Льыоравэтльан

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Exclusive Circle of Problems. Is There a Way Out?
Motherland – so much is connected with this word for every person. There is nothing so dear and nothing better. For me motherland is a small ancient village Veshkelitsa, where hardworking and kind people live. Everyone still keeps in the memory the time when people were not afraid of their future. A beast collective farm “Veshkelsky” was a millionaire farm. And what was the most important – everyone had a job, income. The social field was developing, new houses with all modern conveniences were built, cultural centers were formed. People enjoyed the life. It seemed it would always be like this. And nobody thought that the time would come when every villager would have to decide to be or not to be. The main problem now is to save the village so that it doesn’t disappear like tens of villages which surrounded it. The farm became bankrupt, people stayed unemployed. They had nothing but drinking and larceny. And suddenly “help” appeared.
An organization “Zapkarelles” bought the farm for nothing. They opened an agro-workshop, new working places appeared, forest brigades were organized. People sighed with relief. But it was a bluff. The aim of “Zapkarelles” was to take villagers lands. In the times of the beast farm the workers got shares of 2.5 hectares for ownership, legally became their masters and didn’t agree to give them to “Zapkarelles”, as it was not just a land but peasants’ work contributed to the land. Those who worked on this land for long years must be its masters. In Karelia this is the only case when the villagers are the landowners. But people didn’t mind to give the land for lease at a paltry charge, i.e. to bring dung to the field, to plow the kitchen garden. But it didn’t suit “Zapkarelles”. They closed the manufacture in our village, broke into breaks everything they constructed, took away the cows. That’s how they cared about the villagers. But the village inhabitants go on fighting, gather for the village meeting, vindicate their rights as they can.
The next problem in the village is drinking. The village is not big, but the points where alcohol is sold 24 hours are many. So many young men died for this reason. But the penalty for illegal selling of alcohol and vodka is only confiscation of the product and a fine. This, of course, won’t stop a very profitable business.
One of the urgent issues is education in the village. There is no material provision of the school and the children’s home. The facilities for the teachers are very poor. Parents want their children to study at their native school, return to their village, but don’t wander somewhere.
One more important problem of our village disturbing its population is the reduction of local administration. There is only one administrator left.
Now for solving even an insignificant issue we should go to the regional center Suoyarvi village. It is rather expensive. Firstly, you waste time. Secondly, bus passes are rather expensive and such trips are not available for everyone.
Besides, the question is raising now of giving a status of a town or a village to our settlement. We want to stay a village settlement. And the village council voted for it on 17 August 2004.
I want to touch one more painful point of our village. This is housing services. We have a good Finnish boiler-house built, but the fuel is a great difficulty. Every year people are afraid to stay in cold flats. Until now the workers of the housing services have found the solutions but what will be later… Engineering networks are old and are constantly out of action. If it is impossible to construct the new ones, they need thorough repairing at least.
In the evening there is thick darkness in the village, no lamps in the streets, no funds for their buying.
Problems, problems, problems, but we want to believe they are all solvable. People still hope, people still believe, and do what they can to solve them.
Oksana Serebryannikova
Teacher of Veshkelitsa Secondary School of Suoyarvy Region

Life Below Rapids

On the bank of the river Vodla 10 km below Pudozha town there is a small village Podporozhye. Its history starts from ancient times. There is a supposition that above the rapids in the area of the higher boom a site of primitives was located. The name of the village explains its location (“pod-porozhye” means “below rapids”). Historically it happened that it consists of two villages: Afanasyevskaya (where a parochial school was situated) and Zakharyevskaya on the other bank of the river. From ancient times the population was fishing. Well-known Podporozhye’s burbots (they say up to 2 poods (about 32 kg) weigh) were caught from the rapid Mnevets (“men” means a burbot), there were the richest catches. People were also picking berries and took job from lumberers. In 19th century there were built stocks and a berth by Saint Petersburg company, where local merchants brought famous Pudozha flax, willow and birch bark and sent them to Saint Petersburg.
There are also sad pages in the history of the village: in the years of mass repressions barges with prisoners moored to the berth at night.
In 1950s on the territory of the village a collective farm “8th March” was organized. The best prosperity of the village was in 1960-1980s connected with construction of roadstead – one of the biggest in Russia. Up to one million cubic meters of wood were floated there. It gave workplaces to almost all the population of the village comprising around two thousand people before 1990. The workers were also brought from other settlements of the region, every year groups of students from medium and southern parts of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia came to float the wood. A lot of today’s inhabitants came with their families some time ago to this village, once prospective, and stayed to live there.
For 15 years drastic changes happened: the roadstead was closed, and the most painful thing is absence of working places. Timber industry enterprise abolished the sector of Podporozhye, dismissed the main part of workers, and those who stayed were moved to other sectors – total around 50 persons, mainly male. Some young women found job in the city, and they have to travel there. All the rest are unemployed with the main source of income from seasonal gathering berries, mushrooms, catching and selling fish at a very low price, as it was in old times, but the only difference is that it is impossible to live with this money. And the local resources without any taxes are moving away outside the region, the republic and even country as raw material. Some people work illegally for local businessmen, for scanty wages, without official documents, social guarantees, and no economic prospects can be expected in the near future.
Now on the territory of the village there is local administration, secondary school, kindergarten (one group of children), communication office, nine shops, a medical center, a library, a small cinema and a House of Culture of the village. The population of the village is 862 people, among them 227 children, 221 pensioners, 164 unemployed, others are able-bodies citizens with 70% of unemployed. One of the most terrible problems of the village is dipsomania: men, women and even teenagers and in some families children are drinking. The house fund of the village is 100% worn, but the housing services make people pay as for the new houses. The houses (or huts) were built in 1960-1970s. We can’t wait for any house-services or at least repairing of stoves or roofs from them. The roads were not cleaned all winter, the master asked “Why to clean them, the snow will melt anyway”. And it really melted.
Now, after this description, let’s try to apply to the Federal Law about local self-government to our village.
The present administration of the village somehow fulfils its functions. And after January 2006 we will be joined to Pudozhskoye settlement, all the region is cut out again, the administrative center will be in the city, and it is necessary to work out competently the status of the municipality, to take into consideration the interests of every settlement. There is no bus communication between the village and Pudozha because of small distance, they say, you can go twelve kilometers on foot. There is no basic enterprise, no prospective economical projects, but a lot of businessmen who hide their taxes, that leads to deficit of the budget. So, the help of the republic and the Federation is needed, but in which way – who knows. If urgent needs will not have enough money, culture, education and many social services can become unclaimed. Instead of improving the old system of self-government, we destroy it. Small villages will just cease to exist. It is sad, but we have to admit – our village doesn’t have the future. Many generations lived on the bank of the Vodla river in a place below the rapids, fast waters stumbled over them but didn’t stop their moving ahead. We just hope that we will also overcome our rapids.
Natalya Koroleva

Project “Tomorrow Starts Yesterday”

Background: Due to territorial and historical factors, Pudozhsky Region has the richest folklore material of high interest for children and local population. But nobody collected, created conditions for keeping it, popularized this rich national heritage. Due to hard economical situation, local administration is interested to create cultural objects on the territory of the region for attracting tourists. The population of the village is interested to cooperate for development of the territory through addressing to historical, cultural heritage of Pudozhye in order to renew the connection of generations, to make the younger generation aware of their belonging to the destiny of traditional culture.
Today the House of Culture of Podporozhye village works actively in this field. For almost twenty years it organizes holidays and ceremonies: Christmas festivals, Maslenitsa. For the last year they created a nook of old times with the help of the youth club “Rovesnik” where they collected the antiques of everyday life, utensils, embroidery. They started to collect spoken and song folklore from the old villagers. All the events aim to recreate and popularize traditional rituals and holidays, to form a system of cooperation with a school and the children’s organization of the village for studying local history through museum pedagogy. For that reason at the first phase of creation of a traditional Russian house they plan: 1. further collection and systematization of folklore and artifacts on the territory of the village; 2. to equip a house, which became the property of the Department of Culture of local self-governmental body and located in the old part of the village, with the antiques. As a result they think to create a farmstead where the House of Culture could hold traditional holidays, ceremonies along with learning traditional folklore art, could organize a course of spinning, birch-bark wicker-work for schoolchildren or anybody who wishes to master different crafts. A school could hold the lessons on local history or crafts there. In the future a methodical center for assisting schools and clubs of the neighboring regions could be organized there, the attic could be equipped with beds for tourists. Through its development we could improve economical situation of the village attracting local population to work on the project. The youth and children, through study of local culture, history, crafts, will learn to value and respect the heritage of previous generations, which will undoubtedly lead to the growth of their civil consciousness. All this will result in creation of an attractive image of the territory.
Aim of the project: through keeping traditions – to save originality of Pudozhye area, and saving the originality – to develop it, and as a result the social and economical situation of people of Podporozhye village will improve.
Objectives: Educational and informational activity.
Practical work: collection, creation of conditions for keeping, popularization of the rich heritage of previous generations that lived on the territory of the village and Pudozhye Region.

Reservation of New Russia

Reservation is the territory allotted for forced settlement of indigenous peoples of the country who are discriminated.
Reservations are usually lands which are not quite suitable for farming.
Pudozhsky Region, located on the territory of the national republic, is mainly Russian. National composition is: 83.6% - Russian, 9.5% - Belorus, 2.4% - Ukrainians, 0.9% - Karelians, 0.3% - Finns, 0.1% - Veps. Total in the region there are up to 40 different nationalities. The population on 1 January 2003 was 28.9 thousand people (now it has considerably reduced), 37.4% of which are urban population and 66.7% - rural. Mortality of the population, sickness rate of adults and adolescents are growing. In comparison with 2001, the mortality grew on 18.9%, natural decrease of the population grew on 39.5%. Staffing of doctors is 65%. In the system of education the results of attestation of 1998-2003 showed that less than half of the staff of educational institutions have qualification category, the number of pedagogues having the supreme category is small.
Young people living in Pudozhsky Region after graduation of institutes or colleges and after leaving the army have either to register in the placement services or to move to Petrozavodsk, because there are not enough workplaces, and the working enterprises regularly reduce the staff of their employees. The basis of regional economy is logging and timber industry. Timber enterprises comprise over 90% of all industrial production. Industrial functions of the majority of companies in the region are extractive. Large agricultural industry of the region is liquidated. Investments to the fixed capital in large and medium companies are considerably reduced. The rate of registered unemployment is 12.0%.
In 1950-60s the country needed timber for development. Our parents came to small forest villages and worked with all their might, to the point of exhaustion. Now their children and grandchildren found themselves in a “mousetrap”. After passing the law of the Russian Federation No 131 “About general principles of organizing local self-government in the Russian Federation” the situation will be even more difficult. The youth, which is the most active part of the population, tends to move to big cities, where they have to live without registration and lease an apartment or a room and to work where local population doesn’t want to work. Can everybody stay living in such circumstances? Hardly. And what will happen with those who won’t be able to acquire their own roof over the head?
Without work people can’t provide living adequate for human beings for themselves and their children. So it happened that we are living in a reservation where people for survival (not to die of hunger) have to gather berries and mushrooms from the beginning of spring till late autumn. Sometimes people save money for 2-3 months to buy woods for heating in winter.
Many people lose their heart of despair and start drinking. It seems that we are not wanted not only in our region but in the country. And we are eager to tell our Government, “We don’t want to live from the crumbs of the state, but to earn for living ourselves. We don’t need allowances, but work”. Maybe this issue is worth through thinking at the highest level? Some time ago there were recruiting centers where one could find information about vacancies all over the country. The state even helped to move to the new place of residence. Maybe our regional placement centers will use this experience, it is easier now due to the Internet.
Concluding what was said above, I want to ask, why the President worries so much about low rate of birth in Russia. On the contrary, the decision about sterilization of the population would be great (but frankly speaking this issue is almost solved with the help of alcohol). What to bear new children for, while the born are not needed?
Tatyana Zhuro

Опубликовано на: 2007-08-01 (1927 Прочтено)

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