Waltz and tanks

Border Belgorod tries up life on the front line - however, he himself cannot believe it in any way

Belgorod today is a city receiving thousands of Russian refugees from the border city of Shebekino, a new Tavolzhanka, Murom, Zhuravlevka, Belyanka and others. People who fled from under the shelling are tormented by questions-whether their apartments were burnt out, whether their looters were robbed, whether the remaining neighbors are alive, which became with dogs and cats left, cows and pigs.

During the year of special military operation, many Belgorodians are already accustomed to the work of air defense in the sky. Car alarms are triggered from constant explosions, walls are shuddered in the houses, and fragments fall from the sky. On the streets there are many military, the boards of ads are full of advertising service under a contract, on the walls of high -rise buildings - signs leading to shelters in the basements. Meanwhile, in the city, like the summer before last, Friday parties take place, a waltz dance on the embankment of a couple. The Belgorodians continue to live, as if before - but the Shebekins do not understand this after the experience. Reporting "New" from summer Belgorod.

"Yes, this TV is shrugged!"

I am walking past the monument "Chernobyl 1986 - Belgorodians, participants in the elimination of the consequences of nuclear disasters and accidents."

I go past the porches, on the walls of which there are indicators to the shelters. From the trunk of a parked car, the guy unloads the canister of water. Lame on one leg and swearing, brings them to one of these shelters - the basement of a residential building.

I pass next to the veranda of the restaurant, where the company of guys and girls clinks Aoperols.

I go through the registry office. One of the guests at the wedding, a tall man, is trying to open a bottle of champagne. The traffic jam flies under the feet. Champagne beats with a fountain. A man is wet, laughs.

While I go - in the sky it bursts a couple of times a couple of times. The air defense works. This is incomparably neither with the most loud firewood, nor with any salute by sound. This is not confused with anything.

Belgorod center. Lenin Park. Here, in the October cultural center, where concerts and exhibitions are usually held, one of the points of issuing humanitarian aid. A multi -colored musical steam locomotive drives up to the entrance, does not sing: “... and then the clouds will suddenly pour suddenly” - the baby and his mother are waving from the last trailer. Two girls laugh at the counter with lemonades and coffee, take a mochito for themselves and fall on the bench nearby. They are tightened with vapes. “Here people with black packages. There are people with black bags, ”one of the girls laughs.

And around really dozens of people with black bags. Not only in the park, throughout the city. These are refugees from the Belgorod region, and in black packages they have a humanitarian. Towels, gaskets, brushes, pastes.

Grandmother in slippers and a burgundy sundress in a flower slowly rearranges her legs. Suitable to the window of issuance. Takes a warm-out pie and a glass of tea from the hands of a sales guy. Carefully extends charging and a tiny button phone in his window:

- Son, I apologize. We will stand here for a long time, can I charge you?

The long line lined up under the tent with congratulations: "Happy Great Victory Day, Belgorod!" A grandfather with a boy leave the door of the October building, a transparent bucket in his hands, in his hands, in it - toilet paper, packs of wet napkins and a toothbrush. They sit nearby. Grandfather smokes. A woman with two bags sits on our bench - a pack of Rollton falls from one under the feet. She leans behind her - and does not withstand. Tears themselves break out:

“I would have some slippers, but they didn’t find anything, these fell apart,” she shows her boots, in some places they are wiped to socks. - Well, what else do I need? Once - T -shirt, two - panties, three pants. Smuses would only ... chemistry ( washing powder in the set. - Ed. ) I will give my granddaughter. What do I need? I don't need anything anymore. I'm from a tavolzhanka. Where the tanks in the yard stood. My husband died three years ago, I left my house. I don’t know if our house is still or not, - Nadia, her name is Nadia, so cries that she often has to sigh and take her breath. - We thought we would return the first day. Yesterday, the video was watched on the Internet: right along our street, the technique was walking. I only saw the wall of our house, I didn’t see further ... Something I broke out, ”Nadia covers her face.

- Imagine, how is it - to leave the house? All your life to work on this house. Then prove that he stood there. We have three hundred meters to the border, we lived calmly, the ravine we had there were six meters wide, wire. We did not think that this could be.

Grandfather and grandson are sitting next to us silently. The boy eats a waffle horn with chocolate ice cream.

Then an elderly lady in a red jacket and a flirty straw hat with a bow come up to us. She also has a waffle horn in her hands. He asks:

- Sorry, what kind of queue is this?

- To receive humanitarian assistance. Refugees. Shebekino, Tavolzhanka. Where they are bombing, - Nadia explains with tears in his voice.

- I know that. I didn’t even think that they could be here, ”the lady is surprised,“ I myself from Kharkov, from Ukraine. ”

This information does not surprise anyone. Nadia continues:

- I don’t know if our house is intact ... or tomorrow they will bomb. Maybe there is nothing to bomb.

- Are you sho? - the lady in the hat is surprised, - they have already gone. I watch the TV: everything is already normal there ...

Then the grandfather explodes next to us: “Yes, this TV is shrugging! Look more! Beat "grades."

Grandfather's name is Pavel Sergeevich. He is from Shebekin.

“But I went like this-through Volchansk, through Shebekino, yes,” the lady with ice cream recalls and leaves scaredly.

- I built a school in a tavolzhanka. There is no school, ”says the man standing behind us. - The brother calls in the morning, says: so they beat the Grads tonight. That's what remains - they finish it off. You see, a man goes blue, worked on an ambulance, they broke an ambulance, all the cars were beaten. A shell in the garden fell to me.

“I ticked like that ...” recalls Pavel Sergeyevich. - Grandma calls me from Belgorod: "Take pillows with you from your house." I jumped out, but I can’t throw them into the car - it jumps. I throw, look - it burns there, it burns there. Everything, I think, Tikay! I closed the apartment - I did not close ... I don't know! My neighbor, 84 years old, calls, says: “I sat, counted shells. Thirteen shells. And everyone is flying to you for the house. ”

Then Nadia suddenly says: "They do not believe us." This is about Belgorod.

“They don't believe.” They go, have fun, drink beer, ”Pavel Sergeyevich confirms. - One is sitting on the bus: “Oh, how cool, the Shabekins are“ humanitarian ”.” Yes, I do not need your "humanitarian"! How to live when you go to bed and think, but will you wake up or not?

“Go try it,” Nadia almost screams. - At least once I hear how this shell whistles over your ear!

"Is it dangerous, probably, to stay in Belgorod?"

From the telegram channel "Help Shebekino No. 1"

• "Good evening. Grandmother from Shebekin, 97 years old, disabled person of the 1st group, is very necessary for a controversial mattress, maybe someone has help, please. ”

• “Hello, help me, please, maybe there is a saucepan, a small pan, we live with a disabled husband in BSTU Shukhov, we will be happy with any help.”

• “Hello, you need help! 57 years. From Shebekin. I registered in the PVR, in anticipation of some definition with housing. The red cross does not give help, since there is no benefit. There is another year before retirement. There is no income. There was work in Shebekin, now there is no her. There are no funds at all. There is no way to get anything. I have a cat. There is no tray, carrying, food in the PVR. Dali 4 diapers and a cat’s paper box, 4 bags of liquid food “Viskas”. We need carrying and tray, we need food. Help, please. "

These are only a few of the thousand requests for help in the telegram channel “Help of Shebekino No. 1”. In response there, hundreds of offers are published there: live in the house for free, take children's things in good condition for free, place vacancies, which people who have lost both the house and earnings are now especially needed.

On the basis of the educational and sports complex of Svetlana Khorkina is the largest point of temporary placement of Belgorod. Here, hundreds of people are placed in the huge gym. Those who have no one to go to. Those who cannot take care of themselves. Lonely old people.

The steps of the center have a baby stroller. On the seat lies a note: “The stroller is good !!! Who needs it - take it. ” Here is a board of ads. All is glued with leaflets with suggestions about work:

• "We invite utility workers to work in the field in the area of ​​the village of Nikolskoye."

• "Gazprom is required in the dining room - a dishwasher, a cleaning lady."

• “The Municipal Budgetary Institution“ Belgorblaglagiya Management ”invites to permanent work in the city of Belgorod: cleaners of territories, movers, road workers.”

Inside, on the ground floor of the building, there are registration tables, stance of information about benefits and relocation. At one of the tables, a woman with a completely tied hand sits - closer to the shoulder through the bandage, a bloody spot is visible.

Outside, next to the building, there is a bus. A fragile beautiful girl holds onto the ajar door ajar. She has thin hands, legs, she smiles broadly, but barely stands. He asks to support her arm until her husband returns: "I have not a stick, nothing, all with one hand, I'm afraid, I will fall." Vetch. Vika says that she has disability: one side of the body works poorly. She slowly says, trying to clearly pronounce the words. She lived in a new Tavolzhanka all her life:

- And now we are being relocated to Old Oskol. Where they settle - they will settle there. Oh, Lord, scary. I am afraid in some homeless person will settle-I will die at all-Vika is very nervous, he says very confusedly.

- I was at home alone. I went to the window, I have documents there. They started to shell - the glass all sprinkled on me. The wheelchair was not taken away, they left there, I go, but the left hand does not work at all.

I collected bags. I say: I'm ticking. And I don’t know where to tick. Girl's girlfriend is generally pregnant now. You can imagine, triple! And where? It is dangerous, probably, to stay in Belgorod, right? Well, where to tick? ..

Vika smiles all the time, but frowns when he begins to remember. He tightly squeezes my hand with his little palm. Speaks about his favorite dog:

- A dog, my dog, lived with me for six years. She is so true ... I am worried about her. Issued. But what to do ... You know, I sat the seedlings with one hand, there was nothing yet, it was quiet. I look: ducks on the eggs are sitting. Then they began to shoot. We left, returned for three days later - ducks with ducklings are already swimming in the lake. Do you imagine? Life is still going on. There is life.

"Why is it so painful, mom?"

A girl with a backpack behind her shoulders puts two filled baskets with shampoos, cotton pads, and machines on the box office in Pyaterochka. The saleswoman at the cash desk looks at her a little questioningly, smiles: "Are you not Shebekin residents?"

“Shebekin residents,” the girl replies, “I want to take it to the hostel.”

“Mmm,” the woman holds out, breaking through the goods. - All the Shebekins, Shebekins. I still think: it is easier for us to live ... every day will lupis.

- But do they lupis? Compared to what is there, the girl exclaims.

Near the Victory Park. Two grandmothers sell cherries, yellow with pink barrels. On the shore of the river, the grandfather is fishing. Behind him - granddaughters, observe the float. Sovereigns are also observed. They also hid and carefully look somewhere at the water. I stop, look at the river. Behind me on a bench, a guy in military uniform and an elderly woman. Skinny, in a lilac jacket, holds it a little by the arm. It seems to me that this is his mother. He looks under his feet.

“If they mobilize again ... You see, I don’t want to ... I don’t want to,” he speaks very monotonously, without raising his eyes. - It seems to me that I don’t want anything at all.

The woman squeezes the sleeve of his jacket.

In a few days that I spent in the city, all the conversations around - about a special operation. True, I have never heard this word here. Everyone calls it differently.

Near the Sports Center "Cosmos", where the item of issuing humanitarian aid is also located - posters with portraits.

• “Our fellow countryman is Lieutenant Vladislav Vitalievich Mikhailichenko 06/02/1999 - 10/22/2022. He was awarded the Order of Courage (posthumously) ”;

• “Our fellow countryman is Private Vladislav Vladimirovich Zhavoronkov 11/21/2000 - 03/13/2022. He was awarded the Order of Courage (posthumously). "

Nearby on a bench is a woman, she has a small hat and the same small handbag in her hands, she is waiting for a daughter from the turn, shows somewhere to the entrance: “Here is a woman in green, she is from a new Tollzhanka. She said: we look out of the house, and we have the military under the windows. They say: "Faster leave." They jumped into the car and all took nothing at all ... The daughter is forever with the phone. Tuda-fuckers. I tell her something, she does not hear me at all. Let's go eat, she is “now”. I say: calm down, otherwise the pressure bangs. Of course, worries. Tells me:

“Why is it so painful, mom? Why is it so painful? " The cat Maruska remained. She loves her very much, worries her scary. So far, it seems that the house was indestructible, but what will happen next ... We look where it gets there - it seems like it is different. For so many years it was all rebuilt. And how here they are in Ukraine, isn't it, or what? They are the same. Unhappy people. "