Of course, this is just a slogan. That was the name of the competition for the best work of a journalist of a regional newspaper. But competitions pass, and life goes on as usual. Is the village being revived today? And how should it be revived?

Before the war, 22,000 people lived in our district (according to statistics), today 8,000 are registered, while 4,500 people live in the district center! The main outflow of the population falls on the 70s. The same is true in other areas. central Russia. When you look at the statistics tables, it becomes uncomfortable. And what do you feel when you see completely abandoned villages, cemeteries, fields? Where people used to live, entire families, nettles in full height worth it in summer. Yes, the farming business is booming. In our region, for example, several "cool" robotic farms have been built. Investors, they are also owners - the well-known large company Tashir.

The governor was personally at the opening of the farms and is very happy about this. We also recently launched a project to grow organic meat (beef) for a special chain of stores in Moscow. But there are still no people in the villages. There are summer residents, not residents. close up recent schools in the villages. And it seems that no one really cares about this situation. And what does it actually threaten? The products are in the shops. Well, dear, well, the quality is questionable. We buy nothing. But it's not so much about the products. In fact, the peasantry perished as such. And this is a whole CULTURE, HISTORY, SPECIAL SPIRITUALITY, WAY OF LIFE, and finally, these are our TRADITIONS, RITUALS, FOLKLORE.

It can be said that our nationality is dying with the peasantry. And we are looking for some "some national idea”, we think how to unite our people, how to interest the younger generation. It's just that everything just doesn't work. The people are more and more immersed in business, in calculations, without profit, no one even wants to take a step. And agriculture is beginning to integrate into the market. Where to go. We are farmers now. Like in the West. But again, in the villages, the population does not grow, the cows do not moo in the yards, and the roosters do not crow everywhere.

It's bitter. And it is a pity that our state does not solve this problem in any way. But it is precisely this - the state put a lot of effort in the last century to "survive" people in the city. Why not do the reverse process now? Of course, you can’t go from the floundering bay to the village, and even with small children. Funds are needed for the arrangement of household plots, for construction, and it is also very necessary the moral support families who decided to move to the village for permanent residence. A well-established individual economy is the stability of life. No, super-wealth should not be expected, but there will be stability. But the more stable a citizen feels himself, the more stable the standard of living in the country as a whole, and the problem of housing in countryside resolved faster and healthier people on earth, no pharmacies will replace physical activity, fresh air, interest in life. All this seems too simple, but in reality everything is not very simple. To take a step from the city to the village, you need to change your stereotypes. And this is always difficult and often impossible.

Why am I writing all this? I do not know. It just hurt, as they say. What do you good people think about this?

The story of how one girl managed to induce her fellow villagers to transform their native village of Mogilnitsa in Western Ukraine. For this she needed social media, perseverance and, of course, personal example.

"Are you from the Graveyard? Tough. As soon as you arrive by car in the village, you will return with cut wheels ...", - last year, during several months of seasonal work in Poland, I listened to a dozen scary stories about my native village in the Terebovlya district of the Ternopil region. I knew that my small homeland is specific. In the last two years, the media have often talked about abandoned and squalid villages in the Donbass and in Russia - every time I read or heard about it, I thought: “Would you come to my village on Western Ukraine, where at eight in the morning mom comes into the room and asks to close the front door with a lock, because a neighbor with delirium tremens runs around other people's houses.

At the beginning of 2016, after many years of "traveling" around Ukraine and the world, I returned to live in my homeland. She pretended to be a tourist. I walked along the village and took pictures. I went to the cemetery, to the church, walked along the river. From what he saw, his eyes climbed on his forehead - it was difficult to call this territory a village. Solid dumps and bushes, not a soul on the street, as if all living things had died out.

By that time, the Internet had been installed in the village. It turned out that most of the population are active users of Odnoklassniki. Those who have gone to work in Italy, Portugal, England are also on this social network. And I decided to conduct an experiment to save the village of Mogilnitsa. I made a photo essay on Epiphany, wrote a "sweet" text and posted it on the social network. The response was immediate and amazing. People came up to me on the street and thanked me - relatives from London to Zaporozhye saw them. People read the report and described the photos to each other on the phone. With even greater willingness, I continued to realize my plan. Some following texts devoted to the history of the village - she wrote about the church, in which, according to legend, the icon of the Mother of God appeared, about the "Enlightenment" of the 30s, about the glorious pre-war years Lesser Poland about folk clothes. My page has become more and more popular. At the end of winter, it was already being read all over the world: I received comments from Russia, America, Australia, Europe, almost from all cities of Ukraine.

The time allotted for beautiful legends has come to an end, and I took up the description real state Graveyards. First there were photo reports from cemeteries overgrown with perennial acacias and lilacs.

The ruthless criticism left readers stunned. There were no more "likes" or comments. I continued. I came up with a flash mob, to which I hoped to attract fellow villagers. Many of them work at seasonal jobs in Poland or in their gardens, and in winter they sit in front of TVs - and since this year the winter was mild, I decided to take them out for cleaning. Started with myself. Every day I went to the cemetery with an ax, cleaned several graves forgotten by God and people, photographed them and put them up on social networks under the heading "It was-became."

I rubbed my hands in blood, tore off my back, but no one came to the cemetery like that. After that, I went to the neighbors and gathered everyone for a community work day - to clean the street. On the appointed day, I went out alone with a broom and a rake: the neighbors ran away from the house in the morning, just not to participate in the cleaning. And then my patience snapped.

I started taking pictures of the clogged river and dirty streets, and posting pictures on the net with the names of those who live nearby. Almost every street became afraid of my phone. Mothers began to scare the children: "Olga Zhuk will come, take a picture of how impolite you are, and put it on the Internet." People stopped talking to me. Threats appeared in private messages and comments. I was repeatedly told to my face that they would “break my legs” or “split my stomach”. I felt that I was going too far when I named names and wrote posts about the ubiquitous laziness, but I was not going to back down. Every night I went to bed with an ax in the hallway. I thought: if they come to beat me, I’ll give change, but I won’t abandon the experiment halfway through.

And one day a miracle happened - like in American films. My idea of ​​reviving the village was first supported by young women from dysfunctional families and local "avatars" who would give their last shirt for vodka. With them, in a day we cleared half of the old cemetery, the crosses on which, in my memory, have never seen the sun. The social activity of the rural "bottom" gave me the right to publicly ridicule respectable, big owners, practicing Christians, local deputies and civil servants who did not want to see anything further than their yard.

Since then, miracles have been happening in the village every day. People cleaned the cemetery, cleaned the river, the streets, cleared silted springs, cut down bushes. I did not have time to record the disappearance of perennial landfills along the main road in the village - once there were about a dozen of them. In place of huge piles of plastic, glass, diapers and paper, people planted flowers and trees. From other cities they began to transfer money to us for the withdrawal of hogweed - a poisonous perennial plant up to three meters high. No one has ever dealt with its destruction, and over the years the wind has carried the seeds throughout the village. And now the students with their parents early spring howling with weeds.

People saw that the present and future of the village were in their hands, gained courage and confidence, began to express dissatisfaction with the sleepy local authorities, demand help district council. And most importantly, they believed in the dream and began to realize it.

Today the Graveyard has been resurrected. The village is cleaned up like a house of a good housewife. Literally in a month, young families themselves built three playgrounds, found sponsors themselves, and obtained money from officials. For the first time in decades, the burial ground adequately prepared for Easter and Victory Day, washing off the long-term sins of "my hut from the edge" and defeating the external enemy in all its manifestations. And if someone wants to know the recipe for the revival of the village, I can say for sure that you need to start with yourself, and every day work for the result, rolling up your sleeves.
There is something else that Albert Einstein wrote about: "By coincidence, God maintains anonymity." Looking back at the amazing changes that have taken place in just three last months, I believe that this anonymous mercy played an important role here.

Experience of Gleb Tyurin in the revival of villages.
Innovative province revival: social technologies, NEO-economics and applied psychology.

Former currency dealer Gleb Tyurin decided to take on the rescue of the "bloodless" northern villages.
What Tyurin did in the Arkhangelsk outback in 4 years has no precedent. The expert community cannot understand how it manages to do this: Tyurin's social model is applicable in an absolutely marginal environment and, at the same time, is inexpensive. AT Western countries similar projects would cost orders of magnitude more. Amazed foreigners vied with each other to invite the Arkhangelsk citizen to share their experience at various forums - in Germany, Luxembourg, Finland, Austria, and the USA. Tyurin spoke in Lyon at the World Summit of Local Communities, and the World Bank is actively interested in his experience. How did it all happen?

After high school, Gleb went to teach in rural school in the most remote area Arkhangelsk region. He gave seven years of his life to pedagogy. In the early 90s, he returned to the city, restored his decent English, mastered back in the elite English school, worked as a manager and translator in various joint ventures and Western firms, at an American business school, trained in the West, studied banking in Germany and became a senior currency dealer at Arkhangelskpromstroybank.

“It was very interesting in its own way. But I felt like such a ticking mechanism: all day I sat in front of a bunch of monitors and clicked money. Sometimes 100 million rubles a day,” recalls Gleb. What is experiencing former teacher that sells millions of dollars on price fluctuations? Wild stress.

And when he left the bank, he saw how impoverished teachers staged demonstrations, grandmothers screaming in front of the city hall, who were not being paid a pension. “One and a half billion dollars a year passed through our bank. The country did not need any Western investment, we could completely modernize our economy ourselves. And everything was crumbling around, ”Gleb says bitterly.

The Yeltsin decade ruined the Russian North worse civil war. France can easily be hidden in the Arkhangelsk region. The region is rich, but today it is mostly wilderness, lack of roads, unemployment. Under the Soviets, almost the entire population was employed in the forestry and agriculture industries. In the 90th year, the planned economy was canceled, the switch was turned off. They stopped buying milk and meat from the villages. For 10 years, the inhabitants of the Pomeranian villages, left to their own devices, as they say, have reached the point where they live almost exclusively in vegetable gardens and mushrooms. Those who can leave, the majority drink bitter.

During a trip to Scandinavia, Gleb somehow ended up in a small workers' settlement and saw a "circle of the future" there. Sober hard workers sit and think what they will do when their factory closes in a few years. At first he thought that they were completely stunned by their developed capitalism. And then I realized that this is the very socialism that we built and did not build. And I decided to try to do the same in Russia. He invented and created the Institute for Civil and Social Initiatives, a non-profit non-governmental organization that took up the revival of the Arkhangelsk province. “Local authorities there live on subsidies from above, they are divided between regional centers. And there is no longer enough money for the periphery. They close the school, then the paramedical and obstetrical station - that's it, the village is doomed. Out of 4,000 villages in 20 years, it’s good if only a thousand remain,” Tyurin predicts.

But before the revolution, the inhabitants of Pomorye managed hard, lived soberly and prosperously. In the Russian North, many trades and crafts were developed, various crops were cultivated, and there was a brisk trade with other regions. The peasants themselves maintained roads and villages. Almost in the Arctic, they got rye - 40 centners per hectare, kept herds of bulls, built spacious wooden fortress houses, which are not worn out - and all this in the absence of equipment, fertilizers, herbicides. It was a well-oiled system of peasant self-government for centuries. It was the democratic traditions of the Russian North that made the region prosperous. And the Russian North in the 16th century is half the country.
Gleb Tyurin reproduced the traditions of the Russian Zemstvo in modern conditions.

With like-minded people, he began to travel around the villages and gather people for meetings, organize clubs, seminars, business games. They tried to stir up people who had slumped, believing that everyone had forgotten about them, that no one needed them, and nothing could work out for them. There are well-established technologies that can sometimes quite quickly inspire people, help them to look at themselves, at their situation in a different way.

The Pomeranians begin to think, and it turns out that they have a lot of things: forest, land, real estate, and other resources. Many of which are abandoned and dying. For example, closed school or the kindergarten is immediately plundered. Who? Yes, the local population. Because everyone is for himself and strives to snatch at least something for himself. But they destroy a valuable asset that can be preserved and become the basis for the survival of this territory. We tried to explain at the peasant gatherings: it is possible to preserve the territory only together.

Tyurin found inside this disillusioned rural community a group of people charged with positive. I created a kind of creative bureau out of them, taught them how to work with ideas and projects. This can be called a system of social consulting: they taught people development technologies. As a result, over 4 years, the population of local villages implemented 54 projects worth 1 million 750 thousand rubles, which gave economic effect almost 30 million rubles. This is a level of capitalization that neither the Japanese nor the Americans have with their advanced technologies.

The Principle of Efficiency
“What makes up a multiple increase in assets? Due to synergy, due to the transformation of disparate and helpless individuals into a self-organizing system.
Society represents a set of vectors. If some of them could be added into one, then this vector is stronger and larger than arithmetic sum those vectors of which it is complex.

The villagers receive a small investment, write the project themselves and become the subject of action. Formerly a man from the regional center he poked his finger at the map: here we will build a cowshed. Now they themselves are discussing where and what they will do, and they are looking for the cheapest solution, because they have very little money. Next to them is a coach. His task is to lead them to a clear understanding of what they are doing and why, how to create that project, which in turn will pull the next one. And so that everyone new project made them more economically self-sufficient.

In most cases, these are not business projects in a competitive environment, but the stage of acquiring resource management skills. For starters, very modest. But those who have gone through this stage can already go further.
In general, this is a form of change of consciousness. The population, which begins to realize itself, creates within itself a certain capable body and gives it a mandate of trust. What is called the body of territorial public self-government (TPS). In essence, this is the same zemstvo, although somewhat different than it was in the 19th century. But the meaning is the same: a self-organizing system that is tied to a territory and is responsible for its development.

People are beginning to understand that they are not just solving the problem of water or heat supply, roads or lighting: they are creating the future of their village. The main products of their activity are a new community and new relationships, the prospect of development. CBT in their village creates and tries to expand the zone of well-being. A number of successful projects in one locality are increasing critical mass positive, which changes the whole picture in the region as a whole. So the streams merge into one big full-flowing river.

Here real examples what Gleb and his team managed to do:
There has been no water in the Konosha region since the Soviet land reclamation in summer. They started looking for a way out. They remembered: there is an artesian well, but it is necessary to build a water tower. If you follow the usual administrative path, the construction will cost a million rubles, the municipality does not have that kind of money. But people have nothing to water the cattle and water the gardens. What to do? They came up with: to assemble a water tower from three old ones. Developed a project. The district helped with engineering support. The villagers worked for free. We bought only new pipes, adjustable wrenches - the entire construction cost 50 thousand rubles. And now there is water!
* * *
The neighboring village of Fominskaya has the same problem with water. TOSovtsy decided to put in order the springs under the village. At the same time, they have also become a local landmark. They cleaned out the garbage heap around the springs, put up concrete rings for water intake, log cabins, a gazebo in the traditional Russian style, and a decorative fence. And they began to lure tourists. How? Very original. The springs were called springs of love and kisses. In the local registry office they left an advertisement. And the newlyweds went. A tradition was born. Now there is a wedding every Sunday. They come from the city center. Each wedding leaves 500 rubles. For the village, this is money. The new Russians are already coming there to have a rest - they have begun to finish the barbecue area there. And the local TOS defended the forest from cutting down, achieved benefits for its veterans, took over the exchange of passports and many, many other things that they could not even think about before. Now the youth has begun to pull up to TOS - they believed it.
* * *
In the village of Khozmino, Velsky district, the idea was different - to equip two houses for war veterans. At first this seemed doubtful. Why these two? And where is the development? Their argument: "We will make the village more beautiful." The effect of the project was incredible. For a $250 grant, they clapboarded two houses, painted and decorated with carved cornices and architraves. Those who lived nearby looked and thought: we need to make our houses no worse. Thus, a whole "museum" street of houses, decorated with incredible imagination, arose. The idea behind the next project was more practical: to plow all the public hayfields and plant them with grass, which will give much more green mass. After that, Tosovites undertook to modernize the old, worn-out heating system of the village, under which they mercilessly froze in winter, and there was a constant threat of a complete defrosting of the system. Stoves or mini-boilers were installed in 16 houses, and the released capacity of the heating system was directed to a school, a club, a hospital. Effect of the project: 80,000 rubles a year of savings from budget money. Upon completion of the project, the savings will amount to 600 thousand rubles a year. And the people of Khomin undertook to restore their unique church of the 18th century.

In the village of Leushinskaya near Khozmino, a group of women, having created a TOS, took over the building of a neglected boiler house. It was a terrible dead industrial brick box, filled with huge rusty boilers and pipes, in which the wind howled and drunks got drunk. Tosovki came up with the idea to make a shaping room there. They raised the peasants, pulled out the boilers, insulated the building, put the roofs and walls in order, laid the floors, painted everything, installed the stove. Now there is a modern gym, around which young people and teenagers began to swarm, those who previously hung around idle - they are already tired of "fighting" with them. And the district for the new sports center gave half the head of the sports sections.
* * *
In the neighboring village of Bereg in the same Velsky district, there are a lot of unemployed women. They decided to grow cabbage. Created a production cooperative. They were given a non-refundable grant. They grew cabbage, sold it, and with the money they received, they improved the first-aid post, furnishings, and a sports ground for children. And they changed the situation in the village in principle. Now they have repaired the club and create there information Center crafts.
* * *
In the ancient village of Oshevensk, 40 kilometers from Kargopol, CBT also turned to the revival of culture and the development of tourism. The places here are the most picturesque, a lot of antiquity, but everything is in a ruined state, there is no work, everyone drinks. Tosovites took an abandoned merchant's house of the 19th century and completely restored it in two years, recreating the interior of the century before last. It turned out to be a wonderful little hotel-museum. When the enthusiasts started, the village did not believe: “What kind of tourism do we have ?!” But when the project was successfully completed, the villagers began to ask: “Well, if you have anything else, you can take us!” Archangel Bishop, tourists from Moscow and even America have already come here.
* * *
But in the village of Zaozerye in the Mezensky district, which is in the very north of the region, on the border with the tundra, the situation may seem an order of magnitude more complicated than in other Arkhangelsk villages. There were only two children left in the village - they were going to close the school. No production, everything closed. It's almost at complete isolation from the center of the regional center! There is a broken road only in winter - 550 kilometers of deathly torment. What is there to take on? They began to think, to argue. And here's what they thought. There are many lonely old people in the area who need help. They are taken to the almshouse regional center. What if we open a nursing home for them? No room? Move a huge building of a closed kindergarten from a neighboring village!

They took it and did it in three years! In January 2004, a nursing home for 14 people was opened. Many locals got a job, a place to sell agricultural products.

In order to attract a nurse here (a headache for many even more prosperous villages!), Tosovites renovated an abandoned apartment in a hostel and advertised in newspapers throughout Russia: “A nurse is required. Preferably with children. A well-appointed apartment is provided.” It turned out that the country is full of women who dream of getting away from drinking husband, but nowhere. And one such came to them - with two schoolchildren. And this means that the nursing home is provided with medical care, and more schoolchildren have been added. So the school won't be closed.
* * *
Development is not a transfer of money, as some officials think. Development is the transfer of skills, the transfer of skills, the transfer of knowledge that shape the innovative behavior of residents and communities. Therefore, it is quite obvious that this requires the appearance of people who know how to work with this professionally - such professional "developers", people who help create development. Innovation must be brought, adapted, shown, taught, helped to implement, accompanied until it takes root, until in practice one of the villagers can not implement something innovative. And then you need to show the rest, explain, interpret. And then this innovation gains followers, becomes a reality.
* * *
With the "submission" of Tyurin and his Institute in the Arkhangelsk region, about 40 TOSs were created - registered groups of people who are not indifferent to own life of people. Real authorities in the countryside. These projects, to put it simply, are built from several elements:
1. Local people united to develop their area. To begin with, these were small groups that became the structure for the development of their village, their village - in fact, they acted in partnership with each other and in partnership with the authorities.

2. These people themselves changed significantly: they took responsibility for their own destiny. After a short time, they thought and interacted in a new way, having acquired certain skills and knowledge.

3. With some support, residents of dozens of northern villages found smart and original solutions their problems, turned these solutions into projects, found and received necessary resources, started the implementation of projects and in the overwhelming majority of cases brought them to an effective result - successfully completed the first projects and started new ones.

Such a way of development leads to a powerful increase in the assets of the territory, to its real capitalization - to the fact that poverty and lack of prospects give way to new opportunities, a new local economy. And big money this is not required. Rather, we need will, desire and certain technologies of social consulting. Gleb Tyurin and his colleagues were able to show that real changes can be launched anywhere, practically in any, even in the most seemingly hopeless places.

The developed mechanisms and technologies are beginning to be widely used in the regions of Russia. Urban residents are increasingly thinking about the development of territories today - they are becoming the main audience, the main engine of change. This is a sign of our times. Previously, the city was a vacuum cleaner, "devouring" the human resources of the territory. Now the “urban” are ready to repay their debts small homeland, their villages and churchyards, their past. And to your future. It is the current citizens, their talents and opportunities that will serve to revive the Russian hinterland.

Now it is possible and necessary to build a completely new hinterland - our villages and small towns. A new economy, a new system of settlement - a modern, micro-urbanized environment in which we can live without thinking about megacities as the only source of convenience and prosperity, because "on earth" it will be better than in megacities.

decent life in modern Russia impossible to imagine without effective self-government in the provinces. The main factor development of self-government - the responsible attitude of the inhabitants themselves to their natural, technical and, most importantly, human resources.
To learn more about the experience and approach of Gleb Tyurin to the revival of villages and small towns, see the videos, articles and book attached to the post, links below.
Gleb Tyurin's book "The experience of the revival of Russian villages" can be downloaded from

Additional articles about the activities of Gleb Tyurin:
Fake people - real money - http://www.stringer.ru/publication.mhtml?Part=47&PubID=5051
From Los Angeles to New York - http://ogoniok.com/4946/22/
Article by Gleb Tyurin "Corporations, social capital and modernization of the country" -http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2006/48/tu19.html
Russia and the next long wave, or why rural areas are so important - http://www.regnum.ru/news/1181953.html

Way home. A film about resettlement from megacities and the revival of the hinterland:

Gleb Tyurin. Village revival. Arkhangelsk experience:

Gleb Tyurin - Innovative development territories through the involvement of the population:

Gleb Tyurin. How to change Small town. New Pikalevo project:

Before the revolution of 17, Russia, as they say in textbooks, was an agrarian country. The peasants were absolute majority population and fed the entire empire. After the revolution, dispossession, collectivization, industrialization and other charms began. As a result, there appeared collective farms and state farms - a kind of socialist serfdom . The peasants never got the land. But the right to work, work and work for a pittance remains.

Many are now scolding Soviet collective farms. Deservedly. The collective farm system had a lot of shortcomings. Mean wages. Lack of perspective - an ordinary collective farmer and his children were doomed to hard work to the grave. It was difficult to break out "in people" or leave for the city, especially in Stalin's time. The collective farm killed any personal initiative and accustomed people to the idea that they they do not decide anything, their business is to obey orders from above.

Nevertheless, at the very least, this system worked. The collective farm was a socially-forming factor and created the infrastructure necessary for survival: it built houses, roads, a school, a hospital, roads, Kindergarten etc. Willingly or unwittingly, the collective farm leadership took care of the needs local population. Let the collective farmer bent his back on the collective farm for a penny. But the collective farm helped the peasant to survive. If it was necessary to plow the garden, the collective farm provided a horse. The collective farm provided grain, firewood, hay. As in the entire USSR, petty theft flourished in the village, which was considered not a crime, but a common practice. The foreman stole a car of beets, an ordinary collective farmer - a sack of potatoes. But this bag helped the family survive the winter. The collective farm developed the economy in all directions: there were fields, barns, poultry houses, apiaries, gardens, workshops. The collective farm gave work to the whole village. Thanks to the collective farms and state farms, the Russian village did not prosper, but retained its viability.

When the scoop collapsed, the collective-farm system collapsed, and with it agriculture. Some statistics. Over the years agrarian reforms 27,000 collective farms and 23,000 state farms disappeared. In 2011, only 90 tons of grain were harvested. This is slightly more than half of the pre-reform number. Animal husbandry has declined. The number of cows decreased from 21 million heads to 12, pigs - from 33 to 9 (!), Sheep and goats - from 67 to 10 million heads. A Russian cow gives milk almost three times less than an American one and almost 4 times less than an Israeli one. The average annual grain yield on Russian non-chernozems is 4 times less than on Swedish soils, and almost 4.5 times less than in defeated Germany.
Agriculture is dying. Paradoxical but true: up to 70% of the food needs of our country are covered by imports. And it's not even that Russia, famous for the fertile black soil of the Kuban, is not able to feed itself. And in that engage in agriculture rationally and economically, as did the kulaks exiled in the 20s or smart collective farm chairmen, disadvantageous. In the pre-crisis years, a liter of diesel fuel in the village cost more than a liter of milk. Who would dare to keep a cow in such conditions? Collective farms collapsed, but nothing was created in return. There are no jobs in the village. The young leave, the remaining slowly become an inveterate drunkard. The village is deteriorating. In the once prosperous villages, decrepit old women and alcoholics live out their lives.

Villages, villages and cities of the Russian periphery are rapidly emptying. If you look at the map of Russia, it is easy to see that most people live in cities and around cities. The population is concentrated in a triangle whose corners are St. Petersburg in the north, Sochi in the south, and Irkutsk in the east. The farther from the city, the more deserted. The country is slowly turning into an archipelago. The Far East and the Far North suffered the most. Over the past 10 years, the population of Far East decreased by 40%. On the Far North— by 60%. In Siberia, 11,000 villages and 290 towns have disappeared. If during the scoop these regions survived thanks to state subsidies, now everyone who is able to move is fleeing from there closer to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi and Krasnodar.
Came into fashion the new kind tourism: stalking through abandoned villages. Here is a link to the project "Disappeared Villages of Russia". The list, of course, is far from complete, but very instructive:

http://letopisi.ru/index.php/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%98%D1%81%D1%87%D0 %B5%D0%B7%D0%BD%D1%83%D0%B2%D1%88%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2 %D0%BD%D0%B8_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8
A whole class is rapidly disappearing, with its own way of life, culture and mentality. Now the main task parents in the villages is not to educate a worker, but to attach a child to the city at any cost. The most important thing, villagers often do not want to work anymore. Farm work is hard as hell. Why bend your back from morning to evening in a cowshed or in a field when you can get a job as a security guard in the city and get the same money (or even more) while sitting quietly on a chair? It turns out a vicious circle. On the one hand, people in the village have no jobs. On the other hand, no one wants to work as a milkmaid or a tractor driver. Together with the countryside, that type of zealous and sober peasant who fed Russia before and after the revolution is dying out. People have forgotten what to do in the countryside. Now they have a TV and vodka - the best remedies get away from problems.

After the 1998 crisis, the situation changed. Big business took notice of the village. Not because the oligarchs suddenly burst into patriotic feelings. The giant commodity and financial structures realized that The most reliable investment of money is not gold or even real estate. This is the earth. And agrarian empires began to form. At one time, Gazprom owned land the size of Tula region. Deripaska bought up the fertile black soil of the Kuban. The chairmen of collective farms and state farms were paid solid compensation, and for this they received land, property and power in former collective farm. The oligarchs bought cheap wood for hunting, land for gigantic dachas. In Russia began to take shape new class the so-called latifundists.

A huge structure is being created - an agricultural holding, the owner of which becomes the real power in the countryside. It is unprofitable for the agricultural holding to develop infrastructure and generally support life in the countryside. This is a business, not a charity. It is easier for an agricultural holding to hire cheap Tajiks than to mess around with the local always drunk population. Moreover, not all agricultural holdings are of domestic origin. Out of 700 large Russian agricultural holdings, about 70 are owned by foreign owners . Russian legislation forbids them to buy land. But the law is easy to get around. A foreign company creates a subsidiary company, which, in turn, gives birth to a “granddaughter”, and the “granddaughter” already rightfully buys up Russian land. Of course, corruption among officials in charge of land and former chairmen of collective farms plays a huge role. Often they do not care who will own the plot, even if the devil himself is horned, as long as he pays the money. The ends - who actually owns the land - can no longer be found.

Experts believe that the most profitable agricultural holdings belong to offshore companies. Basically, this is Cyprus. It is impossible to say that Russia has already been sold out. But the process is underway, especially in the Kuban, where the main agrarian wealth of Russia is concentrated - black soil. The lands of the Moscow region are also actively bought up by foreign companies. There are no statistics on this issue.
The Russian village and agriculture could have been saved by farmers. Development of small farms along with large ones. Money from the budget for the revival and development of the Russian village is allocated from state budget. For example, the national project “Development of the agro-industrial complex”. The project has a lot beautiful words. Here you have to stimulate the development of small forms of farming (farmers) and provide housing for young professionals, and both. But alas! In practice it is unprofitable for officials to mess with small farms. There are a lot of hemorrhoids, and the result will not be visible immediately. It is easier to give budget money to an agricultural holding that promises to build cowsheds, drive them to the fields modern technology, and most importantly, bad kickbacks.

Only people with iron endurance risk becoming farmers in Russia. First, running your own business is costly. Feed is expensive, gas and electricity tariffs are constantly rising. good workers(at least sober ones) is hard to find. Finding a good market is difficult. Even if the farmer manages to solve these problems, another, almost insoluble one arises. This is a system. A farmer is absolutely defenseless and has no rights in front of an agricultural holding and, in general, any authorities. Officials actively use it. For example, without the permission of veterinary supervision, he does not have the right to take his products outside the region for sale. And not because the quality of products is low, but because the supervisor wants to earn extra money. Etc. Without a piece of paper, the farmer cannot even spit. And every piece of paper costs money.

Now Russia is fed mainly by agricultural holdings. Farmers produce about 7-9% of production. And part of the population feeds itself, without waiting for help from the state. These are small private summer residents who grow potatoes and cucumbers for pickling in their gardens.

Is it possible to revive the former, sober and economic peasantry in Russia? Opinions differ. Some say that it is possible if it will be possible to revive the former spirit of peasant self-government. There is a lot of talk on the Internet about the experience of Gleb Tyurin, a former stock broker, now director of the Institute for Public and Humanitarian Initiatives (Arkhangelsk). According to Tyurin, the main thing is to restore people's faith in own forces and give real power. Tyurin visited 40 dying Arkhangelsk villages, talked with residents and created TOSs (territorial self-government bodies). On the a short time the villages revived, but then most of them withered again. By different reasons: the regional authorities have changed and got rid of an inconvenient competitor in the person of TOS, the enthusiasm of the residents has faded. many rustic cardinal changes Not needed.
Others say that there is no need at all to revive the peasantry. The development of economics, agronomy and technology finally killed the village that we saw in Soviet films. The future belongs to large agricultural holdings that produce, process and sell themselves . In fact, these are the same collective farms, only with a capitalist face.

The question is who will own Russian land in a couple of decades? Is it Russia?

Russian villages and villages can become the locomotive of the domestic economy, the center of food supply and conservation cultural heritage. Representatives of the federal and regional Public Chambers of the Russian Federation, activists of the Popular Front and officials discussed the issue of rural revival at the first regional development forum rural areas"The village is the soul of Russia".

Secretary of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation Alexander Brechalov noted that the value of the forum lies in the fact that activists, representatives of business and government, NGOs, who together can develop common solutions, have gathered on the same platform.

According to forum participants, problems in Russian villages enough: bad roads, collapsed in the era of perestroika small aircraft, which served as the main transport artery to the ranks of remote northern villages, low level medical care, outflow of young people due to lack of jobs, high average age population and even the absence of applicants for the positions of officials.

"We can't find the heads of administrations right now. rural areas. Now we are faced with the fact that no one is going to this position. That is, we cannot even lead rural settlement not to force him to work," said Dmitry Sizev, Chairman of the Public Chamber of the Arkhangelsk Region.

According to the First Deputy Governor Vologda region Alexey Sherlygin, low prices for agricultural products discourage the villagers from cultivating the land. "The extinction of the village, unfortunately, has become noticeable and is systemic. There is a continued strengthening of the urbanization process in many regions of the country, literally the depopulation of rural areas. This has become a problem not only for regions with high level development Agriculture, but already for us - the regions-opzrodlots of the agro-industrial complex of Russia," he said.

As Sergey Gusev, the head of the Tarnoga district, noted, for the revival of villages it is necessary not only to raise the cost of agricultural products, which is the main source of income in the family, but also to develop infrastructure and build new housing.

Meanwhile, the decision to additional funding rural projects can be taken as early as late March - early April. At this time, President Vladimir Putin will sign a decree on the creation of a grant operator to allocate subsidies to NGOs whose projects are aimed at reviving the village.

"Whole last year The Public Chamber at the Community forums discussed the idea of ​​creating a new grant operator for NGOs implementing their projects in the countryside. We heard many proposals from activists and NGOs and passed them on to the president. He supported our proposals, and we hope that in the near future such a grant operator will appear who will support projects only in the countryside and in small towns," Brechalov said.

The problem of the extinction of villages is quite acute in Russia. According to the Public Chamber, in the period from 2002 to 2010, the number of villages decreased by 8.5 thousand, this was also due to the fact that most rural settlements were given the status of cities and urban-type settlements, as well as their liquidation by decisions local authorities with natural decline and migration outflow of the population. As a result of the census, it turned out that in 19.4 thousand. settlements almost no population.