the fences and wrapped on a curve immediately, then nowhere. They would have drove quietly, and that’s it.

In November 2018, Raisa Gavrilova with the head of the local mail Irina Boltromyuk recorded several videos of Panozero - Island of Non -Men about Life in the village. They talked about the frequent disconnections of the electricity and the lack of communication, about how people deliver food on ice, showed a ferment and emergency houses. Journalists began to come to the village.

Internet

Icy wires converge to the local mail building. The landscape resembles the paintings of the contemporary artist Vasya Lozhkin. Behind the counter are newspapers, magazines, jam, pickles, canned food, rice, buckwheat, washing powders. The head of the local mail Irina Boltromyuk is sitting in a hat and a jacket. Two heaters that installed the day before heated the room to +9 degrees. She pours water into an electric kettle from an aluminum bidon, turns on it. A minute later the light goes out - the corks knocked out.

Irina's parents were distributed in Panozero in 1986. Irina was born here. She studied in Petrozavodsk for a commodity department, gave birth to a child, returned to the village, got a job. The child is brought up alone. In the offseason, he walks with sledges across the river for parcels and letters.

Four times a week, a whirlpool comes to Panozero. Irina shows a coupon for water: 26 rubles per hundred liters. At that time that we were in the village, the whirlpool broke down - people went to the river for water, with sleds or on cars with a trailer.

For elections in the fall of 2016, an Internet cable was held in the village. A box with a wifi-shield was hanged on a pillar near the school. He was nicknamed the "pillar of the disgrace of the Russian government." The Internet did not work right away, but after the elections and letters of Irina to Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

We feel stupid when we come to the city

To connect to Rostelekomovsky Vifau, you need to enter the mobile phone number, to which the password comes in the SMS message, it must be entered in five minutes. There is no mobile communications in the panozer, only home phones with three exits to the intercity. Therefore, the locals go to the pillar, enter the phone number of city relatives or acquaintances, then run home, call them from a home phone, write a password, return back and enter a password.

The Internet catches at school. Irina "goes to the Internet" with a blanket, if you need to download a movie or talk with friends. Someone is “crying out” from the car. The children squatted at the pillar until last year a local resident built a wooden booth. Inscriptions immediately appeared on the booth: "Internet Fighting", "Internet for the Electors".

“We feel stupid when we come to the city,” says Irina. - In the same clinic they ask: "Why are you not writing down the electronic queue?" We say: "Yes, now let's go, we’ll dress only and let's go record."

Irina has a black folder at home with publications about their village, with letters to the prosecutor’s office and answers from departments to her letters, in which she asks to improve the Internet, build a crossing, establish mobile communications in the village and digital television.

- They wrote that there would be no other Internet, and mobile communications at the discretion of mobile companies. There will be no digital television either. The crossing is for consideration by the administration of the Krivoporozhsky rural settlement. The letter was sent to them on November 20. Today, January 26, there was no answer, ”says Irina.

Bridge

The village of Panozero is attached to the Krivoporozhsky rural settlement. In a crooked threshold, the administration is in the entrance of the old five -story building on the ground floor. On the corner of the house of the tablet and the Karelian flag twisted from the wind.

The head of the settlement Yevgeny Semenov in this position since September 2018. I went to the post of chapter, because there were no people who wanted, and there was no other work in the village. In her office on the shelf there are pots with flowers, a pre -election poster with her portrait, nearby, behind green leaves - a portrait of Vladimir Putin will stick behind the pots.

I think that the government will not agree to invest a huge amount of money, especially in the automobile bridge

Semenova explained that this year electricity in the village was disconnected due to repairs on the lines, she promised to discuss the issue of mobile communications at the nearest deputy session, and it was unprofitable to build a bridge in a village with a small budget.

- Believe me, I would be glad of the bridge, this is such a load from my shoulders, not only from mine. But we all understand that the village is a few, for registration there are about three hundred people, in reality two times less, there are no large enterprises, all the buildings are all wooden, I don’t know how to stand. I think that the government will not agree to invest a huge amount of money, especially in the automobile bridge. Honestly, they do not help us with a ferry, ”Semenova sighs.

According to her, the ferry crossing in Soviet times belonged to the timber industry farm. After the collapse of the USSR, the administration allegedly served ferries written off from the military units at its own expense for years. I did not receive funding for servicing a ferry.

- The time has come when it all rotted. We have no new crossings, we have no documents to take it into property, ”says Semenova. -In August-September 2018, Rashid Nurgaliev, deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, came to us, the head of the Kemsky district administration, Yuri Razychik, asked him to provide a new one with documents so that we could officially take it into property. After that, the initiative residents of the village connected, this also contributed. At least they heard us, our Karelian power heard, and checks, surveys, and calls began here.

Checks and calls ended with the fact that somewhere in the Leningrad region the Ministry of Defense agreed to give the residents a crossing. Semenova promised that from May 2018 a new steam would walk across the river.

At least we were heard, our Karelian power heard, and checks, polls, and calls began here

More inspections and surveys ended in criminal case against the ferryman Andrei Grigoryev. Investigators from the transport department believe that Grigoryev transported six passengers and two cars "on a cable ferry that has not passed the annual examination, with a violation of the supply standards for rescue and fire funds ...". A criminal case was opened under Part 1 of Art. 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for the provision of services that do not meet safety requirements.

Ferryman

Until last year, people transported a drier over the river. The cost of crossing: 150 rubles per car and 30 per person in one direction. Sergey Sorokin with a partner worked on a ferry since 2010. But in May 2017, the partner died, and Sorokin called to the aid of a simple village man, tractor driver Andrei Grigoryev from the village of Panozero.

It turned out that the steam was unofficial, in disrepair

In September 2018, the transport police arrived in the village with the audit. Grigoryev was just transporting people - they were interrogated, then Grigoryev and Sorokin. They asked where the money that they received from people went? On December 12, investigators took Andrei to Kem for interrogation. On January 25, residents came a letter from which they learned about the criminal case.

Andrei Grigoriev in an absurd fur cap, with a large backpack behind us we met when he was walking for bread. He settled in a local boiler room, walks from the village to the village.

- Am I what to do with it? They gave me a job, I did it. It turned out that the ferry was unofficial, in an emergency state, ”he was indignant. - For which they started the case, I do not understand. Most likely, behind the steam.

The money that people paid, Grigoryev gave the master, Sergey Sorokin. Sorokin told us that his partner worked unofficially.

“I wrote an explanatory one four times,” he explains. - Immediately, most did not pay. And so the money went to gasoline, diesel fuel, oil, spare parts. Andrei took a salary from this money, they paid me [in the mupe]. In general, they wanted the best, but it turned out as always. We have this in Russia, you know it very well.

“But you are not responsible for your responsibility?”

- Certainly! Andrey is not at all here. I can say that I am in an orderly order, if necessary. Prison, as they say: "Sit down, do not be afraid." We did nothing illegal.

Locals say that Grigoriev was listed as a tractor driver. Such a practice, when for the summer the workers were transferred by order by order, was even under Elena Stepanova, she worked as a master in the municipalum of the village. Stepanova said that until September 2018, no one checked the ferry. The crossing was the property of the administration of the Krivoporozh settlement. It was served by the village communal workers. For ferry crossing even printed tickets.

- This happened for the first time. How did they throw her [crossing] from themselves, no one serves her, then they began to say that the ferry crossing is a draw. This was not. We always brought ice crossings, ”the woman recalls. - In August 2017, I quit, before that everything was legal. And in 2018, for some reason, they threw it off.

Shop

On Friday in the village of revival. Before lunch, a Gazelle stands next to the shops - the Kemsky Center for Social Services brought humanitarian aid to the village.

“There is no work here, almost everyone needs,” the girls in Gazelle explain. - We arrive twice a year. Depends on the crossing. In winter, when the crossing is officially open, then we can go. We accept things from the population, products and carry here, as well as to other remote settlements.

Lunch in a panoresis - bread time, residents go to the store. Two shops: No. 12 and No. 2. A rail is hanging next to the store on the tree: as in the old days, they beat on it to notify the inhabitants in case of fire.

For two or three days they buy goods for money, and then the record begins

Sellers in store No. 12 weigh the goods on old blue scales, which must be balanced with black weights. First count on a calculator, then on wooden accounts. When the offseason begins, they will not bring the goods to the store for several weeks, so they buy something for the future. As in any rural store, there is a notebook where debts are recorded.

- The salary is delayed, people are not enough. There are 17, there are 20 thousand debts each, ”explains Svetlana Pavlova, the seller of store No. 12. - We already know pensioners who gets about how much. So he comes, looks at what he did not have enough. After all, you must pay for electricity, for firewood. A private trader has a trailer one and a half thousand. Come on, come on our huts, there is more than one trailer. The pension is the fourth number, they pay debts from it, then for firewood, somewhere else there, for two or three days they buy for money, and then the record begins.

- How much does people have a pension?

-Someone has nine, someone has ten. I have fifteen, I am a rich man. The husband has twenty. He worked until 55 years on a timber truck, and then in the fire department, when the timber industry was closed, Pavlova adds.

Svetlana Pavlova began with trading, then worked as the director of the local club. When the club was closed, she got a job as a seller. The second seller Anastasia Mirenkova was born in the village. Her children study in Petrozavodsk. Anastasia does not want to leave the village, he says, if only they conducted the Internet and mobile communications to talk with children.

- We do not know anything. We are sitting here, not the Internet, nothing. There is one lies on TV, says Raisa Gavrilova.

“People come and are indignant:“ On the first channel, only about crests, nothing more, ”Pavlova adds.

- Yes. Syria and Donbass.

- Syria is now striking, they need cucumbers. And we do not need anything.

“It seems that we are returning back in the 90s,” Anastasia Mirenkova inserts. - Everything breaks, everything becomes even worse.

- On people in general ... they passed, if you say culturally, like gopniks. They squeezed everything and threw it off - live as you want. And, most importantly, they put us in reproach: "You have no enterprise." So you ruined everything, it was an enterprise! Are people to blame for this? - concludes Gavrilova.

On the way back from the panozer, at a gas station next to the St. Petersburg-Murmansk highway, the production "Eagle and Tails. Responsion" About Madagascar. The presenter was sincerely surprised that local residents through the African river were transported by ferry.

“It turned out that off-road not all the trials. All this time was some kind of road. But suddenly it ended,” the TV presenter was surprised, looking at the river. “In any developed country, there would be a bridge here. But Madagascar is poor and bridges-impermissible luxury.”

A hundred kilometers from the place where we watched this program, and 4000 kilometers from the city of Belu-Sur of Cyribikhin, where it was removed, the bridge is also an unacceptable luxury. However, it is obvious that not only the bridge is considered a luxury here.