Poverty rebelled from the ashes

Villages in the Kurgan region burned out due to changes in the climate, which has become resonant with the regime of rigid saving local budgets

From the moment of destructive fires in the Kurgan region, almost a month has passed. On May 7, 2023, without exaggeration, it became a black date for the region: in just a few hours more than 20 people died in the fire. The outskirts of the regional center - the villages of Smolino, Kamchikha and dozens of country cooperatives - burned out almost to zero, leaving several hundred families without housing and livelihood. It was possible to overcome the fire element only after the visit of the Minister of Emergencies to the Kurgan - with the help of aviation and the introduction of a state of emergency. Now, the fireworks were faced with a new misfortune: the sections on which their houses stood, they obviously will lose.

From scratch

In the suburbs of Kurgan, the village of Smolino, one of the most affected areas of the city, there are clearing blockages. Many days after fires, despite the established rainy weather, the ruins continued to smoke. Immediately in some areas, the mud of special equipment kneaded. The rain, blackened, melted car frames on broken roads and smoking ruins - in some places this picture is indistinguishable from personnel from the zone of the own.

Here - in the surviving garages, in cars and just in polyethylene tents - Pogorelians spend days and nights. And the point is not that they have nowhere to go. The city administration placed victims in Kurgan schools and children's health camps, but many are forced to return to the conflagration, fearing the looters. It would seem that you can steal on the ashes? However, the Kurgan poverty will find luxury in Peple.

In the very first days after the fire, according to the inhabitants of the village of Smolino, unknown people began to pull out the charred metal, rustling from the rains.

Moreover, it was done by both random homeless and whole organized groups. On the festive day of May 9, a video appeared on the Kurgan social networks about how the Kurganians on their own detained a group of people on a cargo Gazelle. Young gypsies took out metal from the territory of one of the burned SNT.

Alexander - dry, medium -sized grandfather in a dirty jacket (the only remaining) - also drops the metal into one large pile. These sheets is so -dismissed by fire are perhaps the only capital that the pensioner remained with the pensioner. Like many in the village, he lost the house, a car and, what is most sad, his garage-master. It was there that with the help of simple equipment - old machines, gas burners and a welding machine - Alexander earned for a modest life. I made cemetery fences, gates to order.

As early as May 8, the day after Smolino burned down, President Putin promised that "all the necessary assistance would be provided with Pogorelians." The president did not specify the volume of “necessary assistance”, but Alexander, for example, does not believe in advance that the amounts that the authorities will reimburse will be enough to restore.

QUOTE
- According to the law, how? Fifty thousand will they pay to us? Maybe one hundred? What will you do with this money? As soon as the fires began, the prices for wood jumped up immediately, what used to be built for 400-600 thousand, now it has already flown away for a million. And the iron? I’m working with metal, I know: the iron immediately jumped! These are also driving ... jackals! The latter is raked.

I have been living here for 40 years, and no matter how many times I tried to insure myself - every time they refused me. We have an allegedly flooded zone here, it is not subject to insurance. But through the fence a neighbor-in her city her own beauty salon-how much she managed to insure her. But now, due to the fact that the emergency mode has been announced, she, too, will not be given shisha. Force majeure! Non -insisted case.

There is no restoration

In a fire, Alexander lost documents. Well, like many. Only slightly naked from stress, he began the process of restoring them. The restoration of documents of Pogoreltsev is puzzled in the city administration. In particular, the mayor of Kurgan, Elena Sitnikova, during a meeting with the firecrackers, said that the mayor's office has difficulty collecting information about the total number of victims, and these data are extremely important for making payments.

To speed up the process, in places of accommodation, as well as in the village itself, the MFC mobile point was divided.

In the first days after the fire, the head of the city reassured the inhabitants as best. She explained that the promised payments of 300 and 500 thousand are not money for housing, but only measures to support the fire of fire. At a meeting with the residents of Smolin a few days after the fire, the official assured that the city hall had already decided to restore the village in the same place:

- It will be typical houses! On your land plots! At the moment, the city administration is already negotiating with the company developer, ”the head of the city reported.

Alexander grinned into his mustache. Two weeks later, it turned out that it was not in vain.

The administration decided: Smolino, located on the very convenient outskirts of the mound, to resettle, due to the fact that it is supposedly standing in the flood zone of the Tobol River. And residents will be allocated other areas, far from the city.

Smolinians do not want to go to the wilderness - from their houses to the center of the mound there were only about two kilometers. Rumors crawled that they were evicted not just like that: the earth would be given to an elite cottage village. Suspicions were reinforced by his statement by the deputy governor of the Kurgan region Vladimir Arkhipov, who blurted out at one of the meetings with residents:

"Smolino we will not give you!"

"If not for us, then to whom?" - asked the fire.

Climate

The question still remains unanswered how Smolino could burn, who is to blame for this.

Despite the fact that the name "Kurgan" literally means "grave hill", the city itself is located in the lowland, in the marshy flood of the Tobol River, which is why its southern suburbs were plentifully overgrown with reeds. With the increased droughts, the swamps began to make a rage.

A specialist working in the structures of the city Ministry of Emergencies told me under the guarantee of anonymity:

“The southern part of the city is, in fact, one large powder barrel. Bikfords cord ... If something lights up somewhere, everything flashes immediately! There used to be a swamp, they detained and took fire to the side, but now everything has dried. This is a climate! What to talk about if we have had a tornado since 2016? "

According to my interlocutor, so that the situation does not happen again, the municipal and regional authorities must pay serious attention to re -equipping and modernizing the fire fleet, create fire points in the villages, as well as return to Soviet practice to create aircraft guns and voluntary fire brigades. The current consequences of fires are caused by the reluctance of regional authorities to spend money on prevention.

“Take Zaozerny ( a large microdistrict in the north of Kurgan . - N. T. ),” says the Emchensnik. - There, ten years ago, they decided to build a fire department. And in 2015-2016, even it was completed, but the commission did not agree on acceptance: it was necessary to finish something at the expense of additional funds. And then our head of the Ministry of Emergencies Oleg Rozhkov was afraid of responsibility for the misuse of funds and refused to accept the building for the balance of the Ministry of Emergencies. As a result, the building finished by 95% was simply abandoned without protection.

Six months later, everything was looted there, and one of the largest areas of the city was left without a fire department. ”

The former head of the Ministry of Emergencies of the Kurgan region, however, still failed to evade liability: in August last year, a senior Kurgan official received 6 years in prison for abuse of powers when purchasing fire robotics.

“Today, only two tractors work on the grass in the mound, but they will come anywhere,” continues my interlocutor. - In 2020–2021, there were proposals for updating the technology for the pumping, for the construction of fire pierces, but the city leadership considered that these costs are not priority. At that time, the main funding went to programs for the construction of preschool institutions and the improvement of the city. Well, they put a fire program in a long box - never burned like that in history. And now - what improvement? "