How the most isolated front -line village of Donbass lives. HromadSke material

Novoaleksandrovka, perhaps the worst place for life in Ukraine. There is no gas, no electricity, no road. There is no road so that in bad weather, even the military cannot pass in the village. Despite all this, 10 people still have to live in Novoaleksandrovka, who, as if, as if a car of time had abandoned a hundred years ago.

The New Gazeta is published by the newly released front -line reporting of our colleagues from Ukrainian Hromadske - now, when talk about a possible new war is again discussing seriously .

“It is impossible to go there now. If you want, you can walk. I will give you a person to accompany you, ”says the military who is authorized to decide whether to let us into the village. We agreed on this trip with the local and the military for a month. The belief that we will get there during this time did not add.

“Yes, let them go, they will turn around after three hundred meters and go back,” the same military man says confidently.

We are going to the market in Popasnaya to buy shoes that will give us a chance to overcome the mud barrier. For 300 UAH ($ 10), I buy rubber boots four sizes smaller - so that they certainly do not stay in the mud.

Two and a half kilometers along a dirt road we go for an hour and a half.

Actually, the military had already made her dear, rolling through the forest and the field. But since this primer drives, mainly, heavy military equipment, it is impossible to drive along it, for example, in a passenger car, even in the warm season. And after the winter, when the snow melted, but the water has not yet dried up, the leg almost at every step grins in the mud along the ankle.

When I finally see a local resident, I am almost ready to hug him.

New chronology

- Good afternoon! We came to you here on foot, ”I tell him, as if running into sympathy.

- And I said that you will not be allowed! - the resident is indignant, as if he had just lost the dispute.

- Let them go! - I spread my hands.

- What [horseradish was allowed]?! He is perplexed.

“So, do not touch, ...! Go away ...! " - Shouts Vladimir Alekseevich - That's the name of the man - to his dog.

“She will not touch,” he assures, but for fidelity continues a preventive conversation. -I will touch! I touch, ... in the forehead [get]! "

The last argument persuades the dog to retreat, and she, plaintively whining, is hidden in a booth.

“Watch our beauty! Here people once lived. We left the war, ”Vladimir conducts a tour of the village of Vladimir. He walks between conditional houses, like the hero of the film "Dogville".

“There were sheds here. The hut is resident. The kitchen was. A lot! "

“Mark” is the result of a large fire that raged in Novoaleksandrovka on September 1, 2020.

“And we celebrated our birthday today,” the man suddenly admits, he is clearly impressive. - Svetlana. She is 13 years old! Well, 5 and 8 - how much will it be?! Damn a dozen! And I - 11. She is older than me! "

In the traditional system of chronology, Vladimir Alekseevich is 65 years old.

Without light, roads and prospects on the border with "Europe"

He shows to the path and says that he goes to Europe, and after a dramatic pause, he clarifies: “Well, we call Europe pupid!”

“If you go to the Popasny from the May Day highway, then the last three letters are knocked there. The “priest” remained from “Popasna”, ”the man laughs, but after a second he is gloomy.

- Ukraine is in a hurry to Europe, and I am in a real ass! Without light, without nothing. As you want, live! "

To call Ukraine controlled by Ukraine is a popular joke among residents of the occupied territories. Novoaleksandrovka has never been occupied. In 2014-2018, she was in the “gray zone”-that is, between the positions of the Ukrainian army and militants. In 2018, the Armed Forces of Ukraine took control of the village.

However, Novoaleksandrovka is now in isolation-a normal road does not lead to it. No transport goes here, a car shop does not drive. Since 2014, there is no electricity in the village.

There are restrictions on entry in some other front -line villages and towns. For example, in marsh, blue, sandy, old Aydar, Katerinovka, gold-4, Crimean, experienced. At the same time, the severity of the restrictions in different periods is different, and depends on the position of the command of the brigade, which are responsible for this territory.

The situation with a completely absent road is also not unique. In adverse weather, it is impossible to drive, say, to the Crimean, Lobachevo, Lopaskino.

But the long absence of electricity is a single situation. In addition to Novoaleksandrovka, there is the same problem in the experimental Donetsk region. More than 30 people live there without light.

The problems of Novoaleksandrovka are solved extremely slowly. Even the question of its administrative retortion of the village council, which is located in the controlled territory, was decided almost two years after the Ukrainian military occupied the village. Then officials promised to resolve the issue of energy supply. They promise now.

“If we are guaranteed that there will be a mode of silence in order to restore energy supply, then we will do everything. But so far they are not given such a guarantee, unfortunately, ”says Sergey Gaidai, the head of the Lugansk Regional State Administration.

The only problem is that it will definitely not be possible to restore the energy supply of Novoaleksandrovka - the village was fed from the occupied Pervomaisk. It is necessary to lay a new line, but this is not about this yet.

Waiting for the Red Cross

“We can go to Nikolai. Only he will swear obscenities, ”Vladimir warns us.

And 57-year-old Nikolai Nikolaevich does not deceive our expectations.

“We live in the summer like dogs. They bought meat - they ate until evening. They bought sausage - ate until evening. [Otherwise] In the morning we will give the dog, ”he describes his life.

He says that the Red Cross purchased solar panels and diesel generators for local residents. The first is enough only to charge the phone. And for the work of the latter you need fuel, which needs to not only be bought, but also brought in the canister from Popasnaya.

“We are trying to help them, but our help there is limited, because it is impossible to conduct economic activities there, taking into account the safety rules,” says Alexander Vlasenko, a press secretary of the International Red Cross Committee in Ukraine. - It is impossible to stimulate local entrepreneurship, to stimulate that people cultivate the land, because it endangering them. Therefore, we limit ourselves to the fact that we monthly transfer financial assistance to them to the card [each - separately]. Also in early December, we brought fuel, which people could heat their homes throughout the cold period. ”

All local residents mention the red cross. Unlike the local or central authorities, the existence of which, it seems, has long been forgotten here.

But the Ukrainian military from the locals goes for the fact that they allegedly do not let the Red Cross into the village.

“We are completely satisfied with our interaction with the military, we do not have any prohibitions from them, except for prohibitions that are related to safety and operate one or two days. Nobody limits us to work in this village. Only the weather limits, ”says Vlasenko.

Why do they stay?

Before the war, more than 100 people lived in Novoaleksandrovka. Now there are only ten left.

“I will not leave the village! Who will care for her?! Who will repair?! I am the builder myself. I will repair the roof, then I will glaze the windows. Recently there was [arrival] - repaired! ” - A little pathetic defends his right to live in a small homeland by Vladimir Alekseevich.

But later it voices another reason:

“I am not a bro-shot, so that no one-grade-bie-li. To be honest. Once I went to “Europe” for bread, and they plundered me! ”

Its main sources of income are a benefit from the Red Cross and the income from the sale of eggs to fellow villagers. A 65-year-old man does not receive a pension.

“I have a work book. I took confirmation, but there is the seal of “LPR” - “we do not recognize”. And I am 13 years of experience, ”Vladimir shrugs his hands.

He has three daughters, there are grandchildren and granddaughters. “I am a rich Pinocchio,” he characterizes himself. But he had not seen either daughters or grandchildren for a long time-he simply has no funds to go somewhere. They do not come, because "they heard shelling in the fourteenth year, enough!"

A similar story in the case of Nikolai Nikolaevich - his daughter lives in Kyiv, and his son in Batumi, in Georgia. He himself is not going to leave.

“Whoever didn’t ask me why you don’t leave here,” the man is indignant. -

But the question is rhetorical, ...! Will you give me your housing, change with me? How long can I sell my housing? Zero. And the apartment on the other side is 0.1. I don’t want to go with an outstretched hand. ”

“I was born here, I built the house to live well. So that the children-who are coming here. I'm not complaining about anything, I have everything. Give me only to live! " He adds.

The 72-year-old Galina Mikhailovna we find for the cutting of firewood in the courtyard of her house.

"Do you live alone?" - We ask her.

“With a cat! - the woman answers laughing, and adds quite seriously. “Still, a living soul!”

Unlike other residents of Novoaleksandrovka, she was not born here. She lived in Starobelsk, worked as an engineer at the factory. But more than 20 years ago I chose Novoaleksandrovka and moved there.

“Firstly, I like it. In the fresh air. I have an age already. Good here. My products, I have a garden, I do, work. Well, what to sit somewhere-I'm used to working, ”she explains calmly.

“The store is far away - seven kilometers. Men I ask for a bicycle to be brought [products]. And now you will not go. Yesterday I walked myself. The leg hurts [now]. There are seven kilometers - and back. I like to walk, but health does not allow, ”she sighs.

Galina Mikhailovna says that at her age it is too late to change something. But then he clarifies: if they gave things to take out things, then she would have seriously thought about moving. “And many would have agreed in the village,” the pensioner is sure.

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“We can still go to the [street] cosmic, to the woman of Ani. Where the Circus Space burned. Where the street flew into space, ”Vladimir does not get tired of sharply.

In September, on the street, according to Anna Filippovna, 14 houses burned down due to a strong fire. Three more burned earlier-because of shelling.

A 76-year-old woman says that Novoaleksandrovka is popularly called the old name-Rubashkino.

“Loven pan Rubashkin. Here, where we are standing, it was his territory. Mom said that the pan was good. He had five daughters. People who lived poorly always brought food for holidays. And the other pan lived where the state farm was then. They were offended by that. He occupied that territory, and this territory, this side, this side, ”she says.

A good pan, a bad pan, a “humanitarian” for a holiday, this side and that side, the absent road and electricity - over the past 100 years, not so much has changed here.

With the support of the MediaSet.