Pralevka village, Lukoyanovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province. 1890s Both the luxurious state of the fashionable mansions of the villagers and the magnificent street paving, lighting and landscaping are clearly visible.
If we omit the discussion of the authenticity of these photographs (which immediately flared up in the community), then blatant poverty is visible to the naked eye.
The person who posted these photos put forward a political theory of poverty:
“Unlike the prosperous and prosperous villages of the Russian North, villages where the snouts of the landowner and official did not show, the miserable “Middle Strip” was in the utter squalor of life.”
Some Ukrainian bloggers, tormented by the disease of nationalism, in their communities believe that the point is that the Russians themselves are dirty and generally nasty bastards. Powerful quotes come into play:
And here's another interesting example:
However, what is interesting. How are these villages doing now? Maybe they are finally thriving? I'm afraid it's quite the opposite. They most likely no longer exist. They are all dead. Or in the process of extinction, inhabited by old people and alcoholics. These are real centers of social trouble. The villages of the middle zone no longer provide much from agriculture, but they abundantly supply the cities with prostitutes and dashing people. At best, the villages are gradually turning into dachas or, if led by cottage settlements. But this is no longer a village, it is a suburbanized territory, an appendage of cities.
Is it really the rapacious officials who are to blame for this tragedy, this hopeless poverty, from which hands down? After all, there is nothing to “rob” for a long time? Now oil, not wheat, is a priority. Why, then, did the villages in the Middle Lane find themselves in even greater desolation? Or are the features of the Russian character still “guilty”? But there is the South of Russia, there is the Russian North, there is Siberia. There is no such poverty.
I think that the answer to this question, on the one hand, is more fundamental, on the other, much simpler. He lies on the surface. There is such a wonderful article by L.V. Milova (corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor of Moscow State University) under the title "On the Question of Fundamental Factors in the Russian Historical Process". This scientist just specialized in this topic. And it looks like he's already said it all. I will not reinvent the wheel, but simply state his point of view on this issue.
According to L.V. Milov, the poverty of the villages of Central Russia is almost completely explained by natural and climatic factors.
I will briefly describe these factors. I'm sure everyone knows them. But here's the argument, the facts - in my opinion, are curious and are of separate interest.
So, what are the reasons for the extremely poor state of the Russian villages of the Middle Strip?
1) The most obvious is that the lands in most regions of Central Russia are infertile. Therefore, these territories are called Non-Black Earth.
But this is half the trouble.
2) A serious shortcoming is the extraordinary short duration of the cycle of agricultural (agricultural) work.
In Central Russia, the growing season lasts only five months (from mid-April to mid-September). Milov cites France as an example, where this season is already 10 months long, that is, twice as long.
2) Insufficient "capital-labor ratio" of labor in terms of the use of horses.
The quality of tillage directly depends on the strength of horse traction. We had few horses and they were severely malnourished. The reason is that the long time of stall keeping of livestock (198-212 days). While the period of fodder preparation was very short (20-30 days).
In the XVIII century. at a daily hay standard of 12.8 kg per stall, even palace (royal) horses in Central Russia received 2.9-2.8 kg each, and breeding stallions 6 kg each. In the best estates, horses received 8 kg per day during work. But non-working horses received no more than 4 kg of hay. The rest of the food is straw in the form of a cut (sometimes very fine), doused with hot water.
Thus, the weak peasant, especially in the spring, the horse could hardly drag the plow, and the quality of work suffered seriously.
3) Insufficient fertilization of agricultural land. This is a direct consequence of the lack of cattle, which could not be fed.
The arable land of the peasants was fertilized not once every three years, as was supposed, but once every six years (and this is ideal), more often - once every 9-12 years and less often.
With a normal supply of manure, according to V.I. Wilson, it was necessary to have six heads of cattle per tithe. And in many districts of the Moscow province. there were only 1-1.5 heads of cattle per tithe of fallow, which is equivalent to normal manure only once every 12-18 years. In the Tula province. crops were fertilized every 15 years, and in the Orel district of the Vyatka province. the steam was fertilized every 12 years, etc.
Thus, the weak peasant, especially in the spring, the horse could hardly drag the plow, and the quality of work suffered seriously. In particular, in one of the instructions to the clerk of the Tula estate, the landowner directly warned: "They (peasants. - L.M.) horses in the spring from starvation are skinny and weak"
What follows from this?
First, the emergency nature of the work.
L.V. Milov writes:
It was always "hands on work", literally the suffering of the peasant and his family, because the working hands of both the old and the young were needed. Moreover, children in the XVIII century. even worked in the corvee.
Secondly, you can’t get away from this, the quality of work is falling. Peasants have to concentrate their efforts on the cultivation of some plots of land, neglecting the cultivation of others.
The most balanced and generalizing data of governor's reports for the last quarter of the 18th century, processed by N.L. actual sowing and fallows accounted for only 53.1% of this allotment. The rest of the arable land was simply not used.
And even this concentration did not help. Farming turned out to be simply unprofitable.
From a purely economic point of view, the work of a peasant in the non-chernozem zone was absolutely unprofitable. If we summarize the entire master's arable land in these villages and calculate the weighted average payment for the cultivation of one tithe, then it will be equal to 7 rubles. 60 kop.
At the same time, an approximate calculation of the price of finished products on the market, made for the Vologda district, shows the following. In the 50-60s of the XVIII century. with an average price of rye of 1 rub. per quarter, oats in 60 kopecks. for a quarter3, with a harvest of sam-8 rye and sam-5 oats, the income would be 9 rubles. 40 kop. When taking into account income from other crops, it can be increased to 10 rubles. into two fields, i.e. as a result, the income would be equal to 5 rubles. for a tithe. In other words, the price of labor is 1.5 times higher than income.
L.V. Milov calculates prices for other provinces as well. The result is the same or even worse. He also conducts a very curious study (albeit using a paired regression, which may raise questions). The author evaluates the relationship between productivity and the price of bread in different provinces. In theory, there should be such a connection. Big harvest - prices fall, small - rise. And so it happens in the Black Earth region. But not in the middle lane. In these regions, there is simply no connection between the local harvest and the level of bread prices. This fact just confirms the hypothesis about the unprofitability of agriculture in these regions. Prices were formed without taking into account costs (which were much higher). Apparently, the non-chernozem provinces were dated from more prosperous regions, which made it possible to keep prices low.
How did the peasants survive?
First, they were craftsmen. They had time for this, as the agricultural cycle was short.
Secondly, through the formation of large forms of management (community), which allow to increase productivity due to economies of scale and reduce individual risks of hunger.
But it must be emphasized that the peasants survived in these conditions, and did not live. Of course, this was reflected both in their character and in their attitude to the elements of material well-being. This is psychology. If you can't do something well, achieve a goal, and these limitations are objective, insurmountable, then it's natural to give up. Poverty bends a person, breaks him. Hands go down.
the peasant "becomes more upset by a poor harvest and labor ... accepts it with hatred."
Why did the peasants live in these provinces, why didn't they leave? Firstly, it is a habit, these are the graves of parents and ancestors. Motherland. Secondly, there is nowhere to go. People also live in the south. Third - and this is the main thing - but who will let them go? Peasants were attached to their land and did not have passports. The authorities understood perfectly well that if you give them freedom, the core of Russia will become empty.
Already in the second half of the XVIII century. the well-known noble publicist Prince M. M. Shcherbatov ... believed that the sudden abolition of serfdom would lead to a massive outflow of peasants, because they would leave barren lands and go to fertile lands. "The center of the empire, the seat of sovereigns, the receptacle of trade will be deprived of people who deliver food, and will retain only artisans ..."
In the end, that's how it happened.
...in the middle of the 20th century. N.S. Khrushchev's permission to issue passports to collective farmers ultimately led to a massive replenishment of cities and a decrease in the density of the rural population of several dozen regions of the Non-Black Earth region to the level of the population density of Kamchatka.
In my opinion, these facts are convincing. By no means is the government to blame, and not the people. Nature. You can't argue against her.
Now there are still villages in the Middle Belt and in other places unfavorable for agriculture. And that's the problem. The dying of villages is a difficult process, it is always a personal tragedy. And it is not clear what to do here. Support villages? After all, the state is unable to. No money.
And there is no economic sense. Now, of course, new technologies can increase the productivity of agriculture in the Non-Black Earth region. But they will have a much greater impact on lands favorable for agriculture. In modern conditions, there is no need for such huge areas of land to be allocated for agriculture. Just as there is no need for 80% of the population to live "in the countryside." So, no matter how you look at this question, agriculture in the Middle lane, in the Non-Black Earth region is not economically feasible.
Facilitate resettlement? So the old people won't go. It is obvious. Drunkards will go, drink up apartments in cities, and return back to the village. Yes, and this is not an option. Well, give you an apartment in the district center. So after all, most of these cities themselves are far from in the best condition. No infrastructure, no education, no healthcare, no jobs. No prospects. Give in the regional centers? In the end, according to this logic, everyone will need to be relocated to Moscow or, at worst, to large metropolitan areas with a million inhabitants. And only for lovers of silence, nature leave small towns. This is probably an option. Perhaps this is what happened in more developed countries. But here the geopolitical and military logic raises its voice. We have a too big country, a small population for such a size, a limited number of modern cities. And, unlike Canada, we do not border on penguins, but on quite toothy neighbors.
In general, questions remain.
Recently I posted a photo essay from an ordinary Belarusian village (and). And now let's see what is happening with the Russian village.
Blogger deni_spiri traveled around the Yaroslavl, Pskov and Smolensk regions and made such a report, from which the heart breaks.
______________
Trees that don't exist
We will talk about several, lost in the Yaroslavl region, completely extinct villages.
The houses there are built in the Russian style with gabled roofs and light fixtures. All are solid and large, decorated with carved cornices and platbands. Inside, unfortunately, the huts are completely looted. Pleased only huge Russian stoves with stove benches. The weather matched the abandoned houses. It was overcast, it was raining. Remoteness from civilization, combined with the weather, created a feeling of doom and hopelessness. In a word, it was exciting to walk along the main street, entering the dead houses, looking at you with empty eye sockets of windows.
We move along potholes and puddles to the largest yard. There you can see the main house, a bathhouse, sheds.
Along the way, we stumble upon such a colorful well ... 
As well as the ubiquitous pay phone. Who will call him? And did you ever call? Unlikely. 
View of the main house and its yard. 
A typical Russian five-wall house. 
Svetelka in the attic, decorated with a carved cornice. 
Near the barn, which ordered a long life. 
Let's go to a nearby house, already from a distance alluring with its bright decor. 
On the other side. 
Behind a tree, another house hid. 
The old humble house, it's dying... 
And sadly looks at the white light through the empty eye sockets of the windows. 
Stacks of newspapers were used as insulation in the windows. 
And in the middle of the village stands the frame of a chair. :) 
Let's take a look inside these houses. 
From the interesting: a square chest, 
An old photograph of the former owners of this house, 
and green buffet. 
Inside I was met by a Snowman made of paper and cotton. 
Ladder on the side of the stove to climb onto the bench. 
Complete ruin. 
There are still a lot of sturdy houses in the village, but they are all abandoned. 
And some just didn't want to go. 
In the best scenario, the revival of the Russian village will take at least 50 years.
Let's go see another village now. 
A huge disproportionate "mezzanine" is about to crush the house itself. 
Surprisingly, the initials of the owner of the house "M I" are on the facade 
In this village, the condition of the houses is worse. Looks like it was abandoned earlier. 
This is the house that stood out to me the most. 
And again, interesting platbands. 
The houses are a complete mess. 
And a forgotten big dog. 
The main reason that people leave the villages is the lack of work - unemployment.
Well, in conclusion, about one more village.
The house with four windows is almost flush with the ground, decorated with carvings. 
Once this house was proud of such a sign. 
Let's take a look inside... 
Huge oven. 
Next to the stove is a bed with chests of drawers. 
Such colorful boxes. 
And here again is an example of a Russian house.
A modest house with three windows along the facade, with a light room, the corners and baldrics are sheathed with wood. 
Inside... 
Children's household items. 
A voodoo doll. 
Barn. 
Outdoor picnic table with benches. 
Hiding from human eyes. 
The well is empty. 
Fragment of a fence in the middle of a field. 
WC 
Something very significant broke in our state.
Last year we rested on Lake Sapsho (which is also a post), where we devoted our free time to trips around the district. It was in the district that we found these endangered or already completely extinct villages. Today we will talk about the Smolensk villages, whose inhabitants left their homes. The old women left, leaving for another world, the middle generation also left, leaving for the cities, and the young was never born. The reasons for this are usually the lack of any life prospects.
A village in the Smolensk region met us with an abandoned temple. 
And boarded up houses. 
It was very difficult to get to the houses, because the height of the grass in some places reached human height. 
Silence and oblivion here. 
Here, there is only the wind, walking through empty houses, and nature, reclaiming the land every year, hiding traces of human life in its arms. 
Some houses were abandoned for a very, very long time and have already turned into "skeletons". 
Time attacks! 
I never made it to many houses. 
In this village, each house has its own courtyard, with a gate, a gate and many outbuildings. 
Making our way through tall and stinging nettles, we go inside the courtyard. 
Everything is as it should be - a pen for pigs and cows, a bathhouse, a shed ... 
Inside the sheds. 
No one will drown the bathhouse. 
Let's take a look inside these houses.
Everything, of course, was stolen long ago and the houses are met with bare walls. 
Definitely a Russian stove with a stove bench. 
There is also a faceless Monument to the Fallen in the Great Patriotic War.
As dying as the village itself. 
Above, we have already looked at the villages of the Yaroslavl and Smolensk regions. Look how we were met by the villages of the Pskov region.
And they meet us with the same abandoned houses. Abandoned and empty, they stand useless. 
First, a general external overview of some houses, and then we will go inside the yards and the houses themselves. 
Five old women are living their lives in the village. What and how they live there is hard to imagine. Although, such stray tourists like us buy berries from them. We immediately bought a three-liter jar of cranberries from the swamps adjacent to the village. True, there are few tourists ... 
A lonely resident of the village - a cat under a canopy at the gate.
Scientists have calculated the point of no return in the process of destruction of rural infrastructure.
According to the Center for Economic and Political Reforms (CEPR), by 2023 there may be no hospitals left in Russian villages, and by 2033-36 there may be no rural schools and clinics. This can happen provided that their number will decrease at the current pace. In any case, CEPR experts are convinced that the authorities are “optimizing” the rural social infrastructure much faster than the population is decreasing there.
According to the results of the CEPR study, over the past 15-20 years, due to the neoliberal policy of “optimization”, which hit rural areas especially hard, Russian villages have largely lost their social infrastructure.
Thus, the number of rural schools during this period decreased by almost 1.7 times (from 45.1 thousand in 2000 to 25.9 thousand in 2014), hospitals - by 4 times (from 4.3 thousand to 1.06 thousand ), and polyclinics - by 2.7 times (from 8.4 to 3.06 thousand).
Meanwhile, the number of depopulated villages between the 2002 and 2010 censuses increased by more than 6,000, and their total share exceeded 20% (mainly in the regions of Central Russia and the North). At the same time, from one to a hundred people live in more than half of the surviving villages.
Thus, the report notes, if in the coming years the reduction in the number of these institutions continues at the same average rate, then “literally in 17-20 years all rural schools and clinics will be closed, and not a single rural hospital will remain even earlier - within seven years." But even if this does not happen, then, as experts fear, in the coming years, “social institutions in the countryside will continue to close.” And this, the researchers warn, will become an additional, moreover, "one of the most important reasons for the further, even faster outflow of the rural population to the cities."
So, by “optimizing” schools and hospitals under the guise of a decrease in the population in the countryside, the authorities thereby actually contribute to the strengthening of this process on an increasingly significant scale, bringing this vicious circle to new and new rounds. And it is especially sad that, as noted in the report, the “optimization” of the rural social system is proceeding at a much faster pace than the number of the rural population is decreasing and villages are ceasing to exist.
Of course, we are not talking about the complete disappearance of the rural population in our country in practice. However, the point of no return, after which it will be necessary to start settling the vast territories of our country “from scratch”, is quite close, Nikolai Mironov, head of the CEPR, admitted to MK:
We have a very short time left - literally within 10 years. Meanwhile, the state continues the policy of "optimization" of the social sphere, perceived by the rural population as a signal - the state is not interested in people living in the countryside. And it is mainly the elderly who stay there, while the youth go to the cities, turning there from producers of real products into office plankton. Well, how else, if a young family wants to have children, and in the countryside there is nowhere to give birth to them, or to teach them: hospitals and schools are “optimized” and closed. Carry tens or even hundreds of kilometers? So roads are not everywhere. And people are leaving the village. And since the disappearance of social infrastructure is faster than the decline in population, we can state that the problem is largely man-made. True, the strongest surge in the optimization of schools and hospitals in the countryside seems to have been left behind: it fell on 2005-2010. However, a significant improvement in the situation, contrary to the assurances of the authorities, did not happen. The number of rural schools continues to decline, just not as fast as before.
If the state’s approach does not change, Nikolai Mironov warns, Russia will move not along the path of highly developed Western countries, bringing super-advanced technologies to the countryside that allow agriculture with a small number of workers, but according to the Latin American scenario: “Endless abandoned wastelands overgrown with weeds. And this is very bad! After all, in a few years, if we come to our senses, we will have to invest in these abandoned territories from scratch, losing everything that was invested before.”
The Russian village is slowly dying out. This is relatively weakly noticeable in the south, very noticeable in the middle lane and obvious in the north. During a trip to the Vologda Oblast, I was personally struck by the huge two-story log houses, abandoned with all their utensils and already partly looted, standing in the middle of the wild gardens of old villages. The kingdom of desolation and silence. Dead village. And the neighboring village burned down in the spring with grass burning, when only one inhabitant remained in it.
Pal came from outside, and the remaining grandfather could not do anything. While trying to extinguish other houses, his house caught fire. I didn’t even have time to pick up my passport, so everything burned down. The remains of the furnaces - scrap bricks - were dismantled for construction sites, and in place of the houses there were only low, gentle mounds of earth, on which the bed frames that fell from the second floor, crumpled and burned, stand. This grandfather greatly missed his once populous village. The children took him to the city, but for the summer he, not listening to anyone, returned. He set up a hut in his old garden under the apple trees, in the hut - a couch and a shelf, next to the entrance - a small hearth, under a canopy there are a smoked teapot and a saucepan ... As long as it's warm, he lives there every summer, wanders under his native tall poplars, under which he ran as a child , sits on the banks of the river and remembers the once big noisy village, and for the winter leaves for the city in a cramped apartment where there is no life for him, and only existence remains.
There are, of course, villages where two or three residential buildings remain, in which the last grandmothers live out their lives. Someone was taken to the city by children and grandchildren, someone remains on their own land. Near cities, the process is not so noticeable, since houses and plots are often used as summer cottages. But for most of the year, silence reigns there too. And if you drive away from the cities and from the highway, then it immediately becomes clear that no one has been there for a long time: lonely leaning poles of outstretched electricity, rickety houses, streets overgrown with grass and ... silence ...
Why is this happening? Does the country need a village? Is it possible to stop the degradation process? We will try our best to answer these difficult questions.
Why the village is needed: agricultural products
To begin with, let's try to deal with the question - why do we need a village at all? Does anyone really need it?
There is a fairly widespread opinion that the population of rural areas plays a small role in the life of countries. At best, it is ignorance of important facts.
Ivan Rubanov ("Expert" No. 22 (611) for 2008) writes:
“Looking at agricultural statistics is like a headshot. Since the beginning of this decade, the cost of imported food has increased by about 30% per year, and by last year reached almost $30 billion. The once leading agrarian power now buys products no less than it produces itself..
In fact, we are "fighting" for the first place in the world in terms of food imports with Japan. At the same time, Japan is in a unique situation - the Japanese, in a sense, have no other choice: the population there is larger than in Russia, and the territory is two orders of magnitude smaller. Those. it is physically extremely difficult for them to produce a large amount of agricultural products. Our sharp increase in net food imports is mainly due to the increase in oil prices. Below is a graph of growth in food imports by years:
It is interesting that if Japan ranks first in the world among developed countries in terms of supporting (subsidizing) its agriculture, then in our country it is supported rather poorly, and the level of support is constantly decreasing:
Source: "Expert" No. 22, 2008
Once upon a time, Russia was the leading agrarian power, and now more food is imported than domestically produced. In fact, this means the exchange of non-renewable resources for renewable ones. Agricultural imports are almost equal to the cost of Russian gas exported to Western Europe.
The depressingly low efficiency of agriculture and, in particular, high losses at the stage of processing agricultural products were often cited as one of the significant shortcomings of the Soviet Union. Only according to official statistics, more than half of the potatoes, for example, rotted on the way to the consumer. In the course of liberal reforms in recent years, the situation has deteriorated dramatically. Firstly, direct state support has fallen by about 30 times (!) As a result, if in the mid-80s it was possible to buy 3 tons of diesel fuel per ton of grain, then in the late 90s it was 10 times less. This had a dramatic impact on profitability, and hence on the interest of farms in the production of agricultural products. Imagine a situation if, for example, before you had an income that was not too big, but allowed you to feed your family, clothe, put shoes on, and buy a car, and go to relatives in other cities, and then your salary was reduced 10 times. What's the point of doing this kind of work? People stopped doing it. But when the former collective farms and state farms ceased to exist, this caused the degradation of the entire surrounding infrastructure. For example, there was no one to clean the roads in winter (indeed, there was no one to support the equipment that was able to do this). And to stay without a road in winter is not a test for every family. As a result, the remaining people left the villages en masse.
However, back to the state level. Industrial food production fell at an alarming pace. Since the situation had to be saved somehow, customs duties on food imports to Russia were drastically reduced, which caused a wave of imports. A large number of companies entered into this new business, the results of which can be seen in any grocery store today. Even in rural areas, Polish apples, Chinese pears and Finnish cheeses are now sold in stores. Bananas have long been cheaper than cucumbers.
Russia is dying
Table 1. Comparison of customs import duties by country.
*Excluding cocoa — 50%. Sources: Serova E.V., IPC, APE
As you can see, only the US has lower tariffs on average, but there are some very well thought-out agricultural support programs that make the US the largest food exporter in the world. Those. not only feed their own population, twice the population of Russia, but also export food on a large scale. In this sense, looking up to the United States in terms of openness of agricultural customs barriers with diametrically opposed domestic agricultural policies is an extremely unwise approach. By the way, even in such a situation, the United States uses prohibitive duties on agricultural products (more than 300%), while the use of prohibitive duties by Russia is clearly too strict a measure in relation to Western producers.
Since it has become fashionable for us to refer to the Americans, we will quote their scientist Marion Ensminger:
“Food is both a responsibility and a weapon. Responsibility because one of the most important rights is the right to food and its consumption in abundance. On the other hand, it is a weapon, because in politics and economics, food plays a huge role and has more power than cannons or oil.”.
Recently, it has been openly admitted that the USSR was defeated by these weapons - food shortages have seriously undermined people's faith in the viability of the government. It is all the more surprising that modern Russia is confidently following the same path.
Often, trying to justify the low efficiency of Russian agriculture, they blame everything on the climate, they say, we have a zone of risky farming. At the same time, they somehow forget that Russia is in 4th place in the world in terms of arable land (in the first place, by the way, the United States). Moreover, in our country about 40% of the world's chernozem area is concentrated - soils with the highest natural level of fertility (!). Also, when studying statistics, it is easy to notice that one of the world's largest food exporters is Canada, whose climate is very harsh, especially compared to the south of Russia.
Once I happened to fly by plane from Seattle (Northwest USA) to New York (Northeast USA). At some point, looking down, I was surprised by an even square grid of roads with a step of about a kilometer, between which there were plowed fields. In some places, as a rule, at the corners of neat squares, trees grew and farmers' houses stood. And such a picture stretched as far as the eye could see. I looked down and thought - what a powerful state will. In the same place, most likely, there were already some fields and houses. But someone came, said, drew the road on the map with a ruler - and everything was embodied on the ground over a vast territory. There was a convenient network of roads raised above the fields, passable at any time of the year, from which the fields are relatively easily accessible. And the picture went on and on. Near cities, farmland ended briefly, but soon continued along the same grid. One state succeeded another, but this only led to a change in the grid spacing (state laws allow themselves certain liberties regarding general policy). And such a picture below continued for about an hour and a half, i.e. something like 1500 kilometers.
When you take off by plane from Moscow, a completely different picture opens up. Yes, there are also fields, but it is immediately noticeable that most of them are not plowed up. Moreover, plowed gravitate towards the roads. It is interesting that the state border of Russia and Belarus is remarkably visible from a height. Immediately upon leaving Russia, it is clear that literally everything has been plowed up, every piece of land. There are, of course, nuances related to the efficiency of agriculture (at the state level, everything is required to be plowed up), but we are talking about state policy, i.e. what the state wants. And three examples were given above, showing how you can see the cardinal difference in public policy, as they say, with the naked eye. It would be desirable simply to pay attention.
What conclusions can be drawn:
- From the point of view of national security, Russia today is in a situation in which it has never been before in history, and which is much worse than the situation at the time of the assassination of the USSR. More than half of the food is imported, there are no serious stocks of it. In the event of conflicts, it has become much easier to put pressure on Russia - it is enough to close the borders. Our position in this regard, compared with the United States and major European countries, is radically worse; in fact, in terms of food security, we are on the opposite end of the scale from them.
- The world's population is increasing by 80 million people a year, while the area of world agricultural land has not only stopped growing (all available land has been plowed), but has been gradually decreasing since 1985 (soil depletion, land drying up). As a result, the area of agricultural land per inhabitant of the Earth has been steadily declining for many years, despite the fact that the yield has not actually changed. As a result, a significant increase in food prices is predicted for the coming decades and, possibly, serious shocks in lean years (not all countries can afford to buy food). The United States in this situation, even if the dollar depreciates, will act as a country that chooses whom to provide food assistance. Russia - as a country that will seek opportunities to buy food (agriculture cannot be restored in a short time).
Village and land
In a situation where agricultural products began to cost less than the fuel needed to collect these products, the only value that large agricultural enterprises possessed was land.
With the adoption of the new Land Code, which allowed land trade, many farms located near highways and near cities were either immediately bought up or went bankrupt and bought up. At the same time, agricultural activity was either stopped or left only as a “cover”. The highest value in Russia is not agricultural land, but building land. Transferring land into a category allowing development is a complex procedure that requires time and money. At the same time, the law formally requires agricultural land to be cultivated, and if the land is not cultivated for 3 years, it must be withdrawn. The strictness of our laws is compensated by the flexibility in their implementation. As a result, only part of the land is plowed up (usually the fields that are visible from the road), which makes it possible to reduce the size of all types of costs and not think about the cultivation of fields located in the depths of the territory (i.e., most of the land). As a result, even in central Russia there is a large percentage of fields that have not been cultivated for 15, and in some places for 20 years.
The main blow in this situation was not even in agriculture, but in rural areas. If earlier there was a bad, but the owner here, now he has been replaced by an outspoken temporary worker. The land trade is the real Klondike. The rise in prices in some places near the cities amounted to tens of thousands of times. Under such market conditions, it turns out to be profitable to “hold” the land for as long as possible, which is what the vast majority of owners do. At the same time, they have current expenses - the same land tax, and there are still some residents, workers of former farms. If they are not fed, they will start writing letters and so on. Therefore, it is desirable to give some kind of income. As a result, people are invited, for example, to cut down the remaining surrounding forests. Everyone, including workers, understands that there are no prospects for such an approach in the middle zone (where there is a lack of forests). The only consequence is that people are more likely to go on a drinking binge.
Findings:
- The vast majority of modern landlords, who own large territories through Moscow firms, are not interested in the development of these territories and behave like “temporary workers”, whose task is to somehow “change hands” before selling the land. The presence of local residents is rather a minus for them and a burden on the territory, which affects their priorities and decisions.
Village and administration
Contrary to popular belief, the local administration at some point ceased to be interested in the development of the countryside. People, incl. enthusiastic about the creation of new rural projects, thanks to which the number of people in the villages will increase, they think that they should be supported. But it's not.
More precisely, at the level of personal relations, a specific head of a district or village administration can support a project, but one must clearly understand that from the point of view of the local budget, they, as a rule, are not interested in such projects.
As has been said above more than once, the production of agricultural products for the most part has long been below the level of profitability. This is not an accident, but a pattern due to a number of completely objective factors. Almost any head of the district has repeatedly observed another promising project, which, instead of the planned large return, either barely balanced on the verge of profitability, or was completely closed. Low confidence in new projects is based on real experience.
At the same time, villagers need to be provided with a school, medical care, a telephone, a fire brigade, repair the road, hire equipment to clean the road in winter, repair the power line, pay for lamps burning in the village at night, pay for losses in the line and in the transformer, etc. . And if the village ceases to be a settlement or everyone leaves from there, then these very tangible expenses for the meager local budget can be omitted. As a result, for the destruction of the village as a settlement, it is now enough that there simply is not a single registered resident left in the village, and the local municipality will be more interested in this situation.
In fairness, we note that this is not the first serious reduction in the number of villages. If in the 18-19 centuries peasants often settled near the cultivated fields in villages and settlements, then in the 20th century there were two waves. One was collectivization in the 1920s and 1930s, the other was the consolidation of collective farms in the 1950s. Small villages then ceased to exist. Now, after the catastrophe in Russian agriculture, which has lasted for 20 years, the villages are disappearing catastrophically.
Conclusion:
- The rural administration is placed in a position where it is financially interested in reducing the number of villages, which leads to a decrease in the number of rural settlements. When the former village ceases to be a settlement, it becomes noticeably more difficult to revive life in it, since the administration is not only not obliged to contribute to this, but often opposes it.
Conclusion
Someone not too familiar with the subject might say:
“Some kind of too gloomy picture has been drawn, this cannot be. After all, someone fed the 140 million people of Russia in the 90s, incl. after the default, when we couldn't buy groceries?"
What can be answered… Below is a diagram of the structure of agricultural production by categories of farms (in actual prices; as a percentage of the total).
the memory of these people will soon remain only in photographs ">the memory of these people will soon remain only in photographs" alt="(!LANG:Endangered villages of Russia. the memory of these people will soon remain only in photographs!}">
Photographer Pavel Kapustin from Bryansk during the summer of 2014 traveled to remote villages, in which only a few residential buildings remained. There is no public transport going there, and the roads, if there were any, have long been overgrown. The result of the trip was a series of photographs "Forgotten Russia". Babr posts some photos of dying villages and their last inhabitants
Pavel Kapustin about the Forgotten Russia project:
“There are a lot of such places and city residents, sometimes, do not even think about how these people live, survive, exist. I want to talk about it and show.
The heroes of the photo project are ordinary residents of remote villages and villages, who no longer hope for outside help, live on their own farm and can be counted on the fingers. They are the same, primordially Russian, simple, uncomplicated, and at the same time with a very difficult fate. Before our eyes, the Russian village, its unique domestic cultural environment, its unique color, consonance with the nature of the human way of life and being, is disappearing.
The first house in the village of Shapkino, which was visible from the road, was overgrown so that only the roof was visible.
There are only two houses in the village. The rest are abandoned and overgrown so that you can’t even get to them. Elena lives in the same house with her husband, cat and dog.
We moved here from the city and not from a good life. My husband works in the district center, where they buy groceries and everything they need. From the village and back - only on foot. They live on their own small farm, which is grown on the beds in the garden.
Elena's only neighbor is Nikolai.
He lives here with his wife Irina and mother Claudia Nikolaevna. Grandma Klava is already 82 years old.
Nikolay's daughter lives in the city and comes very rarely. Irina showed her in the photo. (naked girls nearby - it's not her))), the owner just likes it that way).
The toothy guard lives in one of the overturned barrels.
Everything in the garden is well-kept and processed. What they planted and grew, they ate. Everything is very simple. Women follow the household and direct the skillful hands of Nikolai in the right direction.
Half of the houses in Pechki are closed, boarded up and abandoned. Anastasia Vasilievna lives in one of the preserved houses. She moved here from the Brasovsky district, from the village of Zhdanovka 58 years ago, after getting married. My daughter lives in nearby Shcheglovka, and two sons live in Lyudinovo and Komarichi. Children gave her 13 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren. Husband Ivan has been gone for 26 years. He worked all his life on the farm. Anastasia Vasilievna also worked as a milkmaid on the collective farm.
This year, the garden had to be planted less, because my legs hurt and I can no longer take care of it.
For provisions, you need to walk to the neighboring Shcheglovka, but with medicine here it’s a bit tight. I had to go to the doctor as far as Navlya. The doctor prescribed injections, but there was no one to inject. There is no first-aid post nearby, and no one knows how to do it. So there are injections in a box ...
Anastasia Vasilievna's daughter-in-law Evgenia was visiting. She came to visit and help with the garden.
There are now three houses in the village. This is one of them.
Ivan Tikhonovich lives in it. He was waiting for guests for barbecue, so he decided to at least somehow ennoble the surrounding area. In this he was assisted by a relative Sergei, the sister's husband, who had recently come to visit.
Ivan Tikhonovich lives in a house with his mother. She is ill and hardly walks. He takes care of her and looks after her. He works as a postman at the local post office. The house also has its own rather big farm. This is, first of all, a horse. How could the village be without her?! And bring firewood and go to the neighboring village. There are also chickens, sheep, a dog and a couple of cats.
At home - like everyone else
Women's corner.
Wall in the hallway.
It is on such people that the old villages somehow still hold on... Others have already become only history. One can imagine what life was like in these villages only by the preserved elements of furnishings and household items.
