For many years in a row, the inhabitants of Kurgan tried to achieve the eviction of the Roma from the Zatobolny microdistrict adjacent to the city.
They formed a whole settlement there, and the Kurgans complained that immediately after that cases of theft became more frequent, problems with the distribution of drugs began. Kurgan people even organized popular gatherings, but neither rallies nor complaints to the authorities led to anything.
And at the end of last year, the settlement was suddenly empty. However, now the locals are worried about something else. “The abandoned gypsy village poses a serious danger to the entire microdistrict,” people are sure. To understand what is the cause for concern, the Znak.com correspondent went to a suburban village.
“Bessarabets”
The first thing that catches your eye at the entrance to Zatobolny, located 8 kilometers from Kurgan, is residential buildings covered with snow with scraps of cellophane swaying on the windows. An overturned trash can, canvas roofs and pieces of furniture sticking out from under the snow. This is TSN “Bessarabets”. It was here, without electricity, communications and even a designation on the map of the city, that representatives of the gypsy community lived for several years.
According to local residents, at the end of the summer of 2021, their neighbors were provided with a new land plot in the area of Keramzitny and the village of Utyak, where they (about 30 families) moved all autumn.
When you enter the territory of an abandoned village, the remains of an unpretentious gypsy life catch your eye. In a relatively small area, I counted about 15 residential buildings, as well as many sheds, toilets and a tiny bathhouse in the very center.
Nikita Telizhenko / Znak.com
Almost everything that was of any value was taken out. The only exceptions were a TV set found in one of the houses, broken children’s toys, a tricycle, broken vases and a huge amount of fragments of far from the cheapest furniture, especially contrasting with window openings covered with cellophane.
The houses themselves, as Tatyana said, are really made of slabs, boards, more reminiscent of sawmill waste than building material. According to the locals, these boards were given to them free of charge as help from the authorities.
In several houses lay the stiffened corpses of animals. According to local residents, the gypsies who left the village left their dogs there, some of which did not survive the winter. In one of the abandoned houses, apparently homeless people live.
Nikita Telizhenko / Znak.com
As previously reported by Znak.com, the problem of the peaceful coexistence of the Roma and the inhabitants of Kurgan has been standing for many years. Tabor lived on the territory of the Zatobolny microdistrict back in the nineties, but in 1994 he was temporarily relocated by the administration to the Keramzitovy settlement, since there was a threat of flooding in Zatobolny at that time.
In the summer of 2011, when a serious conflict broke out between the gypsies and the residents of the Keramzitovy village, the camp returned to Zatobolny and this time settled here quite thoroughly, knocking together more than a dozen houses from planks and even somehow conducting electricity.
Residents of Zatobolny have repeatedly asked the authorities of Kurgan to solve the problem of unauthorized seizure of land by gypsies and evict them. In the fall of 2012, the authorities persuaded citizens to wait until spring, so as not to drive the Roma out into the streets in the middle of winter. But the issue has not been resolved yet. In the spring of 2013, a people’s gathering took place in Zatobolny. Residents of the microdistrict complained that it was unbearable to live next to the gypsies. They accused the representatives of the camp of drug trafficking, shooting and littering the territory. The authorities, in response, stated that “there is no problem, let them live peacefully.”
Nikita Telizhenko / Znak.com
“The gypsies preferred not to conflict with the locals,” Alexander, a resident of Zatobolny, shares with us, but unpleasant stories, according to him, still happened. – It happens that you go out, you clean the snow like that, you went home. An hour later you come back, but there is no shovel. But it’s the small ones who steal, and the adults behaved normally, I didn’t have any conflicts with them. ”
The Municipality of Kurgan has made its choice. And not in favor of the townspeople, who have been trying to get rid of unwanted neighbors for two years. Unique PHOTO
“It’s good that they left, there was nothing from them but dirt, drugs and theft. Adults are still okay, but children are generally something with something. Rude, rude, climb into the garden. What can be stolen – a rod. And no one was involved in their upbringing,” Gennady agrees with his neighbor.
Both men tend to attribute the abundance of drugs and frequent theft in Zatobolny to their former neighbors. In addition, according to them, the dogs living in the camp caused great dissatisfaction among the locals, who regularly rushed at people and somehow once bit a 10-year-old girl.
“One match is enough”
Meanwhile, as Gennady says, they did not begin to live calmer. He notes that his mother lives in Zatobolny, whom he regularly visits, and now he still worries about her.
“They would have taken their sheds with them,” the man says. – God forbid, in the spring, children or homeless people kindle a fire. Here one match is enough to burn the whole village.
Nikita Telizhenko / Znak.com
According to Gennady, all that can be seen at the entrance to the village is a squatter built without any permits or expertise. “A few years ago, a fire already burned down several houses there,” he says. The fire in question occurred in April 2017; Luckily, there were no casualties.
Tatyana, a resident of the village, shares a similar opinion. The part of the house where she lives is directly adjacent to the now abandoned gypsy village. “If this year it is as hot as last year, and you yourself go, look at what kind of houses they are, what they are made of, they will blaze like gunpowder,” the woman said.
According to her, when a fire broke out five years ago, the Roma themselves tried to put out their houses, although unsuccessfully, and this helped buy time before the arrival of firefighters. What will happen in the event of a fire now, when there is not a single living soul left in the village, Tatyana, in her words, is “terrible to imagine”.
Nikita Telizhenko / Znak.com
Meanwhile, the administration of the city of Kurgan told Znak.com that they were aware of the situation, and reported that in January 2022, a notification was sent to the chairman of the board of TSN Bessarabets about the need to bring this territory into proper condition, including that it was necessary ensure the dismantling of buildings and clean up the territory from construction and household waste. It is indicated that in case of non-fulfillment of this requirement, administrative measures will be taken against TSN.
According to the city administration, the territory of the Zatobolny microdistrict is included in the list of fire plowing, which will be carried out there in the spring of 2022. Also, on the land plot next to the TSN, work is already planned to cut the reeds.
