How they live in the Russian outback. About life in the Russian outback

Life in the Russian outback using the example of the village of Evdokimovo.

With the appearance of the sun, Evdokimovo, a village in the Russian outback, lazily awakens. The streets are empty, local residents are in no hurry to see animals or go to their gardens - life here moves slowly, writes delfi.lt.

Local resident's story

A man appeared on the horizon, whose age was difficult to guess. He didn’t ask if he could talk, he just came up and sat down next to me. Without saying a word, he takes a folded paper out of his pocket, straightens it and begins to roll a cigarette, adding tobacco. This is Nikolai, who introduced himself simply as Kolya, he is 40 years old, he is a shepherd who decided not to miss the opportunity to meet the Lithuanians who were briefly staying in Evdokimov, Siberia.

“This is the first time in my life I’ve seen foreigners,” Kolya says in a hoarse voice and carefully examines the arrivals.

40-year-old Kolya works for the village headman, tending his cows. Cows can simply walk along the roads and paths here, sometimes they stop to chew grass. True, local residents protect their yards high fences and blind gates. Potato fields are also fenced.

Horses feel no less free here. Although they are not workers here. Residents of Siberia have been using horse meat for food since the times when the Buryats lived in this area. These people moved deep into the taiga when Lithuanians and exiles of other nationalities began to be delivered to these places by trains and trucks. Buryats can still be found in Siberia today.

Only a few hundred people live in Evdokimovo. There are few career prospects here, but even if there is an opportunity to earn money, there is a long line of people interested.

“Most of us here drink. What else can we do? There is no work. There is nothing else to do,” Kolya continues his story and admits that several years ago he became addicted to alcohol.

"I decided so after I almost died from too much large quantity alcohol. I decided that enough was enough, but there are few like me,” said the Siberian.

From Evkodimovo to Lake Baikal is only a few hundred kilometers, but for most locals its images are only fantasies, not real feelings.

“Here, my Baikal,” the Siberian smiles and waves his hand towards the Iya River flowing nearby. “I have never left my village in my life. I don’t need to.”

The conversation was interrupted by a fuss in the bushes. “Don’t be afraid, these are my cows. I graze the headman’s cows. And so every day,” says Kolya and it seems that he is happy with his life.

The road of life of the descendants of Lithuanians

“It’s a pity that we didn’t meet at the cemetery,” say other guests who visited the Lithuanian camp on the outskirts of the village. “We brought you treats, we sit down and help ourselves.”

This is the wife of an exiled Lithuanian who died two years ago Albinas Rimkus Victoria and their daughter Svetlana. From a large basket, the women first take a multi-colored tablecloth, spread it out on the field and invite them to sit down. They begin to arrange treats: lightly salted cucumbers, pancakes, homemade sour cream, sliced sausage.

“We meet at the cemetery, this is our tradition. We bring refreshments and there we communicate not only with the living, but also with the dead,” says Victoria in Russian. Her daughter Svetlana does not speak Lithuanian either.

“My father didn’t teach me, they always spoke Russian at home,” Svetlana explained, but after a short pause she easily remembers the phrases laba diena and labas vakaras.

The women living here, telling their stories, smiled much more often than the Siberian man they met earlier, but they admitted that living here is not easy. Victoria, who remains a widow, is already retired, and her daughter works in a recreation center in a neighboring village. However, it’s hard to get by on just your pension or your salary.

More industrious villagers can earn extra money by collecting medicinal herbs, berries or mushrooms. Nature here is rich in this.

“Whoever is not lazy earns money,” the interlocutors said, but they added that the gifts of the forest should also be shared with the bears living in the forests. “If there are a lot of berries and mushrooms, they don’t come to the village, but if the year is lean, anything can happen,” the woman assures.

Locals most often grow potatoes in fields surrounded by high fences. In the greenhouses near the houses, the mustaches of cucumbers are visible, and the sun turns the tomatoes red.

“The Lithuanians taught the locals how to grow vegetables. They taught how to pickle cucumbers and smoke lard. Albinas’s mother, who also rested here in Evdokimov, also cooked zeppelins,” Victoria recalled.

But neither before nor now the locals bake their own bread. There are notes on the doors of the shops with “bread days”, and the choice is tin light bread.

“They don’t bake because they have to grow and grind the grain themselves. They’re lazy,” Svetlana explained.

Living conditions do not make it easier and transport connection. The only means of communication with nearby villages is by boat. It is used not only by those who are in a hurry to work, but also by schoolchildren, since in the villages fewer schools No.

On the streets of Evdokimov you can find not only freely roaming cows and horses, but also goats and pigs.

“But no one here slaughters their raised animals. Rare family Here he eats what he grows. Most are simply lazy - they sell the raised animal and buy meat in the store. And it is of unknown origin, bad,” says Svetlana.

The mood in Evdokimov is depressed, although an Armenian who arrived here a few years ago was able to take everything into his own hands. He became the head of the village, creating jobs. The Lithuanians also experienced his hospitality - he extended a helping hand and refused to take money, having heard that those who arrived needed wood from which the cross would be made.

The name of Lithuanians is respected in this village. “Everyone loved Albinas. He was hardworking, he could do anything,” said Svetlana and Victoria. “True, he didn’t know how to write, so letters had to be written for him, but there was no more painstaking man in the village who could handle technology so well.” was".

Now in Evdokimovo, where several dozen Lithuanians were exiled, representatives of other nations do not live. Only the Russians remain, who still remember with a smile the Lithuanians, who brought an example of hard work to the interior of Russia.

Russian village: yes, the first thing I did was go to a remote village Kostroma region, twenty-five miles from the city. The population consists of three people, two of whom are collective farmers, and one appears only periodically. There is a certain percentage of summer residents, but they come only in the summer and only for a few days.

[+] Fresh air. Naturally, the air in the village is completely different. No harmful emissions from nearby factories, smog from a huge number of cars, etc. It is unlikely that this is not good for health.

[+] Relatively uncluttered nature. Of course, almost all the forests nearby have been cut down for pastures, but there are still some. Compared to the Moscow region, where it is difficult to find a forest that does not resemble a landfill, the contrast is noticeable. And where else in Russia, just going out in the morning, will you see a whole herd of natural cows in the nearest field?

[+/-] Almost complete absence of people. On the one hand, thanks to this it is more or less safe there. You can walk completely calmly at night, you can listen to loud music or watch a movie, you can work in the workshop without disturbing anyone at all. On the other hand, it's boring. There is absolutely no one to talk to, and the dead silence on the street (especially in winter) is more depressing than pleasing.

[-] Isolation from civilization. In spring/autumn, the roads wash out so much that you can only get through on horseback. Or on a tractor. Unfortunately, I had neither one nor the other. In winter, the roads are swept away; road cleaning must be negotiated with a bulldozer operator for an additional fee. There is no road, there is only a track. There’s absolutely no way without all-wheel drive, but sometimes even that doesn’t save you. It’s somehow unpleasant to realize that the ambulance/firefighter/police, if anything, simply won’t come, won’t get through. In winter it becomes real problem, because the nearest grocery store is far away, and you can’t get there by car.

[-] Lack of everything. Absolutely everything. The village consists of a dozen dilapidated log houses and a common well (the well, by the way, is a hole in the ground, not marked in any way, and in winter going to fetch water alone is simply deadly), there is absolutely nothing else there. The nearest general store is in the regional center, almost five miles one way. Only there you can buy food and essential goods. The nearest hospital is even further away. Public transport It only goes to the city from the regional center two or three times a week. It is difficult to get to the city from the highway even by public transport: the buses simply do not stop. At first I didn’t understand why, but later they explained to me that the drivers don’t consider one passenger “profitable” enough and therefore don’t stop. In general, living in such a place without personal transport, even if it is possible, is very difficult.

[-] Absolutely no infrastructure. Even in the regional center. There is a post office, a school and two stores, but... You yourself understand what the quality of the products is: no normal coffee, no meat, no anything else. At the same time, prices are almost the same as in the Moscow region. Of course, they don’t accept credit cards; the saleswomen, God forbid, have only seen them on TV, and the nearest ATM is far away. There is also a club, but there obvious reasons It's better not to go. There is no pharmacy at all. The regional center itself is replete with ruined, abandoned buildings. The “They Fought for the Motherland” memorial looks especially sad against the backdrop of the atmosphere of chaos and destruction, as if left over from post-war times. Or maybe this is true?

[-] No work. The only work is on the collective farm, where the majority of the local population works for about $200 a month, and even then wages are delayed for months. I can’t imagine how they manage to live on, especially as families with children.

[-] Local population. Mostly alcoholics. The most purchased product in the store is, of course, vodka. However, not everyone buys vodka. Young people prefer beer or Jaguar. I always imagined village people as kinder, more honest and ready to help than city people. Of course, this is true, but they only have this attitude towards each other. The attitude towards summer residents and city dwellers like me is different. Over time, of course, you can become your own for them too. But is it necessary?.. It is especially worth noting their manner of speech. I’m not talking about the fact that they can’t even put two words together without swearing, no. They have a rather unique manner of speech, before meeting which I thought that I knew the Russian language perfectly, but when communicating with them I simply did not understand half of what they said.

[-] Theft. As a child, I was told many stories about how villagers don’t even lock the doors of their houses, the locals are so honest and decent. This is partly true; The psychology of a collective farmer is such that he understands that in case of need he can only count on another collective farmer. But!.. This does not apply to summer residents and city visitors. My friends had already been victims of theft, and when I lived in the village, the house could not be left empty for an hour. And go to the grocery store only while your neighbors are at work.

[-] Lack of connection with the “mainland”. Mobile phone It doesn’t catch everywhere, there’s nothing to say about the city one - no one has it. The only connection with civilization is the Internet, which is quite expensive and limited. If you install the modem on the roof of the house, the reception is more or less good. If I were a freelance downshifter, I might appreciate it.

Provincial city: I’m looking at Kostroma as an example. I want to say right away that not all provincial cities in Russia are like this, but most of the points listed apply to them.

[+] Calm car traffic. Almost complete absence of traffic jams. Over the course of several months, out of inexperience, I created an emergency situation a couple of times: once I did not give way to someone who was driving on the main road, once I drove through a red light, and once I even got into oncoming traffic at a large intersection in the city center. In all cases, no one even honked at me. Once I was gape at a traffic light. Perhaps ten seconds passed before the minibus driver timidly honked at me from behind. In Moscow this is simply unthinkable.

[+] Cheap real estate. Compared to Moscow and the Moscow region, this is most noticeable. Prices for apartments in the nearest suburbs start from $10k. That must be what the property should be worth.

[-] Prices and salaries. Prices are on average the same as in Moscow: some are cheaper, some are more expensive, but on average the same. Going to the supermarket for groceries and leaving fifty dollars there for a week's supply of food is in the order of things. Salaries are several times lower than in Moscow. This is precisely the reason plight many residents of the outback. Gasoline prices were once noticeably cheaper than in Moscow, but now they are equal. By the way, I was unpleasantly surprised by the fact that in most cases employees here are not paid for their travel.

[-] Roads. The bridge over the Volga River, connecting the two parts of the city, was closed for repairs not long ago. I don’t know what condition it’s in now, but at the time of closing it was in such disrepair that it threatened to simply collapse at any moment. In general, the roads are in terrible condition. There are few markings and for the most part they are so tattered that in poor visibility conditions they are simply not visible. I’ve already seen what the suspension turns into from such roads; repairs cost at least $1k. In many places there are simply no sidewalks, there are only paths through the grass. After the rains, in some places the mud becomes simply impassable; even taxis cannot go to some places. I don’t know how things work here with snow removal on sidewalks in winter. And I don't want to know.

[-] The infrastructure is quite questionable. There is only one McDonald's in the whole city, I'm already silent about Starbucks, Burger King and others. They simply don't exist. According to rumors, there is a radio parts store somewhere, but where exactly is unclear. There is also a problem with museums, except for local history. And, again, prices... Since many goods are brought here from Moscow, transportation costs are added to the store markup. Once I had to go to Moscow to buy power tools, because they were cheaper there. total so much so that it paid for the cost of the train tickets. The choice of used things is not great; what in Moscow you can buy used and cheap, or even get for free, here you have to buy at an expensive price.

[-] Local population. There are a lot of people of this type, how to say, with whom it’s not even pleasant to communicate, and it’s unpleasant to stand next to. The same, however, applies to all other cities of Russia, including Moscow. If we assume that there may, in principle, be prosperous areas here, there are also those where it is better not to walk on foot at night. Yes, and in the light too.

[-] Job. It exists, but a salary of $650 is considered good, usually it is $400-500, or even less. Of course, a person with education and/or the right connections can get along quite well, without them there is nothing to catch here. There are quite a few vacancies, for example, for programmers, system administrators or web designers. For me personally, my only hope is to travel remotely from Moscow.

Moscow: a lot has already been said about it, and many people know the specifics of local life personally. Let's pay attention only to the most obvious:

[+] Salaries. Yes, this is perhaps the only thing worth living here for, or at least coming to work. For comparison, average salary in the Kostroma region on this moment is only 17,579 rubles, but in Moscow this figure reaches 53,953 rubles and 32,986 rubles for the region. Prices for rental housing in Kostroma differ from those in the Moscow region by one and a half times for the nearest Moscow region and do not differ at all for the further ones. Considering the almost identical prices for most goods and services, comments are unnecessary.

[+] Infrastructure. There is everything here: museums, theaters, exhibitions, cinemas, huge shopping centers, shops for every taste, pizza delivery to your home, cheap and high-quality Internet. In general, the list could take a long time.

[-] Prices. Still, the prices for some things are naturally shocking! The other day I arrived in Moscow by train. It was early, so I decided to go to a cafe to have a snack. I've gotten used to these prices. I was able to get a minimum snack for only $25. In Kostroma you can have a snack for $1.5, but on average a full meal here costs me $10. The most expensive coffee here costs $2, and in the same cafe the cheapest cup cost me $4. Of course, this is not entirely fair: to compare a Moscow cafe within Garden Ring and something like a provincial canteen - however, pray tell, how can tea from a bag cost $4?!

[-] Rhythm big city. It's not everyone's cup of tea. Everyone here is constantly in a hurry, and they do it so convincingly that you can’t help but get the impression that if someone is delayed for even a second, a catastrophe on a simply universal scale will occur.

[-] Endless traffic jams. From a city near Moscow to your place of work and back, you can easily stand in a traffic jam for four hours. In my case, traffic jams are multiplied by huge fuel consumption and it becomes really sad. Public transport, however, is no better: the metro also has traffic jams... from passengers.

[-] Great amount homeless people/gypsy beggars/harassing ticket sellers/guest workers/Caucasians/cops/thoughtless provincials and other not-so-pleasant elements. Still, there is no such thing in the outback. I didn't have time to last time arrive and go down to the metro to get a ticket, when some homeless man immediately accosted me with a request to give him some change. I’m getting out of the subway, some guy from Azerbaijan picks me up, let’s go have a drink, it’s my birthday today. Sometimes you come across rather unfriendly beggars who, upon hearing a refusal, begin: “Listen, Vasya, I asked you in a humane way. Come on?!" The percentage of alcoholics in Moscow is, of course, lower than in the outback, but due to the higher population density, the likelihood of stumbling upon a very drunk fellow traveler on a minibus/train is much higher.

Many times the topic of how people live in the Russian outback has been raised on the Internet.
I had a great opportunity not only to tell, but also to show what it’s like. Perhaps the residents big cities penetrate.

It is my deep conviction that residents of big cities have two polar opinions about how villages live. Some people see villages as gingerbread houses with carved frames, little white stoves and grandmotherly housewives who do nothing but bake delicious pies and weave lace. They feed everyone they meet with pies, and they cover every conceivable and inconceivable surface in their home with lace.

Others watch not only series on TV, but in the news, no, no, and there will be information that Russian villages live poorly. That’s why they know that living in the village sucks, but what exactly this shittyness consists of is somehow not very good.

“It’s better to see once than to hear 100 times,” that’s why we look at the photos and read the comments.

So, the initial data: my friends and I went to visit Smolensk region, to a distant relative of one of his comrades. We will deliberately keep silent about the name of the village; it is located approximately two hundred km from Moscow, 5 km from the city of Gagarin. Those. not some Siberian wilderness, but the very central region - neighbors of Muscovites.

There are 32 houses in the village, there is a normal asphalt road leading to it, and in the village itself the soil is of average quality.

Among the beauties of nature is a pond that blooms by mid-summer, around there are unplowed fields, wetlands, and thin forest.

The store is in the neighboring village, the rest of the infrastructure is in the city. Gas, water supply, sewerage - we've never heard of it here. The electricity is cut off regularly, we stayed in the house for less than a day, there were 3 outages.

The mistress of the house is a rather impressive, by village standards, lady of near retirement age. It doesn’t drink, it doesn’t work, there are no children, it’s not clear why it exists. Several of her distant relatives live in the area, some of whom seem to be doing well, the rest come to native village exclusively to thump and rage.

Please note Special attention that the photos are crooked not because of the photographer, i.e. I’m crooked, but because this is how it looks in reality.

And here is the house! When we arrived, I was sure that they hadn’t lived there for 20 years, but no, they live there all the time, both in winter and summer.

Cold corridor, from it you can get into winter part at home and on the terrace. The terrace is some kind of incredible wreck, where there is now a toilet (a bucket with a toilet seat).

On the right is the kitchen, it was scary to walk there: the floor sloped 25 degrees, the boards creaked and sagged underfoot.

There is a stove in the kitchen, but it is not heated; food is cooked on a gas stove (gas is in a cylinder in the kitchen and poisons, so they try not to use it often) and on an electric stove, which for some reason lives in the room. We waited 40 minutes for the kettle to boil on it.

In the dining room for heating the house there is such a potbelly stove, the pipe is inserted into the chimney and something falls off there all the time. It is heated with wood, but because... It blows wildly from all the cracks, so there is not much heat from it. And this is at a temperature of +10 outside, which is not clear to me in winter, the hostess wears a hat and jacket all the time. There is also an antediluvian electric heater in the room, which cannot be turned on for a long time - firstly, it is expensive, and secondly, it shorts out.

The only room in the house. The hostess did everything to make it seem cozy. But there is a smell of dampness and rotten wood in the house, there is a blow from all the cracks and from all the windows - what kind of comfort can we talk about? On the left, the main entertainment in the house is the TV, but it doesn’t reach the plasma panel, right?

The only new building on the site is a well, the asking price, by the way, is 20 thousand. In the background is a burned out neighbor's house. It is worth mentioning separately about fires in the village.

Well, how do you like your living conditions? You might think local residents there is a choice! It is impossible to sell this house and land - no one needs it, which means there is no opportunity to move. The house is about to fall apart, but the owner is already so tired of patching holes that she doesn’t think about it.

There is nowhere to work in the village, in Gagarin no one needs an auntie before retirement age, plus there is no money for daily travel there and back. It turns out that there is no money even for the most basic things. The refrigerator was empty; for dinner we were offered potatoes and carrots, boiled in large chunks in a cast iron pot without oil. At the same time, the hostess still tried to refuse the products that we brought with us.

In the entire village, literally 3 houses stand out with their renovated walls, all the rest are the same as in the photos. There are many remains of burnt houses, which are eventually dismantled for firewood.

Many thanks to my aunt for her hospitality, but to be honest, it was unpleasant to be in the house: everything was gray, dull, hopeless, like the whole life of the local residents.

"Wherever we, Russian people, live, in whatever situation
no matter where we are, sorrow never leaves us anywhere
about our Motherland, about Russia. This is natural and inevitable: this
grief cannot and should not leave us. She is a manifestation
our living love for the Motherland and our faith in it"
The great Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin (Why we believe in Russia).

Inconspicuous villages are a blur behind the windows of cars speeding along Russian federal highways. Who ever looked inside these boxes? How many of you were interested in life there?
Moving out federal highway M2 I found myself in a completely different Russia, the Russia of that time. After reading this post, the atmosphere of sadness and loneliness will not leave you yet for a long time. Perhaps you will consider me a faulty pessimist, but in short we can say this: life in Russia, to put it mildly, is not easy; It’s bad here everywhere and everywhere the number of minuses far outweighs the number of pluses...
As we know, “the roots of any civilization grow from the village.” I invite you to look at how life these days is not in a distant village or farmstead, but in villages, not in some Siberian wilderness, but in the very central region - the neighbors of Muscovites. It seems that this is just some other world in which time has stopped.

1. Village Krapivna ( Tula region). Previously there was a city. The population is approximately 3000 thousand people.
At the very entrance to the village there is an abandoned state farm. Its size was amazing; it occupies about 10 hectares of land.
Photo 1

The only place where there is activity all the time is the cemetery, black with fresh graves. There is a temple in the cemetery, destroyed.
Photo 2

Everything is sad here.
Photo 5

Photo 7
The village consists of 90% of these houses.

Photo 8
Russia has always been strong in its villages; at all times, it was the villages that gave bread and strength to the country. Now the government prefers to import food and food raw materials using petrodollars rather than strengthen and develop the rural sector. Together with villages and hamlets, the so-called small towns wither and die, with city-forming enterprises that close and cease to provide jobs to the city, while simultaneously destroying the infrastructure and social sphere.

Photo 11
The typical picture of a Russian village (village) is terrifying. Here you can see houses overgrown with weeds up to the roofs. In some of them, pieces of plywood, cardboard or film are inserted into the windows - simply because there are no stores where you can buy glass.

Here they have a central street, where the administration, savings bank, hospital, post office are located.
Photo 13

Previously there was a temple here, then a fire department, now there are mice and rats.
Photo 19

Thanks for warning.
Photo 21

Here is the hospital.
Photo 22

There are plenty of wooden houses like this there.
Photo 24

There are also two-story (apartment) buildings here.
Photo 26

Photo 27
The population of not only villages, which simply disappear from maps, but also small towns and villages has sharply decreased. Don't think that these are only areas Far East, - these are also areas located 200 km from Moscow. It is enough to go not far outside this zone, and you will see what is happening there.

Photo 35
Historical building.

Photo 36
Now the local Gazprom is located here. Previously, there was a school here; L.N. was a member of the school council. Tolstoy.

At the exit is another temple, or rather the ruins of a temple...
Photo 38

Photo 40
Previously, the local administration sat in this building, now there is no one there, well, practically no one. Next to the building there is also a ubiquitous pay phone, there are 3 of them (let me remind you that the state spent 63 billion rubles on them and annual maintenance costs 4 billion). Who will call it? And did you ever call? Hardly.

Photo 42
As it turns out, Russian Post is located here. Hellish conditions.

Photo 43
In this building they drink every day from morning to evening, everyone drinks, both boys and girls... When I asked “why are you drinking,” I received the answer “What should we do, there is no work, so bring us with you right now. We are ready to work as security guards, drivers. We don’t need a lot of money.” The guys are young, about 30 years old. By the way, there used to be apartments here from the collective farm. There is no collective farm, no apartments. You can see silhouettes in the window below on the left.

Photo 44
The village also has two-story apartment buildings. There is no gas or water in the houses. There is nothing there, there is no life there, but people live. To install gas, you need to collect 600 thousand rubles from each house. There has never been such money here.

Photo 45
How do you like it?
The housing stock is dilapidated and is not being repaired, but why, because everyone will leave for the city anyway, so there are no roads, no transport, the only regular bus or train routes are canceled forever.

Photo 45
Schools, paramedic stations, clubs, hospitals are closing, and finally, the last thing to close is the store. That's it, it's over. Go wherever you want, abandon houses, gardens, the graves of ancestors, leave old people to die alone, because where to transport them, and why, when they grew up here, lived, gave birth to children, buried their parents. The village has lost the simple meaning of its existence. The land, RUSSIA's greatest wealth, is abandoned and dying.

Photo 46
Residents repeatedly wrote letters to the Kremlin, to Putin, in the hope that they would be heard, but there was still no answer... They asked for gas, a road, and a bus to run three times a day. There is no hospital, the nearest hospital is 50 km away. There is one store in the village, although it is vodka, vodka, vodka.

Photo 47
They burn wood here.

Photo 48
He has two sons, they drink together... He says in 5 years there will be nothing and no one here. Some will die from drinking, others will kill each other from drinking. From the lack of work, from the meaninglessness of existence, the rural population is deteriorating at an unimaginable rate, and, first of all, this results in widespread alcoholism, and now also drug addiction among young people.

Photo 49
It has a bad effect on the health of residents and social disorder, which is why after 12 noon most of residents are intoxicated.

Photo 51
In 2005, the alcohol factory closed; many locals worked there. Now they are looking for work.

Photo 52
There was a huge collective farm that occupied the leading positions in Russia. This is what's left of him.

Photo 53
Without city-forming enterprises and infrastructure settlements not only ineffective, but unviable, and their population is not even “consumable”, but “waste” material. Apparently, the authorities are not concerned about how people will survive these “objective” processes. "The salvation of the population is the work of the population itself"!

Just like that.
According to the most realistic demographic forecasts, the population of Russia in the next decade will not grow, but decline. At the same time in major cities There is a problem of lack of affordable housing for the population. The state is adopting promising programs: to set records for housing commissioning, to surpass everyone and everything, and the like. The level of accessibility for the rural population has significantly decreased medical care and education. The Accounts Chamber provided the following statistics: from 2005 to 2010, 12,377 schools were closed in the country, the vast majority in rural areas(81%). The number of hospitals has decreased over 10 years by 40%, and clinics by 25%. The process of the village dying continues. No measures are being taken to develop the villages, and even the money that is allocated is stolen. All the changes are only on paper; in reality, I showed you what it looks like.

Some kind of spiritual, deep complaint about a huge injustice, when it seems that you haven’t lived yet, you kept hoping - tomorrow, then, and then your life is lived, and nothing can be corrected. you can’t change it, you can’t return it, and life turns out to be a big deception, but it’s not clear who is deceiving and why...

The paradox of Russian reality is life in the outback.

About itself scary city Russian blogger Sergei Anashkevich writes on his LiveJournal.

To be honest, I have never seen a more trashy city in Russia. A real hole. It seems that the war here ended not so long ago. And this is just a little over two hundred kilometers from Moscow. But Torzhok could look completely different if it weren’t for this amazing neglect and ruin, and numerous ancient churches and monasteries were restored and brought into divine condition. But no... Everything is as it is.

Sad, depressing, hopeless...

2. Not far from Torzhok, on the way to the village of Rashkino, there is a river called Darkness. You know, it is named very much on topic. That's right to the point.

3. To be honest, when we entered Torzhok, I didn’t think that everything would be bad. Well, in “Interns” we decided to find a town like Uryupinsk or Tmutarakan, which would be associated with a remote province, and joke about it, but... still, for a reason.

First, wine and vodka stores came one after another...

6. Or even simply knocked out where no one lives...

7. There are more and more boarded up windows, and on many houses you can see the emblazoned “For Sale” banner.

8. Moreover, apparently, there is only one real estate agency left afloat here - “Trust”.

9. And then we arrived at the center of the town, judging by the Lenin monument in the park near the administrative building. Across the road from the park we saw a breathtaking fence, some kind of collapsed building, all covered with obscenities and other “funny” things. We leave the car here and continue on foot.

10. Details on the fence personal life a certain Olya Gvozdeva

11. Behind the fence is a small vacant lot with a strange gate at the opposite end, from which, despite the snow and -1, children in sweaters run out...

12. It turns out that it’s behind the fence schoolyard and rooms where labor lessons are held, where half-naked schoolchildren run.

Nice schoolyard, nothing to say!

13. Labor office

14. Locker room.

15. Schoolchildren. I would like to hope that all five from this photo will become popular people, and not become regulars at the store from the third photo

16. Literally behind the fence is a monument to Lenin. He looks reproachfully at the ruins of the house opposite his square.

17. The house, apparently, was chosen by lumpen people, drinkers and homeless people

Very strange tire fitting

19. Residential buildings and a courtyard full of joy. Take these two cars away from here and you can get lost in time. Living texture for films about the Soviet past

20. But it’s a beautiful building! How could he be brought to such a state?

21. People working in this building are trying to brighten up the surrounding dullness as best they can.

21. last hope on the palm trees. Not the real ones on tropical islands, but the kind they exist... From under beer bottles.

22. And the view from here is beautiful!

It's probably not so sad here in the spring.

23. Residential buildings nearby.

24. Apparently, it is normal for local residents to set up a car cemetery in their yard.

But this is also not just like that. Apparently, many people are doing poorly with their income, since they are not able to repair their not so bad car and it is forced to slowly rot