"I just want to live"

Residents of Kotlas defended the right to rally against the garbage dump in Shies.

The 60,000th Kotlas has not yet seen such a number of protesters-from 4 to 10 thousand people came to a rally against the construction of a landfill in Shies.

The site for the rally was unusual-a piece of the carriageway of the 70th anniversary of October, and the scene was mounted completely in the spirit of the Traditions of the Great October "-in the back of a truck decorated with a banner" Say there is no Moscow waste in the Russian North. " To top it off, the protesters also solemnly raised the flag of the USSR - under the banner of a non -existent state, they sought the truth that they did not find in the country in which they live.

You look at Kotlas - and do not condemn this aspiration into the past. The average salary here is 15-17 thousand rubles, the communal apartment is 10-11 thousand, electricity is three times more expensive than in neighboring areas. The river station is closed, the bridge connecting the two parts of the city is closed, the airport is barely glowing.

“We just want to live,” activist Anna Shekalova shouts from an impromptu scene. - Who gave the right to officials to decide for us - to live or die from oncology?

The level of cancer in the Arkhangelsk region is really one of the highest in the country. For 10 years, it grew by more than 40%. The main increase is given by Kotlas, neighboring Koryazhma, Severodvinsk, Plesetsk. An attempt to finally turn the region into a landfill, sending metropolitan waste to Shies, people perceive as a desire to finally put an end to their health. That is why Pomoria has been rebelled for a year now, and the word “Shies” has become a household name-the adults of the construction of the garbage plant recently broken under Kazan were called “Shies-2”.

Residents of Kotlas defended the right to a peaceful meeting in court-officials refused them three times: either under the pretext of a sports day, then because of the installation of a New Year tree, then due to the picket for healthy lifestyle. Activists went to court and got the right to rally.

- They ask me: “Why are you growling? After all, everything has already been decided, all the same, they will build a landfill. ” But not! Each of the officials works only for himself, for his own pocket. And we have a common goal - to defend our native land, ”says local blogger Dmitry Zavadsky, one of the main speakers of the rally.

Depressive Kotlas became one of the centers of protest this year. Previously, people holding on a few jobs expressed dissatisfaction only in kitchens and in lines. Shies made them stand in full growth. The feeling of brotherhood, community, long -forgotten, lost along with youth and gone into oblivion by a large country, returned to these streets, covered with snow knee -deep. It is easy to confuse it with nostalgia for the past, and therefore red banners appear here. But these are already completely different people, other thoughts.

“We want a real law in the country, we want police, courts and any other law enforcement agencies to protect our rights,” Vyacheslav Grigoryants demands from the stage.

Vyacheslav is a defendant in one of the criminal cases against Shiies defenders. He is accused of attacking the excavator of Kozlov on that winter night, when Kozlov with his bucket broke the warmth of activists and almost crippled a person. In relation to Kozlov himself, despite the statements of the victim who received the fractures of the ribs, the matter was not instituted.

How did not deal against the Chopovites who threw the woman into the ditch during a clash at the construction site, and against police officers, 8 hours without food, water and medicines who escorted the Arkhangelsk holy fool - a disabled group of the group II to the station, and against the contractor, who erected the building on the capital foundation - the hostel of the guards - in the midst of lands of the forest fund. Not those who cut down the cubic meters of forest under the construction site were found, although the cutting itself is recognized as illegal.

Everything that happens on ShiES station lost in the northern swamps is not only about and not so much to the ecology. There, people from the province, never interested in politics, become a political class. Because in their own fate they feel the state of the state. And these are not hipsters, not ITishniki, not PR managers, not a RARTIS.

These are people who have nothing, and therefore they have nothing to lose. And if the state does not stop the construction, the Russian rebellion - the same, Pushkin, merciless - will begin here.

The resolution of the Kotlas rally included the requirements to stop building a landfill on Shies, to ensure the restoration of the environment, prohibit the construction of garbage plants, the import of waste into the territory of the Arkhangelsk region, and also give a legal assessment from the Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and OMON.