From Donbass to Khabarovsk: Our man about the situation in the Far East
And it really is a mafia. According to the stories of local residents, just 10 years ago the “dashing 90s” reigned in the Far East (and in some places even now), everything was controlled by gangster authorities. My uncle, having written a statement to the police about an apartment robbery in the early 2000s, the second thing he did was go to a local authority, asking him to find the culprits. And you won’t believe it, they found it. Faster than the police. The uncle still remembers with gratitude the now deceased bandit and laments that after him the city fell apart and nothing was being done normally.
The current mayor (a fellow party member of Sergei Furgal - LDPR) is quietly carousing at his dacha in the taiga and complains that due to the arrest of the governor, his well-deserved vacation was disrupted. By the way, the LDPR’s first act as mayor was to destroy the tram network, the one that he promised to preserve in his election program. Now the entire city is crossed by the corpses of railway sleepers, and the trams themselves have been turned into non-ferrous metal or ferrous metal. The roads in the city leave much to be desired, the snow lies on the roadsides until it melts - mid-May, and it’s scary to go out on the street late.
In Khabarovsk, by the way, things are much better. The roads are in satisfactory condition, and the center is really nice and tidy.
True, in my residential area of 10 ten-story buildings there are only 5 garbage cans, the location of which I spent a week looking for. At first I was wondering where the utility workers put them, but then I was ashamed to ask. Let's not forget about the shame of the city - the barracks, which are located not only on the outskirts, but also in the centers. Recently they proved to me that such barracks are many times better than near-modern high-rise buildings, warmer, more comfortable. But, if so, then why do many of them have “Shame” written on them?
And for comparison. These two buildings are adjacent.
According to the uncle, while the authority was alive, order was at least maintained in the city even in the 90s, and after his death numerous “heirs” tried to tear the Komsa apart, which was facilitated by the officials of that time.
By the way, this phenomenon has a very simple explanation - numerous prisons dotted around cities. When prisoners leave, they often cannot (or do not want) to return home due to the high cost of travel to the “West,” so they settle here, “improving” the demographic situation in the region. Some live honestly, others join existing ones or create their own groups and fight for a “place in the sun,” while others become drunkards and survive on petty thefts from bottle to bottle. But the growth of the contingent constantly leaving places of imprisonment and settling here and there affects the way of thinking of the residents, especially since many of them are descendants of exiles.
The criminal authorities had a pretty tight grip on the Far East, while allowing ordinary workers and engineers to live their lives as long as they didn't interfere where they shouldn't. The created legendary OPS "Obshchak" (some "branches" are still alive to this day) was actually a parallel organization of the regional administration, and at that time was many times stronger than the official one. This is quite important for understanding the situation and sentiments of the residents of the Far East.
Thus, there were two administrative verticals of power in the region - the shadow one, which operated without any framework, but therefore more effectively (according to the locals) and the official one, which, in fact, was on a leash from the “thieves in law”.
I will not describe all the criminal actions or good deeds of the Far Eastern authorities, I will only say that it was to them that they ran for help and it was from them that they received it. Not for free, of course, but not enough to sell your last panties.
Don’t think that I’m not trying to offend or, especially, offend the residents of the Far East. Here ordinary people are the same as in Moscow, Donetsk or somewhere in Kaliningrad, they just look at some things differently. Life forced me, and so did Moscow.
It would seem, what does Moscow have to do with it? Yes, the capital. Yes, the main city of the country. However, the natural wealth of the Far East, coupled with the inability and greed of appointed officials to properly manage it, attracts unscrupulous businessmen/oligarchs to the region.
Literally 20 years ago, delicious black caviar could be freely purchased in any store or from hand, but now this product cannot be found in any supermarket in the city. And the notorious three-liter jars of red caviar or red fish wrapped in oiled paper that live in the Amur, which residents of the Far East brought as gifts to their relatives in the West, have long sunk into oblivion.
Food prices in Khabarovsk are higher than in Moscow, and average salaries are several times lower. For example, in Komsomolsk, on average, a city resident receives 20 thousand rubles, in Khabarovsk - 25-27 thousand, utilities are about 2-6 thousand depending on the season for a standard two-room apartment. At the same time, to rent an apartment here, you need to shell out 15 thousand rubles a month; in Komsa you can find it for 13 thousand.
The region, despite its natural wealth and, importantly, the industrial enterprises left after the Soviet Union - the Komsomolsk Aviation Plant (produces fighters), the Amur Shipbuilding Plant (previously producing nuclear submarines), Amurstal (which I will talk about in detail later) and others - is dying from greed officials appointed here and constant redistribution of the “inheritance” in squabbles between local authorities. Although the authorities have recently taken off their crimson jackets and started wearing suits from Brioni. But all enterprises are slowly and surely dying. Nuclear submarines have been sold for metal, the fishing industry has actually been taken over by visiting tour operators, exporting the same fish and caviar exclusively to the West in every sense of the word.
I should write separately about fishing in general. Almost all companies involved in fishing have long belonged to either St. Petersburg residents or Muscovites, who hire local fishermen for next to nothing (30-40 thousand per month) compared to their profits and have established a monopoly on the market, having reached an agreement with local authorities in time.
Illegal fishing can result in a fine of up to a million rubles. Thus, the authorities are trying to fight poaching, because what is caught at the behest of “Western” businessmen falls within the limits of what is permissible, and everything that is above is already poaching.
In fact, after such draconian measures, illegal fishing only began to flourish even more, because, having caught an expensive fish with an equally expensive filling, it is easier to share with the policeman who stopped you than for him to write you a fine for a catch that was already caught anyway. Moreover, most issues are resolved almost in advance. An acquaintance of mine earned about a million rubles overnight that year; some, of course, had to be donated to support the livelihoods of law enforcement officers, and the other to the implementers, who did not ask unnecessary questions, but the amount still turned out to be significant.
Of course, poaching can and should be fought, especially since some fish species are under threat of destruction - both due to industrial pollution of the Amur River and due to uncontrolled fishing. Under the USSR, there was no need to steal on such a scale, because a can of black caviar in the Far East cost a penny, well, not a penny - rubles, but for specialists working here who received northern bonuses (in the North and Far East there was a premium of up to 50%, which was added for five years - 10% per year) and premiums for maintaining secrecy, harmfulness and importance of production, etc. – it was a small thing. My relative, who left Ukraine to work here at a factory, always brought with her both fish and caviar in huge quantities when she came to her homeland. What can we say if a neighbor was able to cure his daughter with black caviar in the late 90s.
“My daughter fell ill with one of the types of anemia, there is no cure, doctors don’t know what to do. One old doctor in our clinic advised giving the child a tablespoon of black caviar three times a day. I worked in a housing office, where in those days wages were paid in kind at best, where did the money for black caviar come from? And then bam - they wrote out a can of caviar on their next paycheck. My daughter felt better, then for another year I traded a liter jar for vodka from fishermen I knew,” he told me when I first arrived here.
Of course, this is not an indicator of wealth. These are the very 90s, when a month of human life was equal to a bottle of vodka. After the collapse of the Union, the Far East had a very difficult time, because it was almost impossible to survive in the harsh natural conditions and, frankly, the poor quality of the soil. It is unlikely that an ordinary engineer or worker will be able to sell nuclear boats and fighters left and right, so they were slowly sawed into metal. And they also quietly emptied the Amur, because they were hungry. Then the brothers began, dividing plots, transporting caviar to the West, etc.
Why am I all this? Moreover, after the 90s ended and some kind of stability began, a revival of production, it turned out that many factories/farms were bought for next to nothing by metropolitan businessmen, and now they decide what exactly to produce and who exactly to pay. And they decided like this: so be it, we’ll give the local workers a little money so that they don’t die of hunger, and we’ll give our own personnel, constantly sent to the Far Eastern plant from Moscow, both full powers and high salaries. At the same time, the locals are really trying to work.
Dima, the husband of my manicurist, is an engineer at an aircraft plant (in 2013, the plant became a branch of PJSC Sukhoi Company, Moscow), has been working for more than 10 years, and has reached a salary of 50 thousand rubles. Employees from the “mainland” are often sent to his plant as part of an exchange of experience; their salary, excluding all kinds of banquets and business trips, is about 150-200 thousand rubles. At the same time, the specialization and responsibilities are the same.
Reverse example. Several years ago, Dima was sent to Moscow to Sheremetyevo to check one of the sides and also oversee its painting. The team from the Far East, having slept off after the flight, was already at 8 am patiently waiting for their guide at the checkpoint. At 9 he showed up with a glass of coffee from Starbucks and was very surprised by the guys waiting for him, who wanted to do their work and go home. He advised them not to worry, but to enjoy the free Wi-Fi: watch a TV series, play with toys, and then go home, postponing work for the next day. The next day, by the way, lasted about a week and a half, until Dima and the team freaked out and went to the authorities, saying that if they don’t have work here, then they have work at home because they were forced to leave. They spent another 2 weeks or so thoroughly checking the plane, painting it, and went home with a clear conscience. All this time, local engineers and workers were twirling their fingers at their temples, looking at their enthusiasm.
Upon arrival, Dima told his wife that he would not fly by plane again, because if they are checked by such employees, then it is not surprising that they fall so often. By the way, his salary was then calculated with travel allowances. It turned out to be as much as 20 thousand more.
I have heard similar stories here more than once over the past six months. About how Moscow is profiting from the residents of the Far East, trying to grab more and more. About how he sends his managers here who have done something wrong before their superiors and who, instead of organizing the normal work of the region, begin to build their own chain of income. Of course, corrupt officials are everywhere. But in the “West” it’s much easier to keep track of them than in the region where the working day ends while it’s still morning.
Tell me, why does the government of the Khabarovsk Territory need its own yacht, whose maintenance costs 600 thousand rubles a year? Where to go on it? To Korea? To Japan? To Antarctica? Or a personal recreation center, still not abolished, to which staff are delivered by helicopter every morning? At the same time, the roads between the two largest cities - Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk - seem to leave much to be desired, as well as in the cities themselves. It seems that you don’t hit your head on the ceiling in a minibus every minute, but every other minute. And, if in the capital of the region they still pay attention to this defect, then in other cities they cannot even put the embankment - the calling card of the city - in order.
It was precisely because of the instability and greed of the capital’s businessmen trying to take away the remnants of their former luxury, as well as because of the hope for a qualitatively better life that appeared in 2018, that Khabarovsk residents went out to protest after the arrest of the region’s governor, Sergei Furgal, but more on that next material.
To be continued ...
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