"We seem to pay a quitter"

The life of the village of Mukhor Cherga, where every seventh is a participant in his

Mountain Altai is a small republic in Western Siberia, which everyone knows, but not everyone can find it on the map. It is associated with high mountains, blue rivers, centuries -old forests. The picture seems idyllic, and rarely someone thinks that life here is not at all like that.

However, like much in our country: it seems, but not.

On May 20, the network appeared on the Web of the inhabitants of the Altai village of Mukhor-Cherga to Vladimir Putin. People asked them to allow 1,500 hectares of land around the village, which are now in the administration of Tomsk State University. They explained that they want to graze cattle, but are deprived of such an opportunity. And they cited a serious argument: 14 out of 94 rural residents - participants in the hostilities in Ukraine.

“I am a veteran of a special military operation, by goodwill I defended the interests of the state. Why cannot representatives of the Altai Republic authorities solve our land problem? We cannot protect our rights and freedoms, - standing against the background of the memorial in the form of a large St. George tape reads a man of military uniform on a piece of paper. -All participants in a special military operation from Muhor Cherga, like the rest of the eight villages of our district, cannot enter any program to support the participants of his own, since we do not have land. So why were we fought and fighting? "

His words are picked up by an elderly woman in a red jacket: “The inhabitants of our little village all, without exception, help a special military operation collecting money, products, and medicines. Weaving camouflage networks. They sent two cars. "

The appeal ends with the assurance that the villagers, except for Putin, have no one to hope for.

A month earlier, a similar appeal-however, to the regional and district authorities- was recorded by the inhabitants of the fly-cherry who are directly in the war zone. Three men said that the head of the republic Andrei Turchak in September 2024 gave guarantees that the lands of the Tomsk State University would be allocated to the villagers, including for the construction of houses. “No matter how it would not have happened that upon returning to us there will be no land,” one of the military said.

The reaction to these appeals turned out to be ambiguous: the inhabitants managed to get an appointment with the Turchak, and he again promised to figure it out. But two months later, the villagers did not receive any land plots.

The Russian authorities and Vladimir Putin often talk about the participants as a “new elite”. Moreover, they are opposed to the old one: “You know, the word“ elite ”has largely discredited itself. Those who, having no merits to society, consider themselves some kind of caste with special rights. <...> I repeat, a genuine, a real elite - these are all who serve Russia, workers and warriors, reliable, proven, ”said Vladimir Putin in the message to the Federal Assembly in 2024.

Based on these words, the fly-cherga today was supposed to become an elite village. Think about: Moscow sent 0.95% to her 0.75% of residents . And the flyer-cherga is 14.8%, every seventh!

But along the way, something suggested that there was no elite village here. And in reality it turned out to be even worse: for local residents, it is not only about poverty, but also about lawlessness - the need to give the Latifundists most of what they will collect in the vicinity of the village.

This story is about the "new elite" and its realities.

"Supering, they die"

The asphalt road ends at a bend to the village - 15 kilometers. To the fly-cherge itself, she was also once laid out by asphalt, but for a long time she did not see the repair: the coating was erased and went to the pits.

However, you can drive.

On both sides, mountain chains are bordered by the road - covered with either forest or fine -trained meadows. A small rivulet has an abandoned cattle -breeding borrow.

Without reaching three kilometers, we meet a man on the road. He waves and asks to give a lift. The stocky and dark, with deep dark eyes - I easily recognize in him a person who read to Putin.

“Marat,” he appears, getting into the car.

For the rest of the road, the man is surprised that the journalists “arrived”: he says, he stopped understanding whether the Khurgins were needed for someone, or no longer. He asks to give up to a small, with your own hands, a sawmill, where, sitting on a log, begins to tell its story.

Why did Marat go to his, he still knows: not quite for the interests of the state, as it sounded in circulation.

- My wife was the first to gather at [***]. It was in April last year. We then got divorced, and she was offended, freaked out and went to the training. By profession, she is a paramedic - such people are needed for [***]. And we have three children and three foster girls. Where are they without a mother? I called her, I said: "Natasha, come back - I'm going for you." And right from the training, he took her, and he went to fight.

“In the head” of his ex -wife, says Marat, he “did not dig”. As if home, they lived without her, does not know.

- I did not even have a financial need. Only mother to return to children. And so he hit [***] and [surprised] simply, ”he says.

Marat was sent near Lisichansk, to the Lugansk region, as part of the volunteer battalion.

- It was even terrible even before the “over the tape” hit, but how he arrived there, fear did not go away at all. Young guys die and die stupidly.

By insignificance, without readiness ... They begin to shoot at us, and they just scatter in a panic - and mines. I served in the evacuation group, I then pulled them out of there - someone wounded, and whom and "two hundredth". And the drones ... Yes, they just break the psyche. I found out there hysteria, what panic is ...

Marat recalls one soldier, her daughter called all the time - a small, still schoolgirl.

- The call sign "Sava" was with him. And so he died, the body remained somewhere in the fields, and the daughter continued to call. We do not know what to answer with the whole company. Where is dad? On the assignment. Where is dad? He cannot speak yet. Where is dad? Where is my dad? .. - Marat interrupts and curses lingeringly to the side. - Even when the suppliers brought the products to us, asked: "Did you call today?" I called ... And it was very difficult to get Sava - the drones were controlled. And one night I got up and went into this field. He took it and brought it. So the whole company was happy, can you imagine? That Sava will send home at least the “two hundred”. And his daughter sobbed ... I could not believe it.

Marat was given the order of courage for the evacuation of the dead and sent in honor of this on vacation. The commander said that he may not return back.

- He says you sit, they say, at home before the end of the contract. And how the contract will end - go to the military registration and enlistment office. Only the commandants do not get ahead of time. I did so. He came to the military registration and enlistment office, and there they say: "We have no Marat Mundusov." Me: “How not? He fought to fight, he received the order, but was not on the lists? " They: "We all understand, but there are no data on you." Lost me .... Then they still began to look for, to request some papers-they found it. I myself then ...: I have two nephews fight, my brother won, my brother is fighting my son -in -law, but I seemed to be not on his, it turns out.

Of the 14 flyer-Chergins who went to a special operation, no one is killed and is not even seriously wounded. Marat explains this by the fact that the village prays to the spirits for them and helps with a humanitarian.

- We, consider, the whole village on [***], grandmothers sew camouflage nets, each with a pension - as much as they can - gives to a humanitarian, socks knit. One hundred percent all on [***]. Here each son, grandson, has three sons of one woman - and all on [***], he says.

Marat himself was thinking of returning to his, but the villagers were dissuaded.

- They said that I need more here. We have our own battles here. At the moment, the land has not been given to us. Just the head of the republic gave a word that he would solve the issue.

The Altai experimental economy of the Tomsk State University took lands around the flyer-Cherga 13 years ago. Formally - for grazing their livestock, with which TSU scientists carried out selection measures. But people say that most of the lands were never used by the university. At the same time, the villagers were banned on them.

- Here your horse grazes on their lands, from them a person comes to you and says: "Remove." They tell us: "Let your animals graze at your houses." And where are the houses to graze? And if you have many goals? They did not quite fairly began to work here, these guys who are sitting at the TSU steering wheel - Marat begins to get excited. - They, without talking with the locals, launched investors. So far we are sending one investor from here, on the other side another investor is already in. We created a group of quick response, began to defend our lands, even on the road we were on duty so that no one came to us. We just want to use this land ourselves - as it was before.

One of the investors who wanted to work on the lands of TSU was going to grow sheep to supply meat of the elite resort of Sberblack "Suffer". Another is milk. For rural residents, it remained incomprehensible why entrepreneurs agreed with the Tomsk State University, and not with them. People in the Altai wilderness think with categories not legal: “If we are born and live here, then this is our land.” And they are surprised that they have no right to the surroundings of the village.

- If we arrived and talked with us, talked, the gathering would have gathered: “Here, residents, we want to do this. We’ll take someone to work for you, ”we, maybe, have agreed, and then without our knowledge:“ Take it out of here, it’s not your business. ” And they climb, - Marat is indignant.

Dissatisfaction with investors is characteristic of many villages in Altai. Business comes here, enclosing the territories and thereby depriving local familiar life, and sometimes even evicating them, as it was with the very “cuff”.

The flyer-cherga in this sense is no exception.

-At some point, I was thinking of gathering the guys who returned with their own, and go to the Altai office of Tomsk University. Well, talk. Then he retreated: Esvaoshniki, when they gather, drink - you will not stop them anymore. The Altai people are drunk immediately by the war-warrior. We do not have any vitamin in the body-not like Russians. We do not sleep, do not talk conversations, but go right away. The very end of his thoughts was frightened, ”says Marat.

Mundusov himself now has neither land nor at home - after a divorce with his wife, he left her to live with children. The village council allowed him to settle on a cattle -breeding borrow. But he spends most of his time in Gorno-Altaysk, with a new, “unofficial” spouse.

- I'm high now. Before [***] one Marat was, after - completely different. I used to think how to make money. And now I do not need anything. I go up here at 5 in the morning - I'm going to the mountain. I'm sitting, the breeze is blowing, I look at the district. In Gorno-Altaysk, not so: as if straining some kind. As if something bad will happen now. Explosion, arrival, siren will conquer. I constantly feel it.

Finally, he says that upon his return he stopped watching the TV.

- There is not a word of truth: neither about [***], nothing. But now, probably, you can’t talk about this now, ”he suddenly concludes carefully.

"It is beneficial for someone that everything is delayed"

Muhor Cherga-three streets. Significant and darkened logs from time to time, among which only occasionally flickered “wealthy” - sheathed with siding. There is no mail, no pharmacy, no kindergarten. School - until the fourth grade, then children are taken to the worm - for three tens of kilometers: they live there in a boarding school from Monday to Friday, and parents take them only for the weekend.

All this is the local, oddly enough, suits. From my questions about how to do if someone here has a stroke or severe trauma, they shake melancholy: “Wait for an ambulance. It will not come quickly. ” No one says that the village needs doctors, teachers. They don’t even think even about the school bus, which would take the children to study and bring it back to the village every day. All conversations about this quickly switch to the problem with the ground.

It’s hard to comprehend it, but you can still. Flying Cherga lives a traditional way. Here they are used to conducting a subsidiary farm, collecting mushrooms, berries and a cedar cone. And the fact that the villagers are forbidden to go to the forest, of course, they are disturbing in the first place.

In addition, many have several dozen, and sometimes hundreds of cattle. He has nowhere to graze him now. Locals are still grazing - at their own risk. And in this regard, participation in their own even helps them.

The farmer Vyacheslav Ivanovich has a hundred cows, under a hundred horses and three hundred bones. This is his bread: once a year, buyers of meat come to the fly-chergu-Vyacheslav passes the animals to the Kazakhs, then the Russians-who will pay more. He has no other earnings, and his work.

But the fact that there was, Vyacheslav tried to deprive for a long time: the fact is that he lives and grazes cattle on the lands of the Altai experimental economy (AEH) of the Tomsk State University.

- I have been living in the parking lot since 2005. When I drove here, there was nothing Aekhovsky here, ”he says. We are sitting in Aile-a six-walled Altai house one and a half kilometers from Muhor Cherga. A dim light falls through the only small window. Home -made dumplings are boiled on a portable stove. - When Ahekh came, the director there was Zemirov. He allowed me to live here, ”the farmer continues. - He said that they will not fall in this place. And three years ago the director changed, and they immediately flooded me from here.

The Vyacheslav Ivanovich was filed in court: the Altai experimental farm demanded to free the parking lot from him.

-I come to the court in Gorno-Altaysk, the judge says to me: "Well, you live there illegally." I explain: “Legally - illegally, in your documents I do not understand. But they have no cattle on these lands - the parking lot will simply be empty! So let me live and fall my cattle. Do I have cattle? " No, they say, we must be evicted, - Vyacheslav Ivanovich beats himself with his palm on his knee. - That is, their policy is this: let everything be empty here, overgrown, the main thing is that the locals do not use the land.

In September 2022, when employees of the military enlistment offices with summons went to the houses of Russians (and Mukhor-Chergintsev), people from AEH came to the parking lot to Vyacheslav Ivanovich and demanded that he be cleaned. The farmer said that he would be carried away only forward.

Since then, this conflict has entered the stage, which is hard to call that sharp, what is sluggish. The farmers were not forcibly evicted, but regularly came to him and threatened that they would bring bailiffs. And this ceased only last year, when he mentioned in his hearts about his son, who was in his very first months.

- I shout to them: "Why is my son fighting if you come to expel me?" They: “Wow ... your son is fighting? Why didn't you say before? " And right away, their attitude has changed. Like, no, no-live, for God's sake. And I don’t understand what difference is-someone is fighting for me or is not fighting?

AEH offered Vyacheslav a lease of grass growing on the lands of the Tomsk State University. It is designed for 11 months.

- The conditions there are: 50% of the prepared grass I take myself, and 50% I give them. I guess that they will sell it to someone who holds cattle. Here: I will blame 100 bales, I must give them 50. Although these are my costs: my forces, my expenses for fuel and lubricants, my tools. Just because the grass on their land has grown. And they offer our other more steeply: 30%, they say, you can pick up yourself, and give it 70% to us. We seem to pay a quitter! - the farmer is indignant.

However, he agreed to the proposed conditions. It is worried, however, that they are temporary.

- 11 months will pass, and everything will begin, as I understand it. If the son will fight, maybe they will extend the rental, and they will not touch it. But it will not fight - they will evict, I understand it.

The son of Vyacheslav hit his as a contractor: he went to the military service, and then he decided to continue-just shortly before February 2022. “For the tape” left almost immediately, in March. It was possible to bring him home for a while only in November last year: for this, Vyacheslav himself had to go to Donetsk.

- I thought that I had not seen him for a long time. He gathered and went. I thought that maybe they would just give me a see. And the commander said: "No, well, since the father came - go on vacation." And they gave it to me for two weeks. He brought him here, did not load anything. I just wanted him to rest. I look at him, I talk - this is not the person who was before. It is not clear what will happen next. He is now to the end there, it turns out - no one will let him go. And the end-sting is not visible. I think that it is beneficial for someone that this lasts all for a long time.

Great interest

There is only one regular event in the rural club of Muhor Cherges. No, this is not a disco, not a circle of chess and not amateur performances. Every week, local women gather to weave camouflage networks.

On the day of my arrival, they did not weave: one of the main shooters, Aida Elekova, left to help relatives in the household in another village. It was possible to talk to her only briefly.

“From each salary, from each pension, our village takes off, and we purchase material for nets and humanitarian,” she says. - In the summer we weave summer nets, in winter - winter. It is very difficult. But for the day of work, one mesh is obtained. And stably every two weeks we send it to the guys to the front. Один раз наши, мухорчергинские, на СВО попросили машины прислать. А что делать? It is necessary, then it is necessary. Скинулись всем селом — все запасы выгребли, но купили УАЗик и «Ниву», мужики переоборудовали их, как парни просили, и отвезли туда — прямо к нашим.

Машины были подержанными и даже вместе, по словам Елековой, не стоили миллиона рублей. Но для села на 94 человека деньги все равно оказались серьезные.

Аида за СВО переживает не случайно: ее брат Оскар — один из вернувшихся. При этом воевать у него продолжают оба зятя.

— Лично для меня это был большой интерес! — восклицает он, услышав вопрос, зачем пошел на СВО. — Здесь же как: телефон открыл — [***] идет. Телевизор включил — [***] идет. А домашние еще говорят: «Да ты же старый, тебя не возьмут». Ну я специально заехал в военкомат, спрашиваю: «А чего надо-то, чтоб на [***] попасть?» Мне говорят: «Надо до 49 лет быть, но если ты свежий…» А мне 52 было, я вообще без сомнений сказал: «Да чего, давай — составляй документы».

Жена Оскара была в полном ужасе. Ругалась, но остановить его не смогла.

— Ну мне так интересно было! — продолжает бравировать он. — И обидно, что молодые пацаны воюют, а неужели я не смогу? Тем более что Леха, зять мой, самый первый пошел по [частичной] мобилизации, потом Ринат — второй зять — поддержал его. У соседки одного ребенка мобилизовали, а еще двое за ним ушли. И так вот у нас один за другим все потянулись. А я-то что? Я в жизни все повидал: лес распиливал, огородом занимался, скот выпасал, а вот на [***] еще не был! И пошел. Мы же все тут охотники: дело-то сельское. С детства обнулять умеем: ну косулю, волка — вот это все…

СВО, однако, оказалась страшнее, чем охота на зверя.

— Страх там тебя никогда не покидает. Все боятся. Этого не расскажешь, это нужно испытать самому.

Я был снайпером в штурмовом отряде. Брали Клещеевку. Нас только четверо вышло. Ну там просто ад какой-то был, — он резко сникает и задумывается. — Нет, не хочу я об этом говорить. Так бывает: если с парнями встречаюсь, которые там были, нам легко рассказывать: кто в каком … был, кто накатывался, кто откатывался. А с гражданскими не могу я так… Знаешь, могу сказать: хочется вернуться. Когда вот эта стрелкотня кругом, когда ты сам среди стрелкотни, то адреналин… Это ничем не… — Оскар начинает сильно сбиваться. — Вот как бы тебе объяснить? Адреналин там зашкаливает. И хочется этого чувства — когда прямо избытие… чтобы выжить. Раньше же на охоте вроде тоже стреляешь, обнуляешь. А вот после [***] даже интереса нету — не то… Да, это болезнь уже. Это болезнь. Кто там побывал, уже излечиться вряд ли смогут.

Сам Оскар говорит, что пока держится и не срывается обратно, потому что надо сначала решить земельную проблему.

— Я вообще хочу встретиться с Владимиром Путиным. Прям высказаться хочу. Чисто как ветеран. Сказать, почему так несправедливо? Почему наше правительство работает не для народа? Тот чиновник, что пониже, работает на того, что повыше. А на людей никто не работает — я ни одного такого не заметил. Мы бьемся в стену. У нас ветеранское село, считай, а простой вопрос с землей решить никто не может. А 14 человек воюет из Мухор-Черги.

На этом он просит выключить диктофон.

Прощаясь, Оскар опять веселеет. Рассказывает, что у его зятя после ухода на СВО родился ребенок. Girl. Сейчас ей три года. Оскар бодро называет ее «ребенком [***]» и замечает: «Она, считай, выросла без папы уже».

«Вот тут круг замыкается»

Вообще говоря, какие-никакие подвижки в земельном вопросе у жителей Мухор-Черги есть. Региональные власти сказали им, что просто так землю передать не могут — надо сначала создать сельхозкооператив. Покопавшись в юридической казуистике и пройдя семь кругов оформления документов, селяне его кое-как создали. Назвали, понятное дело, «СВОи».

Но теперь столкнулись с новым препятствием: кооперативу, доколь уж он сельскохозяйственный, нужна техника — как доказательство того, что селяне смогут обрабатывать землю. А на ее закупку нужно 5 миллионов рублей, которых у них, хоть вытряси все карманы, нет. В министерстве сельского хозяйства республики мухор-чергинцам сказали: возьмите кредит в фонде поддержки малого бизнеса.

— Мы сходили, а там говорят: если вам нужен кредит на 5 миллионов, то вы должны оставить залог — 10 миллионов. А у нас закладывать-то нечего. Что закладывать? At home? Чтоб и их отобрали? Транспорт у нас старенький — такой уже не берут. А земли нет. Вот тут круг опять замыкается, — вздыхает Аида Елекова.

На прощание она зачем-то замечает, что на СВО скоро может отправиться пятнадцатый житель Мухор-Черги.