There are at least two answers to the question of what a modern village is. The first is the one that illuminates the current reality. And the second answer is the dream of most Russians about what it should be like, a real modern village. That village, where it would be nice and comfortable to live, I wanted to start a family and plan the future of my whole family.
The bitter reality of rural life
The modern village is one of the most painful places in the Russian economy. This is evidenced by those abandoned villages in which helpless old people live, and to be precise, vegetate in poverty and decline. Hectares of fields overgrown with weeds, destroyed cultural monuments: churches, ancient buildings, dwellings of historical figures scream about this. This is indicated by lopsided and faded tablets with the names of once prosperous settlements, standing on the sides of downed and practically unused roads. Yes, the modern village is a bitter sight…
Sometimes people go to cities for money, leaving their homes
The lack of opportunities to earn a living drives young people to the cities. Deserted villages become unprofitable, retail outlets, first-aid posts, post offices are closed in them, and vehicles stop working. All this only adds to the problems for the locals, because for the most essential - bread, s alt, matches, medicines - people have to take country paths to get to a larger village several kilometers away in blizzards, rain, and heat. The Russian village, especially the small one, is simply dying out. In some villages, they even "cut off the light", that is, they cut off the supply of electricity…
And in our village - light! No internet though…
In larger villages, the so-called "bushes", which house the administrative settlement centers, which used to be called village councils, things are a little better. It is there that schools still exist, post offices and branches of Sberbank work, in some places there are discos on weekends in clubs - Houses of Culture, there are first-aid posts. Another Russian village boasts a library and even an unfinished kindergarten. Naturally, this provides the population with some jobs, provides income, and this keeps some of the residents. And the opportunity to buy food, get some kind of medical care, and send a child to school also plays an important role. Retirees who are still in force keep a small farmstead there, have the opportunity to support children and grandchildren.
Is it good to have a house in the village?
An ignorant person will be surprised: how can"whining" about unemployment and hunger, living on our breadwinner - the earth? If you have hands - you will earn your bread! But optimism here would be redundant. Life in the village without at least some small cash receipts is impossible. Indeed, before you get a return on the land, you need to dig it up, purchase seeds, fertilizers, etc. You can collect little from a small area, but you can’t dig a large area with a shovel - you need to hire a tractor. Yes, and you need to eat something before you get the harvest. And the collected fruits, again, by themselves will not turn into hard cash - somehow they should be transported to the cities, paid for in the market for a place, sold. And, to be honest, all the money raised is hardly enough to buy firewood and coal, current home repairs, pay for electricity, and buy winter clothes. And therefore, for 10 years, village people walk in old padded jackets and hemmed felt boots, saving on the most necessary things, living in rickety huts, dragging buckets of water with a yoke and drowning a bathhouse "in a black way." Such a joyless life in the countryside may seem exotic to a city dweller, but it is very difficult to exist in this nightmare all the time.
And we have gas in the village! And more - plumbing
The modern Russian village is still on a higher level, in which the main roads are paved, gas is laid, houses with central heating and sewerage are built. True, these structures were erected for the most part during the Soviet era, since today in the countryside they build houses only by private order."we althy" businessmen who suddenly decide to settle in an ecologically clean area. Very often, such a modern Russian village can offer residents jobs. Basically, thank you here for those businessmen who took the risk of taking responsibility and opened either a livestock center in the countryside, or rented land and sowed it, or organized the collection of products from the population, or opened points for the processing of this very product.
There are no other people's children
Another "business" is interesting, which today is very common among the villagers. It consists in registration of guardianship over children from orphanages. The state pays such families a good salary for each child taken in to raise them, and this is in addition to the child allowance for food and clothing, which amounts to an amount equal to the subsistence minimum. The duration of the contract is included in the length of service of the parents. Of course, not everyone is capable of doing such a thing, but practice shows that many families go for it. Indeed, in addition to financial support, guardians receive great moral satisfaction from the knowledge that they are doing a noble deed - helping orphans to find a family.
Problems of the modern village
It is easy to protect rural residents from many troubles and misfortunes, if only one task is solved - employment of residents. The state government, on the other hand, wants the new village to be created by the hands of the villagers themselves. So todaythe district administration issues loans and subsidies to those who wish to start their own business, thereby stimulating the revival of villages. However, everything is not so simple here either. First, an age limit has been established, which reduces the number of those who are ready to take advantage of the opportunity. Secondly, you can get a loan or subsidy only after completing mandatory courses that you need to attend away from your place of residence. And leaving the farmstead unattended for a villager is often tantamount to signing a death warrant. So the problem remains unresolved.
Head on shoulders and work will grind all misfortunes
The difficult task of reviving the village is facing ordinary people. But the Russian people have always been famous for their ingenuity. Even judging by the tales, a soldier could cook cabbage soup from an ax, and Fok - a dock of all trades - could single-handedly remove a huge stone from the road. And now a smart head helps many people to create a miracle out of nothing. Craftsmen in villages and villages are mastering old forgotten crafts, surprising the whole world with their masterpieces. Wicker furniture and felted boots, lace tablecloths and shawls and clay toys, souvenir bast shoes and self-woven rugs, handmade carpets and forged products - you can’t list everything! A new village is a village where the inhabitants managed to remember the long forgotten, to profit from old crafts.
Come to the fire, get your wallet out
There is such a new village, for example, in the Shigonsky district of the Samara region. In Usolye, since recently, it has been held annuallybeautiful holiday - S alt Fair. Everyone prepares for it in advance. Singers and bards rehearse new songs, poets compose poems, dancers prepare incendiary dances and round dances. Both needlewomen and craftsmen try their best - their handicrafts will take the main place at the holiday. And the guests who are sure to come to the fair will not leave empty-handed. Surely someone will make new acquaintances, sign an important contract for the wholesale purchase of handicrafts. So the wallet of the villagers will be replenished!
Hotel-hut
It is gratifying to know that there are not even a few such villages in Russia today - hundreds. In other villages, entire teams have been created that carry out wholesale orders for buyers. Museums are organized in many villages and the tourism business is being formed. The village is slowly reviving, the culture of the Russian people helps to raise the recently decaying village to its feet. And for guests it is necessary to prepare both places for lodging for the night and entertainment. Here, hotel huts in the Russian folk style, restored mansions of boyars and counts who lived in ancient times, and churches will come in handy.
In general, the salvation and revival of villages today is the business of the villagers themselves. Without getting up from the oven, you will not bake kalachi. That's what our grandparents used to say. After all, you can wait for a rich businessman who will come and solve all problems until the carrot spell. And will he come?
