At Military Review, in the “National Security” section, we try not to lose sight of the topic, which, despite its apparent distance from the issue of security, plays one of the primary roles in it. We are talking about the demographic indicators of Russia and related phenomena and processes. Today's consideration of this issue is connected not so much with general Russian demography, its indicators and manifestations, but with a narrower direction. This direction is the Russian village. And there is no mistake here - it is the Russian village. Namely, those rural territories of the Russian Federation that have been inhabited by Russians from time immemorial, and which today (with all the seemingly positive demographic processes) are experiencing enormous difficulties.

To begin with, here are the official demographic figures from Rosstat, which summed up the assessment of the population of the Russian Federation for 2016. Indicators from the Federal State Statistics Service indicate that the permanent population of the Russian Federation in 2016 increased compared to 2015 by approximately 200 thousand people and amounted to 146.5 million citizens. For any government official who has at least some connection to demographic reporting, these data can be used, as they say, to uncork champagne: there is an increase, but going into details is “from the evil one”...

However, moving equally away from both the liberal whining about “#everything is lost” and pseudo-patriotic bravura slogans in the style of “demographic problems have been completely solved,” we can confidently say that population growth as a whole is one thing, and the issues of the titular nation are quite another. Yes, the current constitution seems to “forget” about the existence of such a thing, but this does not in any way negate the fact that it is the Russian people (in the broadest sense of the word) that are the state-formers for Russia. There is no talk, thank God, of any “exclusivity” of the Russian people, but at the same time it is quite possible to call the reluctance of those in power to raise such a pressing issue as the demographic problems of the Russian population, the problems of the Russian village, the Russian outback, strange.

Why do the mentioned powers that be prefer not to talk about such a problem? It's simple. As soon as this issue is raised at a high (or relatively high) level, the beautiful and bright picture that everything is fine with demographics in Russia is immediately blurred. Moreover, blurring the picture, by definition, should lead to the need for those in power to start working more intensively, and not everyone is ready for intensive work in such a matter - it just so happens... The softer the chair and the more special telephones in the office, the more often this happens Sometimes it’s more difficult with intensive work in solving internal Russian problems...

However, again – to Rosstat statistics. Historically in Russia (since the beginning of statistical research - 1913) there has never been such a large gap in the size of the urban and rural population as in recent years. The data shows that at the end of 2016 in Russia there were 108.6 million city dwellers and 37.9 million rural residents. The percentage ratio: 74 percent to 26. According to reports for the short-term period (January-February 2017), the percentage of the rural population fell below 26 for the first time, reaching 25.9%. The parameters were close to the current ones in the USSR (RSFSR) during the era of collapse - in 1990-1991, when the ideology that the country did not need the development of agriculture was just beginning its destructive march across the country, since “there are friends around”, and these “ friends” will provide us with food, because “we are building democracy, and this is more important than growing wheat.”

Today, thank God, they have begun to realize that growing the same wheat is much more useful than building a pseudo-democratic system imposed by the West. However, unfortunately, such considerations are clearly not enough to solve all the problems of the Russian village.

If we take statistics for the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with the overwhelming majority of the ethnically Russian population, then the percentage of villagers is even lower - on average about 22-23%. In a number of regions, the indicator has already dropped below 20%.

So, even official statistics indicate that the Russian village is actually dying out. Here we can talk a lot about how this is deceit, and that there are villages following the path of development, but in the country as a whole, let’s speak frankly, there are hardly any significant numbers of them.

The reasons for the problems with demography in the Russian village have not changed in any way over the past few decades. The main problem is the lack of the required number of jobs, which brings with it a whole mountain of social and economic problems. In other words, the problem would be solved at least partially if government investments for development were sent not only to the development of the Chechen village, but also to the development of rural areas in other regions of Russia...

And here a person who is familiar with government programs can object by saying that the Cabinet of Ministers, headed by Dmitry Medvedev, is already implementing a program that is ultimately designed to partially solve the problem with jobs in rural areas. Indeed, there is such a program. It is described on, headed by Alexander Tkachev. The essence of the program is preferential lending to farms. The chain is something like this: a farmer working “in the countryside” receives a preferential loan from a bank for his specific project, then he implements this project with the involvement of peasant personnel, at the same time developing both his own farm and the infrastructure of the village.

Everything seems to be great, and what’s especially great is that Tkachev promises farmers bank loans at a rate of less than 5% per annum. During the speech of the head of the Ministry of Agriculture at a government meeting, it was stated that a number of banks included in the program issue loans to our farmers “for free” - at 2-3% per annum - below the inflation level. The state, they say, will still compensate.

However, in reality the program is, oh, how difficult it is. In reality, there is no question of an ordinary farmer receiving a loan from a bank (even one subsidized by the state) at 2-3% per annum. Banks gave out at best 14-15%, and they still give out. And these statements are not unfounded. Your humble servant, the author of the material, talked with several farmers who own agricultural land of different sizes on the subject of “preferential lending.” And not one of them, as they themselves said, managed to get a loan at the low interest rate mentioned by Tkachev, although they submitted all the necessary documents to receive a preferential loan.

And here is what the Minister of Agriculture himself said about this, speaking in the government:

As of February 22, the Ministry of Agriculture included 1,420 borrowers in the register to receive preferential loans totaling over 134 billion rubles. More than 640 borrowers plan to receive short-term loans in the field of crop production in the amount of over 38 billion.

An attempt to find out who these 1,420 happy borrowers who received preferential loans were was unsuccessful. This information is currently being kept secret with the following reasoning: banks do not have the right to disclose data about their clients. Yes Yes...

In practice, it turns out that the happy owners of preferential loans that banks provide as part of the state program are not ordinary farmers. Not at all those who actually live in the countryside and are ready not only to receive funds for their own production, but also ultimately to invest in the development of rural infrastructure - the development of schools, first aid stations, the opening of sports sections for youth, the construction and repair of roads. Loans are received by those who are commonly called “agrarian big farmers” - who, in pursuit of personal profit, are not ready to pay attention to the “social system”, but are ready to bring Central Asian guest workers to the Russian village in order to be able to get even more “profit”. I received a loan at 2% per annum - quickly rebuilt, for example, a creamery, sparkling in the sun, brought in fifty “gastrikov”, and the village... “what about the village... let it continue to drink itself to death... why should I pay attention to their problems...” The village still stands with rotten and rickety huts, gaping empty window sockets. And in the reports everything is wonderful: “there is a system-forming enterprise - a creamery.” And the fact that “the plant is separate, the village is separate” is of little concern to those who read these reports diagonally.

In this regard, the question is: are our effective managers aware of what path the implementation of the “agricultural” program is actually taking, and that access to it has a very, very narrow circle of people? Or is this the same case in which reporting is everything, and the fate of people in the outback is a minor matter?.. And if so, then what kind of demographics are there...

The Russian village is slowly dying out. This is relatively weakly noticeable in the south, very noticeable in the middle zone and obvious in the north. During a trip to the Vologda region, 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 fire, when there was only one inhabitant left.

Pal came from the outside, and the remaining grandfather could not do anything. While I was trying to put out other houses, my own house caught fire. I didn’t even have time to pick up my passport, so everything burned down. The remains of the stoves - scrap bricks - were dismantled for construction sites, and in place of the houses only low, gentle mounds of earth remained, on which stood the bed frames that had fallen from the second floor, crumpled and burnt. This grandfather greatly missed his once populous village. The children took him to the city, but for the summer he returned without listening to anyone. He built a hut in his old garden under the apple trees, in the hut there is a bed and a shelf, next to the entrance there is a small fireplace, under the canopy lie a smoked kettle and a saucepan... While it’s warm, he lives there every summer, wandering under his native tall poplars, under which he ran as a child , sits on the bank of the river and remembers a once large, noisy village, and for the winter he leaves for the city in a cramped apartment, where for him there is no life, and only existence remains.

There are, of course, villages where two or three residential buildings remain, in which the last grandmothers are living out their lives. Some were taken to the city by their children and grandchildren, while others remain on their 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 the highway, then it immediately becomes clear that there has been no one there for a long time: lonely leaning poles of extended electricity, rickety houses, streets overgrown with grass and... silence...

Why is this happening? Does a country need a village? Is it possible to stop the degradation process? We will try to answer these difficult questions to the best of our ability.

Why do you need a village: agricultural products

First, let's try to figure out the question - why do we need a village at all? Does anyone really need it?

There is a fairly widespread belief 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:

“A glance at agricultural statistics is like a shot in the head. Since the beginning of this decade, the value of imported food has increased annually by approximately 30% per year, and by last year it reached almost $30 billion. The once leading agricultural power now buys no less food than it produces itself.”.

In fact, we are “fighting” for first place in the world in 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 large quantities of agricultural products. Our sharp increase in net food imports is mainly due to an increase in oil prices. Below is a graph of food import growth by year:

It is interesting that while Japan ranks first in the world among developed countries in supporting (subsidizing) its agriculture, in our country it is supported rather weakly, and the level of support is constantly decreasing:

Source: “Expert” No. 22, 2008

Russia was once a leading agricultural power, and Currently, more food is imported than is produced domestically. In fact, this means exchanging non-renewable resources for renewable ones. Agricultural imports are almost equal to the cost of Russian gas exported to Western Europe.

One of the significant shortcomings of the Soviet Union was often cited as the depressingly low efficiency of agriculture and, in particular, high losses at the stage of processing agricultural products. According to official statistics alone, more than half of the potatoes, for example, rotted on the way to the consumer. During the liberal reforms of recent years, the situation has worsened dramatically. Firstly, direct state support fell by about 30 times (!). As a result, if in the mid-80s you could 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 therefore on the interest of farms in agricultural production. Imagine a situation if, for example, before you had an income that was not too big, but which allowed you to feed your family, clothe them, put them on shoes, buy a car, and travel to relatives in other cities, and then your salary was reduced 10 times. What's the point of going to such a job? People stopped doing this. But when the former collective 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 being left without a road in winter is not a test every family can handle. As a result, the remaining people left the villages en masse.

However, let's return to the state level. Industrial food production fell at an alarming rate. Since the situation had to be saved somehow, customs duties on food imports into Russia were radically reduced, which caused a wave of imports. A large number of companies have taken up this new business, the results of which can be seen in any grocery store today. Even in rural areas today, shops sell Polish apples, Chinese pears and Finnish cheeses. Bananas have long been cheaper than cucumbers.

Russia is dying:

Table 1. Comparison of customs import duties by country.

*Except for cocoa - 50%. Sources: Serova E.V., IPC, APE

As you can see, on average, duties are lower only in the United States, but there are several very well-thought-out programs to support agriculture, making the United States 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, emulating the United States in the area of ​​openness of agricultural customs barriers with a diametrically opposed domestic policy in the field of agriculture 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, let us 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, since in politics and economics food plays a huge role and has more power than guns or oil.”.

Recently, it has been openly admitted that the USSR was defeated by these weapons - food shortages seriously undermined people's faith in the capacity 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, saying that we have a risky farming zone. At the same time, they somehow forget that Russia is in 4th place in the world in terms of arable land area (in first place, by the way, is the USA). Moreover, in our country, about 40% of the world's black soil 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.

I once had the opportunity to fly on a plane from Seattle (northwest USA) to New York (northeast USA). At some point, looking down, I was surprised by the even square grid of roads with a pitch of about a kilometer, between which there were plowed fields. Here and there, as a rule, on 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 this is. Most likely, there were already some fields and houses there. But someone came, said, drew roads using a ruler on the map - and everything was embodied on the ground over a vast territory. A convenient network of roads raised above the fields has been laid down, passable at any time of the year, from which the fields are relatively easily accessible. And this picture dragged on and on. Near the cities, farmland ended briefly, but soon continued along the same grid. One state replaced another, but this only led to a change in the grid spacing (state laws allow themselves certain liberties regarding the general policy). And this picture below lasted about an hour and a half, i.e. something about 1500 kilometers.

When you take off by plane from Moscow, a completely different picture opens up. Yes, there are fields too, but it is immediately noticeable that most of them are not plowed. Moreover, plowed ones gravitate towards roads. It is interesting that from above the state border of Russia and Belarus is clearly visible. Immediately upon leaving Russia, you can see that literally everything, every piece of land, has been plowed. There are, of course, nuances related to the efficiency of agriculture (at the state level everything needs 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 a fundamental difference in government policy, as they say, with the naked eye. I would just like to pay attention.

What conclusions can be drawn:

• From the point of view of national security, Russia today is in a situation that it has never been in before in history, and which is much worse than the situation during the assassination of the USSR. More than half of the food is imported; there are no significant reserves. In the event of conflicts, it has become much easier to put pressure on Russia - just close the borders. Our position in this regard, compared to the United States and large European countries, is radically worse; in fact, from the point of view of food security, we are on the opposite end of the scale from them.
• The world's population is increasing by 80 million people per year, while the area of ​​the world's agricultural land not only stopped growing (all available land was plowed), but has been gradually decreasing since 1985 (soil depletion, land drying out). As a result, the area of ​​agricultural land per one 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 and, possibly, serious shocks in lean years are predicted for the coming decades (not all countries can afford to buy food). In this situation, the United States, even if the dollar depreciates, will act as a country that chooses who to provide food assistance to. Russia is a country that will seek opportunities to purchase 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 had 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 were bought up. Agricultural activity either ceased or was left only as a “cover.” The highest value in Russia is not agricultural land, but development land. Transferring land to a category that allows 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 confiscated. The severity of our laws is compensated by the flexibility in their implementation. As a result, only part of the land is plowed (usually the fields that are visible from the highway), which allows you to reduce the size of all types of costs and not think about cultivating fields located in the interior 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 on agriculture, but on rural areas. If earlier there was a bad owner here, now he has been replaced by an outright temporary worker. Land trading is a real Klondike. Prices in some places near cities have risen tens of thousands of times. In 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 you don't feed them, they will start writing letters, etc. Therefore, it is advisable to give some kind of income. As a result, people are encouraged, for example, to cut down the remaining surrounding forests. Everyone, including workers, understands that this approach has no prospects in the middle zone (where there is a shortage of forests). The only consequence is that people are more likely to go on a binge.

Conclusions:

• The overwhelming majority of modern landlords, who own large territories through Moscow companies, are not interested in the development of these territories and behave like “temporary workers” whose task is to somehow “get by” before selling the land. The presence of local residents is rather a disadvantage and a burden on the territory for them, 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 rural areas. People, incl. passionate about creating new rural projects, thanks to which the number of people in the villages will increase, think that they should be supported. But that's not true.

More precisely, at the level of personal relationships, a specific head of a district or village administration may support some 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 mentioned more than once above, 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 every district head has more than once observed another promising project, which, instead of the planned large return, either barely teetered on the edge of profitability or was closed completely. Low confidence in new projects is based on real experience.

At the same time, village residents need to be provided with a school, medical care, telephone, fire brigade, road repairs, hiring equipment to clean the road in winter, repairing power lines, paying for the lights that are burning in the village at night, paying for losses in the line and in the transformer, etc. . And if the village ceases to be a populated area or everyone leaves from there, then these very significant expenses for the meager local budget need not be made. As a result, to destroy a village as a populated area, it is now enough that there simply is not a single registered resident left in the village, and the local municipality will be more likely to be interested in this situation.

To be fair, we note that this is not the first serious reduction in the number of villages. If in the 18th and 19th centuries peasants often settled next to cultivated fields in villages and settlements, then in the 20th century there were two waves. One is collectivization in the 20s and 30s, the other is the consolidation of collective farms in the 50s. Small villages then ceased to exist. Now, after a catastrophe in Russian agriculture that lasted for 20 years, villages are disappearing catastrophically.

Conclusion:

• The rural administration is placed in a situation where it has a financial interest in reducing the number of villages, which leads to a decrease in the number of rural settlements. When a former village ceases to be a populated area, reviving life in it becomes noticeably more difficult, since the administration is not only not obliged to facilitate this, but often resists it.

Conclusion

Someone not too familiar with the subject might say:

“Some kind of too gloomy picture has been painted, this cannot happen. After all, someone fed the 140 million population of Russia in the 90s, incl. after the default, when we couldn’t buy food?”

How can you answer this... Below is a diagram of the structure of agricultural products by category of farms (in actual prices; as a percentage of the total).

At the end of December 2016, on radio “SOL” in the program “Angle of Vision” the topic was raised “The extinction of the Russian village: causes and consequences”. The reason for the program was the recent publication on the website of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms of an article entitled: “Russia is a country of dying villages.”

Presenters:
Alexandra Hvorostova.

Experts:
Alexander Merzlov- President of the Association of the Most Beautiful Villages of Russia, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development of Rural Territories of the Moscow Agricultural Academy named after. Timiryazev;
Vladimir Mukomel— Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Head of the Sector for the Study of Migration and Integration Processes at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
Irina Eliseeva— Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Chief Researcher of the Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
Gleb Tyurin— President of the Institute of Public and Humanitarian Initiatives, St. Petersburg.

***

Hello, dear radio listeners. At the microphone Alexandra Hvorostova. The topic of today's program is: “The extinction of the Russian village: causes and consequences.” The reason for the program was the recent publication on the website of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms of an article entitled: “Russia is a country of dying villages.” It describes in detail, with data from Rosstat, the problem of the extinction of Russian villages and says that this problem is one of the acute socio-economic problems of modern Russia. If you read a fairly detailed report, you can draw some conclusions about why the countryside is being depopularized in Russia today, how the population is moving out of rural settlements and villages. But it doesn't say what to do about it or how much of a problem it is. It is in this vein that we will build our program today, asking how broad this problem is, how it is being solved, and whether it needs to be solved at all. If we refer to the report “Russia is a Country of Dying Villages,” we can conclude that within 7 years there may not be a single hospital left in Russian villages; in about 17–20 years, all rural schools and clinics may close, the number of these institutions will be shrink and shrink and shrink. And it is precisely the liquidation of schools, hospitals, and clinics that becomes one of the most important reasons for the further and even greater outflow of citizens, most importantly, able-bodied citizens to cities, to conglomerates and the cessation of the existence of villages and villages as such.

First of all, we will talk to Alexander Valerievich Merzlov, President of the Association of the Most Beautiful Villages of Russia, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development of Rural Territories of the Moscow Agricultural Academy named after. Timiryazev.

Alexander Valerievich, hello!

Alexander Merzlov: Hello.

Is the problem really that serious now? It is called by CEPR as one of the most significant socio-economic problems - the extinction of the village?

Alexander Merzlov: Undoubtedly. This problem is not new. After perestroika, according to various estimates, up to 30 thousand villages disappeared, many became depopulated, and this process continues, unfortunately, at a catastrophic pace.

Is it necessary and possible to stop this process?

Alexander Merzlov: In our opinion, this certainly needs to be done. But, unfortunately, modern agricultural policy does not contribute to this. Since the rate of depopulation continues to be very high, let's say there is a program for sustainable rural development. But it mainly affects those rural settlements that are located next to large agricultural facilities. Most rural areas are not covered by this program, and the rate of disappearance of villages and their depopulation continues to be very high.

So, in essence, this is an inevitable process?

Alexander Merzlov: No, it depends on the type of agricultural policy. If agricultural policy is focused on large agricultural holdings, if the center of its interests is not the interests of the rural community, but the interests of large agricultural businesses, of course, this is in fact the American model, everything will remain as it is. Our agriculture is developing, milk yields are growing, and productivity is also growing, but at the same time the state of the social sphere continues to deteriorate. It can be said that business continues to concentrate in rural areas. There are countries with more socially oriented models, for example, France, where greater emphasis is placed on supporting small forms of business. And this leads to a greater variety of agricultural products, and to better care of rural landscapes, and has a very large indirect effect in the form of attractive jobs in a variety of areas. Our country is large enough, and in order to engage in the agro-industrial complex, thank God, we have huge open spaces where you can do it - I don’t want to, I mean large-scale farming. But, in our opinion, in residential areas where people live, in areas with increased recreational and cultural potential, it is necessary to develop small-scale farming that will be focused on high-quality food, a varied diet, and on the development of recreational and tourism potential. And in this way we will be able to implement these models.

Why don’t we in Russia adopt a similar model from France? And can we do this?

Alexander Merzlov: It is for this purpose that at one time our Center for Sustainable Development of Rural Territories developed the very first concept of sustainable development of rural territories in Russia, which, unfortunately, received such an industrial bias. We initiated such a project, the Association of the Most Beautiful Villages in Russia. It is with the help of this project that we are trying to show that there is another way, the one I just told you about. We want to show, using the example of our candidates, that there are other opportunities to develop the village through the use of internal resources, those huge cultural and natural potentials that are still not tapped.

And how effective is the work of the Association?

Alexander Merzlov: Our association is more than 2 years old. We have several members and several dozen candidates. The work is very interesting. We believe that this is a very big problem and it will take a long time to resolve. In our opinion, we are on the right track. We have already worked out many of the things that we wanted to work out, so to speak. In any case, in the villages where we are currently working, the influx of tourists is significantly increasing. And when tourists come, they naturally bring money with them. The local population now needs to learn how to make sure that they spend this money. That is, provide them with good gastronomy, good accommodation, good programs. Now we are doing all this. Naturally, this problem cannot be solved by a single cavalry attack. This requires a systematic approach, and we are at the very beginning of the journey.

In which regions does your Association’s program operate?

Alexander Merzlov: The Association of the Most Beautiful Villages of Russia is part of the Federation of the Most Beautiful Villages on Earth. There are very strict criteria, first of all, in terms of architecture and landscape. And, unfortunately, in regions where the agro-industrial complex is developed, we cannot find members or candidates, precisely because the agro-industrial complex leaves a very big mark. He quickly turns historical rural settlements into agricultural towns, he equips them. But, unfortunately, with this arrangement, with this siding, the originality and authenticity of these rural settlements is lost, and they lose interest from a tourist point of view. Therefore, we have now concentrated our activities here, to Yaroslavl and to the north, especially a lot in the Arkhangelsk region, we have a very interesting village of Vyatskoye, our first member. Karelia. We also found interesting Old Believer villages and villages beyond Lake Baikal, near Buryatia. And we hope that we will find many more in the Caucasus and in the republics on the Volga. I repeat, we have only been working for 2.5 years. We are a non-profit organization that operates primarily on a volunteer basis. We have no funding, except that we recently received a presidential grant from the Perspective Foundation.

To what extent do the villages themselves make contact and interact with you?

Alexander Merzlov: Separate villages may come to us. Everywhere, of course, there must be some kind of initiative group, since we do not invite anyone to join our Association, people must mature. Moreover, the application must be accompanied by a protocol of the general meeting of citizens, where they discussed this decision to submit an application and voted, the majority must be “ behind" Where there are initiative people, we receive applications. Plus, several regions at the level of their regional administrations also help there, we signed an agreement with them, and they help us find such villages and stir up some initiative there. Unfortunately, one of the problems is the very low level of initiative. This is a consequence of Soviet power. In general, the success of rural development will be largely related to the development of self-government, real self-government. An approach " down up"in the implementation of projects like ours, there must be.

It is clear that not all villages and villages have a core of people who are not indifferent to the fate of the villages. How to reverse this kind of thinking with a post-Soviet imprint?

Alexander Merzlov: There is a lot to do here. Firstly, our most beautiful villages themselves, if their life improves, they themselves become a landmark, a kind of beacon for others. It is very important. At the state and regional level, we must, in fact, start with educational programs. Let’s say that in agricultural universities we do not have a whole range of specialties that are focused on the integrated development of rural areas. We have livestock breeders, we have agronomists, vegetable growers, but there are absolutely no specialists who would be responsible for the comprehensive development of the village, its cultural and natural potential. And we need to pay great attention to this.

By the way, what about young people in general who have already studied, not necessarily to become an agronomist or related professions? Does she return to her villages or does she still go to the cities?

Alexander Merzlov: Now there is a certain positive trend. I’m afraid to scare him off, but I want to say that in the most difficult years, post-perestroika, I know that the number of graduates who work in their specialty fell from 4%. We are in our time - I also graduated from an agricultural university with a degree in " economist“We all definitely worked on collective farms, and we don’t regret it at all. Now there is no such system, and there is no point in tying people down; we need to stimulate them. But the experience of other countries, say, European ones, shows that the tendency of a reverse outflow to the countryside, the so-called ruralization, that is, the reverse process of urbanization, is taking place. In many Parisian universities, agricultural students are city dwellers who tend to move to the countryside because the quality of life is better there.

Which, unfortunately, cannot be said about our villages. Let's probably sum up all of the above. Do you think it is possible to revive the countryside in Russia today?

Alexander Merzlov: I believe that this process must definitely happen, because the village is the cradle of our culture. Russia is a very rural country. Without the past there will be no future. If the village does not revive, making any plans, in my opinion, is quite pointless. Therefore, we must definitely come to this. We are in our place and working on exactly this.

Thank you so much for being able to talk to us live.

To what extent is it possible to revive a village in Russia, we will talk about the causes and consequences of the extinction of villages with Vladimir Izyavich Mukomel, Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Head of the Sector for the Study of Migration and Integration Processes at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Hello!

Vladimir Mukomel: Good afternoon.

Tell us, is the problem really widespread, is there really a extinction of villages or is it in vain, perhaps, that this problem is being inflated? Why is this village needed? Previously, of course, the village used to feed the cities. And now what? Why do we need villages with you now?

Vladimir Mukomel: I must say that urban planners don’t even have a clear definition of what a city is and what a village is. We intuitively understand that these are completely different environments. Yes, the village as such is dying out in the sense that the number of rural settlements is decreasing, the rural population is decreasing. But this is a living organism, this is a natural process. Please note that rural settlements that are located in urban areas, suburbs of large cities, first of all, they are not like “ live", They " bloom wildly" At least New Moscow, let’s remember what was on its territory 15-20 years ago. And this happens everywhere, because the settlements closest to large cities are where the employment sector is changing. Rural residents are essentially urban, in the sense that they come to work in the city. For them it’s like a suburb, a sleeping place. These settlements survive very well. Those settlements are dying where transport accessibility is poor, where it is difficult to get to the city, and where it is generally difficult to get out of there. Hence a whole series of social problems. Fire equipment, medical care, consumer services, trade, etc. People are leaving. And this process did not start today. We will remember that back in the 60-70s we were talking about revival, disappearance, etc., because these processes have been going on for many decades. I would also like to note that, on the one hand, new life is appearing in rural settlements included in the urban environment due to the fact that new areas of employment are emerging, and city residents very often leave and prefer to live in the nearest suburbs. The process of so-called suburbanization is underway. And in Russia we are faced with the fact that people who have opportunities prefer to live in the nearest suburbs of Moscow and work in Moscow. Just like if you go to major cities in the US, less so Europe, you will see that the city center is strictly a business place. And at night it’s better not to appear in downtown. The majority, the middle class, lives in the suburbs. I want to say that the village is a social environment that is alive, processes of its transformation and changes are constantly underway, some settlements die, others appear. Many rural settlements are included in urban areas as cities expand. And this is where their reduction comes from.

Is urbanization good or bad? Maybe it’s not bad that people come to cities to retrain, to work, they have jobs, and have good access to all social spheres.

Vladimir Mukomel: The devil is in the details. For some this is good, for others it is bad. If we remember the 60s and 70s, what process was going on then? Young people from the village were drafted into the army, returned to the village, or immediately left the army for the cities. There were still brides who were also drawn to the city. Or vice versa, brides left for the cities, and only young people remained in the village. It is important how people feel in a rural environment. If it is alive, if it is a normal settlement, close to the city, then let 10 people live there, but they can solve all their social problems and they will be satisfied. And if this is a large rural settlement in Tmutarakan - what to do there? Just drink.

So, it’s good that villages are dying out somewhere out there, on the periphery, villages that cannot be reached?

Vladimir Mukomel: Good, of course, is not enough.

Why?

Vladimir Mukomel: For the people who live there, this process is very painful. Because these rural communities are aging. There are many villages where only elderly people remain. It is clear that these rural settlements are doomed to extinction. Some are good, some are bad. But this process is natural. I would talk not only about urbanization, but also about suburbanization, when there is not a mass exodus of city dwellers to the countryside, but this process is underway. We know many Muscovites who have dachas 100, 200, 300 km from Moscow. And this is also a new phenomenon, when the village is being revived at the expense of summer residents. This is a phenomenon. Summer residents come for several months, for six months. But thanks to them, some kind of infrastructure is being recreated - roads, they need roads. They need not only transport services, but also access to medical care, retail outlets, etc. These may be seasonal, but this contributes to some extent to the revitalization of these rural communities.

Still, we can say that in a very short time, literally 17-20-25 years at most, the village and village will die out completely and disappear from the map of Russia?

Vladimir Mukomel: No, that's not likely. This does not happen in any country in the world, because rural life has its own charms, and people always strive for nature. In what form we will have a village in the middle of this century, at the end, we do not know. But it is obvious that this will be a different village. But it still won’t be a city with its skyscrapers, its impersonality, and many of the problems that are typical for cities, especially the largest ones. There are many people who prefer small towns. Just remember Akhmatova, who talked about living on the seashore. Not everyone succeeds. But some small settlement on the coast - I have no doubt that these places, which are still very expensive, will be in demand within the memory of our and the next generations.

Thank you so much, Vladimir Izyavich, for talking to us live.

We continue. In general, the process of depopulation of villages, rural settlements, of course, is not a unique phenomenon on a global scale. Of course, there are such problems in both the West and the East. We will also talk about the causes and consequences of the possible extinction of villages with Irina Ilinichnaya Eliseeva, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Chief Researcher at the Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Irina Ilyinichna, hello.

Irina Eliseeva: Hello.

Irina Ilyinichna, today we are talking about the problem of the extinction of the Russian village, that this is one of the acute socio-economic problems in modern Russia. How wide and deep do you think this problem is today? And is it worth solving it somehow, or should everything take its course?

Irina Eliseeva: First of all, the media needs to intervene here. They are of priority importance in order to arouse both public interest and the interest of managers in the village problem. This problem is ripe, and it is very acute. Given our huge territory, over 17 million square kilometers, we need to have a fairly even population. But we don't have it. In our country, as we know, it is concentrated in cities, and the huge country is practically empty, with huge areas, forest lands, and so on. 26% of the rural population seems to be a large figure, but at the same time, this figure is small for our country. And if we compare with our previous indicators, we see that Russia has gone through a rapid trajectory from an agricultural country with a predominantly rural population to a country with an urbanized population, with wild, neglected forest lands, water resources, and so on. Therefore, we need to focus on the countryside, we need to provide rural residents with access to medical care and education. And this must be done through state programs, through federal target programs, and through self-organization. The priority should, of course, be municipal authorities. They, too, must become more active and pursue an active policy to ensure the preservation of infrastructure parameters in rural areas. My position is this.

And how realistic is it for Russia today to do everything at such a really high federal level, to include some kind of state programs? After all, there are already some state programs.

Irina Eliseeva: We have programs. Just everything " absentmindedly" We have a separate program to support agriculture. There is separate support for small businesses. We just have everything " sprayed».

Again, is there a program to support young professionals in rural areas?

Irina Eliseeva: Yes, of course there is.

Why doesn't it work at the level at which we would like?

Irina Eliseeva: We have bad targets. There, the numerator is employment in the relevant service sector, for example, in education, and the denominator is the population size. The result is that the program is more effective the lower this indicator is. That is, we are ourselves " cutting down a tree" We say that the less people are employed in this area per population, the more programs are completed. But this is absurd. I understand that this figure varies within some limits. Of course, there must be some kind of optimum. But these quantitative estimates cannot be interpreted so literally. As a result, rural support programs are being reduced, all this is being optimized - as we know, under the banner of optimization, outpatient and paramedic stations in rural areas are being removed, schools are being closed, and they are being enlarged. Where will we end up? To the next stage of depopulation of the village. We have already encountered boarded-up houses all over the place. You drive: empty, empty, and previously heavily populated, viable villages. And what now: boarded up houses, rickety huts. In the end, we have to live on this land, we need to develop it.

Let's now imagine an absolutely terrible picture. All towns and villages were closed. What should we do in this case? How to restore villages when everyone leaves. I’m not talking now about those settlements that are located near big cities - it’s easier for them. Namely, cut off villages?

Irina Eliseeva: You know, there was a consumer cooperation system, very mobile, with an extensive network. There were bus shops, they traveled, sold something, bought something - apples, pears, meat - from local residents. Because not everyone can get to the market, not everyone had the appropriate vehicle. So we need to restore this network structure. Next, on to schools. You probably read: in Novaya Gazeta there was a very interesting article about mobile schools, when students are not taken to one school, but teachers are taken to schools, because there are not enough subject teachers. If there is still a general teacher in the primary classes, then there are not enough subject teachers who should teach chemistry, English or biology at a good, professional level. Therefore, one teacher serves several schools, he is transported like this. That is, we need to look for flexible ways to involve schools, children, and teenagers in the education system and culture, finding such forms, and diversifying these forms. And don’t be ashamed of the fact that you are a pioneer. Well, come on, come up with something, you need to get out of the situation, don’t abandon people.

By the way, the website of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms recently published an article entitled “Russia is a country of dying villages,” and it talks in detail about the reasons for the relocation of people to big cities and the dying of the countryside. And one of the acute problems is the lack of housing and communal services. Not all our villages have gas supply. Will the country cope with these problems of housing and communal services?

Irina Eliseeva: I don’t think we will be able to cope with these problems for a long time. Now the main and pressing problem is to provide health services and educational services to rural residents so that people have access to education and health care. Because a person must survive, must live. And public services are, of course, a pressing issue; it, of course, is resolved where the settlement is part of the agglomeration system or is adjacent to it. Remote communities will, of course, continue to experience difficulties and challenges. I think that this problem will definitely not be solved in the next five years. These difficult living conditions presuppose that a person has health, has an interest in life, and a person must develop. Therefore, in my opinion, the issue of health and education is paramount.

But I still want to ask about this problem. About the problem of the outflow of the younger generation. People leave for big cities to get an education: higher education, secondary specialized education, and so on. And many don't come back. How to interest young people?

Irina Eliseeva: Again, develop crafts and occupations on the land: construction, logging, and woodworking. That is, what is associated with cultivation, with the cultivation of land and natural resources. It seems that we still have very few such fisheries, farming and other activities. And all this is largely determined by the activity and determination of municipalities. Still, municipal authorities should always be more active at the local level.

To sum up all of the above, in your opinion, are villages dying, and this is an irreversible process, or will the village not die, and we can say that people will return to the countryside, and we will raise the village?

Irina Eliseeva: There are contradictory trends here. Of course, there is also a trend towards the development of entrepreneurship in rural areas and farms. On the other hand, there are attacks on the same farms from big business, agricultural holdings, there is no support from the authorities, etc. That is, a struggle of tendencies, and in each specific case one or another tendency wins. But in general, an unfavorable trend is forming in our country - this, one might say, is the process of the dying of the village, which is still ongoing. But I hope he has to stop. People must turn to the earth. We have such biological wealth, such a variety of resources that we cannot lose them. Both secondary school and higher education should be aimed at realizing that we need to turn our face to nature, face to the earth. The youth need to be instilled with this idea of ​​developing the land, that it is a shame for the nation when the land is empty and not used for its intended purpose. On the other hand, we cannot be " Michurins" We cannot say: " Everything that nature can give must be taken from it“, because we must treat nature with care, try to ensure that nature gives us the opportunity to reproduce the biosphere and maintain the absorbent effect. Professor Kleist published an article in the journal “Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences” in which he pointed out that Russia is the lungs of the entire planet, that all these swamps, streams and forests have a colossal role in maintaining ecological balance. Therefore, rural residents, who know every bush, every berry, and take care of their conditions, must somehow actively act as an active force. There are such people, but they are very few.

Thank you so much, Irina Ilyinichna, for being able to communicate with us.

We continue. Finally, let's talk to Gleb Vladimirovich Tyurin, President of the Institute of Public and Humanitarian Initiatives, St. Petersburg.

Gleb Vladimirovich, hello.

Gleb Vladimirovich: Hello.

In your opinion, how relevant is the problem of village extinction today? How can you fight this? And is it really necessary to solve this problem and fight it?

Gleb Vladimirovich: Well, of course, we need to fight this, because I don’t even want to imagine what will happen if the Russian village is lost. This will most likely mean the impossibility of the country's existence. Russia is, first of all, a huge space. And if we cannot live in these spaces, and we all gather in ten megacities, then it will simply not be possible to save the country. To do something, you probably need many steps, many different decisions, but, first of all, today you need to understand how people who live in the outback can earn money. There must be ideas about some new economy. I think there are a few key things. These are the economy, education, healthcare and a new way of life. There is a set of problems that, in principle, can be solved, the answer to which can be found. And a huge help can be the fact that now most of the natives of the outback are trying to leave for big cities, but a counter flow has already begun when people from big cities want to go to the countryside. There are a huge number of people among them: young, smart, entrepreneurial people who are involved in some small businesses, who want to create their own business, who want to live in an environmentally friendly environment, so that a child can run barefoot on the grass, so that the food is real. I think that today such systematic work is needed in some areas, at least in the Central European part, at a distance of several hundred kilometers from a big city. We need to create some new " pilot» projects for the revival of the outback, where people are interested in living, where there is income, where local residents are included in this. I think this is absolutely real.

We say that this applies to Central Russia, but, for example, the Northern Federal District, the Ural Federal District, the Far Eastern Federal District - how to attract residents there?

Gleb Vladimirovich: It's the same story. People who are leaving megacities today - among them there are a lot of people who go to the Altai Mountains, to the Altai Territory, to the Irkutsk Region, to the Primorsky Territory. That is, these are phenomena that are not only around Moscow. Today, of course, a large number of people who want to move are “ Muscovites», « Petersburgers", residents of other cities. But I think this is a universal phenomenon. The most important thing is to combine several factors. Here, there is a governor, he wants this to happen, he is ready to create some conditions somewhere. There is a district head who wants this to happen on his territory. And there are several thousand people who want to leave, and we need to help these people understand what they will do there. When they already go there, it turns out that they are completely unprepared, then some will face such a harsh lesson, not everyone will be ready for this. And some are returning, if we talk about the townspeople. But gradually, in Russia, this process is growing, it is going on, and interesting stories are appearing in different regions, experience is appearing. I think it’s very cool that today they are talking about this on the radio, that television programs have begun to appear. We need to put it all together somehow. Because now these are mostly projects of individual people, lone heroes. But there must be some kind of systematic story so that people from Moscow, for example, go somewhere, and someone should say: “ Come to us, come to us" A year ago we created a VKontakte group called “Territory Development Club”. There are already 6.5 thousand people there now. All these people, I think, came with one goal - they are interested in life in the village. They want to go to a village or a small town. And the vast majority of these people are city dwellers, residents of big cities.

Are these mostly young people or older people? Or is this trend impossible to trace?

Gleb Vladimirovich: I think these are people of different ages. I think there are older people too. It is clear that many people, when retiring, think about a house in the village. These are, for example, people leaving for the reserves. These are people who have children, who, having lived in the city, begin to understand that family and the metropolis are very difficult.

After all, you are now talking about such isolated cases when you are fed up with civilization, when you want something of your own. But still this is not everywhere today. Is it necessary to develop this love, say, for the countryside in a modern person, in a person who lives in the city? Or, in principle, this should not be done? Whoever feels the strength in himself will leave. Or is it necessary to develop in city residents such a craving for the countryside, for cows?

Gleb Vladimirovich: I think that there is no need to develop it especially, because this traction is simply gigantic. Just look at the flow of cars every Friday, starting from lunch: millions of people go to springs, to their beds, to their gardens, to clean air. But this is 6 acres, this is a dacha. Regarding the fact that these are isolated cases, these are not isolated cases, these are millions of people. There are already studies showing that several million people live in Moscow who would leave tomorrow if they had somewhere to go. The number of people is reduced, depending on whether these people will be helped, whether they will be helped with work, whether they will be helped with housing. Let's put it this way, there are, to put it mildly, hundreds of thousands of people who would leave tomorrow, on their own, at their own expense, if they understood where to go. But we need to talk not only about these people. We are now creating projects that teach people how to move. Some of the people who have moved create a closed world. It is called " settlement", or " eco-village" There is ordinary life, and there are some who moved from Moscow or another big city. It seems to me that it would be more rational if the entire territory were developed. If only there weren't such a sharp distinction. And people who want to leave, for example, to the Tver region or to the Tula or Vologda regions, they would help the local community, its formation, the development of some industries. And gradually their number would increase, people would be in demand, this would be supported by the authorities. In order for the village to live, it must become different.

Do I understand you correctly, Gleb Vladimirovich, that some kind of comprehensive programs are needed at the regional level to attract people to the countryside and villages?

Gleb Vladimirovich: Yes. And preliminary training, and coordination, building dialogue, partnerships, if these are people moving. It must not happen that someone comes and other people sweep away everything that was here before. Traditions must be preserved. I have just arrived from the Nizhny Novgorod region, I traveled through the villages: what amazing beauty there is there. There are still carved shutters on the houses there. There is some kind of environment - and as it was in the 19th century, so it remains. This is very important to preserve. People get involved in this, but they preserve what was here before, they take care of local folklore, holidays, traditions, and so on. They become locals. They are included in the local community. And then it is very effective. And this cannot be absorbed by large industry. There should be many small industries. For Russia to be a rich country, it must have a province, it must live well. If this does not happen, the country cannot be supported by the oil industry alone.

Gleb Vladimirovich, the framework of our program does not allow us to communicate with you longer. I thank you for being able to talk to us live. Thank you very much. All the best, goodbye.

The problem of the extinction of the Russian village is one of the acute socio-economic problems of modern Russia. The Center for Economic and Political Reforms has studied this issue, relying on statistical data, the results of sociological research, as well as the work of demographers. We tried to answer the question: how and why are Russian villages dying out?

Over the past 15-20 years, the rural population has been constantly decreasing - both due to natural population decline (mortality exceeds birth rate) and due to migration outflow. The process of depopulation of rural areas is so active that the number of abandoned villages is constantly increasing, as well as the number of rural settlements with a small number of inhabitants. In some regions of the Russian Federation, the share of depopulated villages exceeded 20% - mainly in the regions of Central Russia and the North. Between the 2002 and 2010 censuses alone, the number of depopulated villages increased by more than 6 thousand. More than half of all rural settlements are home to between 1 and 100 people.

At the same time, the process of depopulation in the territorial context is uneven. There is a concentration of the rural population around individual “foci” while simultaneously expanding areas of depressed rural areas, which are characterized by constant depopulation.

The main reasons for the decline in the rural population lie purely in the socio-economic plane. First of all, rural settlements are characterized by a lower standard of living and a relatively high level of unemployment, including stagnant unemployment. An active part of the working-age population leaves for cities, which in turn contributes to further socio-economic stagnation, degradation and depopulation of rural areas. Another problem, which is one of the reasons for the outflow of the rural population from the country, is the lower quality of life of the rural population due to the low availability of social infrastructure (educational, medical, leisure, transport) and basic services (primarily state and municipal services), as well as housing conditions and insufficient provision of housing and communal services.

In particular, it was revealed that over the past 20 years, rural settlements not only did not increase, but also largely lost their social infrastructure due to the processes of “optimization,” which particularly affected rural areas. Over the past 15-20 years, the number of rural schools has decreased by approximately 1.7 times, hospital organizations - by 4 times, outpatient clinics - by 2.7 times.

The process of depopulation of rural areas is not a unique Russian phenomenon; it is in many ways similar to similar processes in other countries. At the same time, the processes of depopulation and emptying of rural areas are proceeding in Russia according to a relatively negative scenario, associated with the hyperconcentration of the population in the capital and large cities and more typical for the countries of Asia and Latin America.

Today, certain measures to curb the depopulation of rural areas in Russia are provided at the level of state programs. However, it should be recognized that the general direction of government policy leads to the concentration of finance, jobs and, as a result, population, in the capital and other large cities. Attempts to maintain the rural population and stimulate population migration to rural areas do not work, since targeted measures fail due to the virtual absence of conditions for the development of rural areas.

The detailed results of the study can be found.

Hello, friends!

You, of course, have heard about dead abandoned cities, abandoned villages, villages and towns, of which there are a lot, not only in the post-Soviet space, but all over the world: in the USA, China, Japan, Germany and so on.

Yes, today I want to talk about ghost towns in Russia. And not those that, due to their tragic (or not so tragic) fate, have become part of tourist trails, but those that are not so known to the general public, but are no less interesting.

So, friends, if you are here hoping to find information about Pripyat, which, frankly speaking, has already set the teeth on edge. Or about the tragic fate of Kadykchan or Kurshi, then I will disappoint you - they are deliberately ignored in this article. There are several reasons, and one of them is that it is better to share information and impressions about such cities after visiting them.

Dead cities and tourism

The relatively new genre of “post-apocalyptic” has gained wide popularity over the past half century. This is reflected in films, books, and games. More and more photographers, directors, people of other creative professions, and just thrill-seekers are visiting abandoned buildings.

Some people look for inspiration there; for others, dead cities are a blank canvas on which to create. And someone wants impressions and new emotions. It is now clear that this, whatever one may say, is another direction for tourism. It may not be the most popular, but it is certainly very interesting. Such cities allow you to see another life, to touch something mystical and creepy.

Abandoned settlements of the Central Federal District

Most often, such an unenviable fate occurs in small settlements whose residents worked at one, city-forming enterprise. If it closed, the settlement “closed.” Sometimes everything can be much more tragic, a vivid example of this is Pripyat.

My list is more likely to fall into the first category. These towns and villages "were the victims of an economic recession" rather than natural or man-made disasters. Below are 20 dead settlements in Russia, which are located in the Central Federal District (photos attached).

Not quite a ghost, some houses still have a glimmer of life. The history of this military town is eerily typical: the military unit was disbanded and everything was abandoned. The barracks, hangars, canteen, and so on, all of this is slowly crumbling.

The object is quite well known in certain circles of abandoned junk lovers.

Remember the forest fire in central Russia in 2010? So, this village stood in the path of the destructive power of fire. The private sector burned out almost completely; the boiler room, garages and vegetable gardens burned down. People fled for their lives, leaving their property behind.

Only high-rise buildings remained virtually untouched by the fire. As of 2015, Mokhovoye is a completely dead village.

This is Belevsky district. Chelyustino has been allegedly abandoned since 1985. There are 24 houses left in it, no people.

Well preserved. In some houses, even closets with clothes were found.

But this is a residential village. I don’t know what’s sadder - a ghost town or THIS.

Glubokovsky has a typical fate for a working mining village. After the closure of all the mines, approximately 1,500 people still lived in it, but in the 90s of the last century people gradually began to leave.

The proximity of the regional center saves the village from complete extinction, but... how much effort does it take to live in it? After all, this is not even a small town.

Kostroma is a completely extinct settlement in central Russia, of which there are hundreds. This village is not the only one here, there are several more similar ones nearby.

There are several houses left in it, all in disrepair.

The once large village is now living out its life. Some houses are well preserved, this can be seen both from their carved frames and from their internal condition (there are household items in good condition).

Over the past few years, this settlement has been completely deserted. Nowadays Korchmino is a ghost village.

Another of the many dead villages in the Yaroslavl region. Everything that can be taken from there has already been stolen, everything that cannot is slowly rotting.

The once rich village, with large houses and courtyards (in almost every courtyard there is a barn, bathhouse, outbuildings) is slowly dying.

The exact name is unknown; there is a possibility that this village has a different name. There is another similar village nearby. It is difficult to find them, since the main mentions remain on old maps.

Inside, everything is as usual: several looted, destroyed houses, in which you can still find household items.

“This strange place Kamchatka” has been empty for about 10 years. Once upon a time this settlement belonged to the collective farm. Chapaeva. The collective farm collapsed, and the same thing happened to the village.

You can’t get to this village (except by tank), so it’s better to go on foot. At the moment, several houses in poor condition remain in Dora, but before, life was in full swing.

The village was connected to the outside world by a narrow-gauge railway built in 1946. At the moment, what remains of it are several destroyed bridges in the surrounding area.

A small village with 10 houses, now only 2 have survived. The village has been completely dead for 4 years now.

We were in the same house (pictured), on the table there was a letter from the mother from the “zone” from her son.

Another ghost village, but in the Belozersky region. Apparently empty since 1995.

Several houses and baths near the river have survived. The houses are of the North Russian type - on a high basement with a vestibule at the rear of the house. Inside are some pieces of furniture and household items. Everything is in bad condition.

A very old village in the Vologda region, founded on a water trade route in the 13th century. The settlement flourished in the 18th century, and in 1708 it became the center of the Charonda region and received the status of a city. The population at that time was approximately 10,000. This did not last long.

In the 1770s, the town of Charonda again became a village, and by 1917 less than 1,000 people lived in it. Nowadays there are a dozen houses left in the village, and the number of inhabitants is 2 (more in the summer). The village is extremely inconvenient: there is no road there by land, there is no electricity (all the poles have long since rotted and fallen into the swamp).

Khmelina is also an old ghost village in the Central Federal District of Russia. It was founded in 1626, there were 700 households, a mill, factories, a collective farm, a school and a store.

However, since the 70s of the 20th century, residents gradually began to leave. As of November 2017, no one lives in the village anymore. The houses are abandoned, only a few are used as country houses.

An almost dead village in the deep forests of the Kostroma region. The condition is average: there are several houses almost untouched by time.

Near the village there are 4 more abandoned villages.

A remarkable place. In the vicinity of this farm, a stone labyrinth several thousand years old was discovered in the late 1980s.

By the way, it is believed that this labyrinth is a place of power.

Some of the houses are mud huts with thatched roofs and look cool. At the moment, the farm is almost completely abandoned.

Ghost villages on the map

The map is very approximate. Firstly, not all villages were mapped onto it, and secondly, those that were mapped may not be entirely correct. You understand that abandoned cities in Russia, and not only, are not always easy to find.

But you can roughly get your bearings; all areas are correct.

That's probably all. I am finishing the list of dead cities and villages. But this is just one of many. I have not included many more areas of our vast Motherland.

P.S. All information about the once populated areas and photos are taken from the site urban3p.ru