“Are there no discounts for the victims?”

Be careful, this text contains obscenities. If this is unacceptable to you, do not read it.

— Will we get to Sadovod? - a tanned, gray-haired man in a light shirt asks, running into the bus.

“The Gardener is on fire, no one is allowed in there,” the driver sternly answers the passenger. - I'm not joking!

It is not surprising that the elderly passenger did not know about the fire in the shopping complex: federal channels once again ignored the news about attacks by Ukrainian drones. At night, drones attacked the south of Moscow and the near Moscow region: they crashed into several residential buildings and hit the Moscow Oil Refinery (MNPZ), the Mega Belaya Dacha shopping and entertainment center and the Sadovod shopping complex.

Several residents of the south-east of Moscow told Bereg that they woke up due to a “terrible roar”: the attacks began at about five in the morning. There were no reports of these attacks either in the media or in official sources early in the morning, so Bereg’s interlocutors independently tried to find out what was happening and exchanged photographs, videos and information in household chats.

“Someone wrote that [the Ukrainian Armed Forces] were supposedly ‘making adjustments’ based on photos and videos,” says a Muscovite living near the Kotelniki metro station. “But many people told them that this was nonsense and that this was our only way to know anything about the situation.”

The other interlocutors of “Bereg” did not notice anything. “I have impenetrable double-glazed windows, I don’t hear anything at all, and I don’t give a fuck about this whole situation,” says a resident of the Vykhino district honestly. “It doesn’t bother me at all: I watch football, play video games, drink beer and hang out with my son.”

The interlocutor from Lublin, neighboring Kotelniki, realized that something was wrong only when he looked outside. “[When I woke up, I decided] that it was very cloudy outside, but then I thought that the clouds were too dark and low,” explains the Muscovite. “I looked and there was a guard there.”

* * *

As soon as the bus left the Kuzminki metro station, the Bereg correspondent saw what the interlocutors were talking about. First, a black and blue column of billowing smoke appeared in the window above the Sadovod market, then a second, similar one - from the Moscow Oil Refinery. By this hour, only they continue to burn in the city; The fire at Mega Belaya Dacha was extinguished around noon. The smoke spreading across the sky really resembles a thundercloud.

The bus stops at the Belaya Dacha stop, closest to the Sadovod market, and the driver opens the doors. A pungent smell of burnt plastic wafts into the cabin. The sound of helicopters can be heard - they are delivering fire extinguishing agents from the air.

A few more stops and the Bereg correspondent finds himself in Kotelniki, near Moscow. Here is one of the apartment buildings that the drone crashed into. Helicopters are still buzzing in the sky, there is a heavy smell of burning in the air, and clouds of black smoke are visible. The entrances of the houses are decorated with copies of the victory banner - bright red, with a hammer and sickle. They were apparently hanged for the upcoming anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War.

A short man in jeans and a black jacket limps into a hardware store on the ground floor of an apartment building.

“Do you have a regular dustpan? - he asks the saleswoman sitting behind the counter. “Something needs to be done to remove the glass.”

The saleswoman, almost not paying attention to the buyer, gestures to show where to look for the product. She is busy talking on the phone. Less than a minute passes, the man returns to her with a bright green dustpan in his hands.

— Are there any discounts for victims? — he asks the saleswoman, smiling. She looks up from the phone. Sincere interest appears on her face. “This is not my store, I would give it for free,” she replies sympathetically. - And you are from the 16th house, right?

This house in the New Kotelniki complex is the same one where the drone crashed. The damage was particularly severe on three floors, including the 24th floor, where the victim lives. All the windows in his apartment were blown out. The family was home this morning, but there were no serious injuries, the buyer tells the saleswoman. He speaks casually, as if we are talking about something quite familiar.

“Thank God, they managed to jump out: I was just cut by shrapnel and that’s all.”

- Oh, you should see a doctor then!

- Yes, I already was.

The saleswoman nods: in the morning she herself had to call an ambulance. Another resident of the damaged building fainted right in the store. Having learned that it was his neighbor from the 21st floor (virtually unaffected by the explosion), the owner of the scoop shrugs it off with a grin: “He was most likely just scared.”

* * *

A path of broken glass leads to the house that was hit by the drone. The more fragments on the sidewalk, the closer the high-rise building.

There are almost no onlookers here: the blow hit the facade, which opens onto the courtyard, where only residents can enter. After the Ukrainian attack, this space was additionally fenced off with red and white tape.

Several curious people still gathered at the corner of the building. Their attention was drawn to a pile of smoky metal debris - all that remained of the drone. It is unclear whether this is the same drone that attacked the high-rise building.

“They’re just like a small plane—hey, they even have a motor!” — a woman of about 50 in a beige jacket says enthusiastically.

“There’s something else written there,” the fair-haired teenager picks up. - In Ukrainian!

A woman in a light jacket curiously examines the wreckage: there is indeed an inscription on it, but it can’t be made out - much was damaged by the fire. To find more areas with text, the woman begins to sort through the debris with her hands. The policeman lazily watches what is happening, without making any comments.

“No, it’s not clear,” the woman finally gives up. “What an incomprehensible language!”

Another resident of the area approaches the high-rise building. She tells the crowd that her friend lives in building 16 and asks them whether her apartment could have been damaged.

— What floor is theirs? — a young man of about 18, dressed in a tracksuit, asks busily.

- Eighth.

- No, it didn’t hurt.

- What a strong building! — the woman admires.

The teenager nods politely and turns to his friend - they were discussing what will happen to the oil refinery.

“There’s no way to put it out - you can only wait until it burns out,” explains a young man in a tracksuit to a friend.

- Yeah, and then fix it somehow.

- Nobody will fix it! There will still be [an attack] tonight.

- God forbid!

The Moscow Refinery has already come under attack from Ukrainian drones on the morning of June 16. Local residents are confident that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will try to do everything to put the refinery out of commission for a long time. This, according to the young man, will require a third blow.

“Something started to fly in often, why wasn’t it like this before? — the woman who came to inquire about her friend’s apartment again intervenes in the conversation. “The state is doing something wrong, since [the Ukrainian military] started sending [their drones] to us so often.”

This time no one maintains a dialogue with her.

* * *

At three o'clock in the afternoon, employees of the management company appear near the house and finally remove the broken glass from the sidewalk. Several residents of the house watch the work of the janitors at the entrance. In the houses of this residential complex they are end-to-end: you can exit from the entrance both onto the street and into the closed courtyard. This is where some residents want to go, but the guards loudly swear at them.

“First they throw [their things], and then: how do we get in now? — one of the security guards complains to a colleague and points to the upper floors. “That’s where all the [fragments] are flying from!” Are you laughing? Do you want adventure for yourself and for us?”

Unlike the streets around the high-rise building, practically nothing was cleaned in the closed courtyard: both the playground and the lawns were covered with glass and fragments of facade tiles. There are also dozens of twisted mosquito nets and plastic window frames.

It begins to rain, and the residents of the area gradually disperse. In the morning, telegram channels wrote that because of the fire at the Moscow Refinery in the Moscow region, they complained about “oil rain.” The one that caught the Bereg correspondent in Kotelniki turned out to be ordinary - it did not leave any black spots or a specific smell on the skin.

There are more helicopters in the sky: one after another they fly over Kotelniki, carrying fire extinguishing equipment towards the Gardener.

Fire trucks are heading in the same direction.

On Dzerzhinskoe Highway there is a large commercial building - the facade and roof are completely burned, next to it is a pile of twisted charred metal. The building contained a canteen, warehouses, building materials stores and several small companies.

There are at least a dozen fire trucks standing nearby - it looks like they only recently finished putting out the fire. Neither the media nor the authorities reported that a missile or drone hit this particular building. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote about 200 drones shot down this morning.

It is difficult to navigate the terrain, which mainly consists of industrial zones. GPS in this area is not working properly. Ordering a taxi is also not easy: according to the data in the application, you will have to wait more than 20 minutes for the car.

It is unclear whether public transport routes have changed due to the closures. There are almost no people on the street.

The parking lot in front of Mega Belaya Dacha is unusually empty even for a weekday. The media wrote that the shopping center was hit by drones, but by this hour there were no noticeable signs of the attack - except that the Mega itself was not working. On this day, onlookers use the territory of the shopping center as an observation deck: from there they can clearly see how the “Gardener” is burning and how they are trying to extinguish it from the air.

“It seems to me that the whole “Gardener” will completely burn out - you’ll put it out,” says a thin young man in black to his pink-haired companion. She nods hesitantly. The wind rises and small drops, as if from a spray bottle, begin to fly into your face.

“This is water from a helicopter, by the way, not rain,” the young man perks up.

- Really?

- Yes, sure. Whatever is scattered there reaches us. Okay, let's go look for a way into the thick of it.

“The Shore” with the participation of Elizaveta Antonova