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News export
| Ustinovskaya, Yekaterina |
| Уже 22 года... |
| 24/10/24 13:38 more... |
| author Аноним |
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Детки Милые, хорошие наши детки!!! Так просто не должно быть, это больно, это нечестно, это ужасно. |
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Памяти Алексея Дмитриевича Гришина Светлая память прекрасному человеку! Мы работали в ГМПС, тогда он был молодым начальником отдела металлов, подающим боль... |
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| Ustinovskaya, Yekaterina |
| Помним. |
| 24/10/23 17:44 more... |
| author Аноним |
| Volgodonsk: 9 years later |
| Written by Елена Костюченко | ||||||||||
| Среда, 18 Март 2009 | ||||||||||
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In the years following the powerful explosion, few wanted to know how the city was getting along. It turns out that it did not survive the terror attack.  On September 16th, 1999, at 5:58 am, a GAZ-53 truck full of RDX exploded in a residential district of the city of Volgodonsk. The power of the explosion was equivalent to 2 tons of TNT. The explosion damaged 39 houses. 15,280 people, every tenth resident of the city, were affected, more than any other terrorist attack on Russian territory. 19 were killed. The death toll could have been much greater, but there was some good luck: buildings located in the center of the blast were built according to unique earthquake-resistant designs.On January 12th, 2004, in a closed trial in Moscow city court, Adam Dekkushev and Yusuf Krymshamkhalov, natives of the North Caucasus, were found guilty of the apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were the only persons the state brought to trial.  "They say that it is about time you forgot about this terrorist attack. But how can one forget?"We walk with Nina Kravtsova through the streets of Volgodonsk. Nina stumbles on level ground, and I barely have time to catch her. Nowadays Nina often stumbles. After the explosion, atrophy of the optic nerves began, and now Nina only sees 8% of the world. In what way are Volgodonsk residents similar? They talk loudly, because almost all of them have some hearing loss. They wear glasses. They always have their passports on them. They are not ashamed to talk about their illnesses, even with strangers. Every conversation begins with the terror attack. They enthusiastically speak about how glass is still coming out of their bodies: «First it itches, then there's kind of a pimple, and then a shiny edge comes out.» They are easily offended, and easily irritated. They are afraid of loud noises. Every day they wake up at six in the morning without an alarm clock. There is nothing at the site of the explosion. Metal bellows in cheerful colors now cover the apartment buildings were scarred by flying rubble. The metal hides the seams of the concrete wall panels. In the distance, in a little open patch between the buildings, there is a monument to the victims of the terror attack: a man hiding his head between his knees. Next to it are plastic wreaths. It has been a long time since anyone brought fresh flowers here. The people who survived the terror attack go to asleep and wake up among the scenery of their nightmares. The blocks that were blown up, blocks And you all came back? «Almost everyone. We had no choice. For the first six months my daughter would on the edge of her bed, like a stone column, waiting for the wall to collapse.» With difficulty, Lyudmila Tutoreva walks up to the wall (her left leg was mangled in the blast), and knocks. There is a dull, wooden sound. «This is all that prevents us from falling.» Residents went to rallies and refused to enter the buildings. They were made to understand clearly that they would either move back or become homeless. Konstantin Ischenko, who was responsible for the delivery of the buildings, is their number one enemy. This bald, Some sections could not be restored. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov allocated money to build apartment houses for victims. There was almost a fight among the victims for apartments in «Luzhkov's House». But, despite the shortage, 45 of the 119 apartments were given to compete strangers: military servicemen, FSB officers, prosecutors, judges, and nuclear plant workers. «Luzhkov's House», however, was built so poorly that one lives no better than he would have in the restored buildings. The walls cracked. The Shevtsovs in Apartment 24 check the outside temperature by sticking a hand through the wall. It is evening. Nina Kravtsova goes out to buy coffee, while I stay to parse documents. Nina warns me: do not be afraid. Her dog barks at the door as soon as it closes behind its mistress. At first it barks hesitantly, then louder and louder. The barking changes to a howl. The dog lies down on the floor, scratching with its paws, as if trying to dig its way out. Suddenly the howl is interrupted by a moaning sound. It seems to come from the depths of the building. The walls creak and crackle. Then the dog falls on its side, trembling. Nina comes back in ten minutes. The dog by this time is no longer howling — it is too hoarse. Nina leans over and out of habit pets its head. «She's crazy. Everyone put their dogs to sleep, but I just can't.» In Volgodonsk all the pets that survived the attack went insane. I heard… «That happens here a lot, whenever the wind blows, the cracks in the walls. The design is a bite mobile.» Homeowner's associations came to Volgodonsk earlier than to the rest of Russia. Immediately after the blast, the Volgodonsk city administration asked residents in areas None of the 39 building directors abandoned their tenants. Nine of them now are gathering in the building committee center. They are very The building committees do a lot of invaluable work. They put together food packages, and help people properly apply for medicine. They bury tenants — nothing cheaper than 30,000 is obtained. Social security allocates a thousand, so the rest the building committees gather by going around to apartments. Funerals occur quite often. The building committee lists vie with one another: Avenue Mir #12, the Malozemtsevs, father hanged himself. October Street #15, woman jumped to her death. Fedorov, also father of a family — jumped out the window. On October Highway #35a. Gagarin Street # 54, two jumped and two hanged themselves. We also had a young guy hang himself! At Kirovsk Highway #1! On October Street #31, suicide attempt. October Street #35 — two. The official medical diagnosis for ALL victims: «died from injuries due to an accident in the home.» This verdict does not vary for anyone, even for people who lost arms, legs, and eyes. They were disabled «from a general disease». The explanations by the «Disability from a general disease» means a minimum pension of 1,500 to 2,500 rubles (ed: about $60 to $100 per month) and the absence of special medical services. Victims never visited any specialists in barotrauma, even though the diagnosis of barotrauma is in medical records, though in only a very few. «The victims really do suffer frequent heart attacks, psychopathic disorders, diabetes, hypertension, and decreased hearing and vision,» acknowledges Viktor Ivanovich, the head physician of Polyclinic #3. «But there are no methods to accurately track the relationship between the terrorist attack and disease. Therefore, the diagnosis of barotrauma was not made.» Nor are children born after the attack recognized as victims. But Lyudmila Neznakhina, a midwife in the department of pregnancy pathology at Maternity Hospital #3, says that from her work she knows all the women who live in the We had no conversation with Marina Vladislavovna Shalneva, deputy head of the Volgodonsk Health Department. All questions were interrupted with the laconic reply: «Everything is in order.» She said that the attitude towards victims of the terrorist attack is very special, that it is a very friendly, attentive attitude. That in Volgodonsk there is a complete program of medical rehabilitation, calculated at 5 years: «Patients were sent to federal centers and got But there was not a single document at the health department to confirm the existence of such a rehabilitation program. The mental hospital is the only health facility that Volgodonsk residents speak about with gratitude. Immediately after the terror attack, psychiatrists organized emergency aid for victims and worked around the clock. 2,000 people, about 10% of the terror victims, passed through their offices. Even now the clinic works at maximum capacity. Chief Psychiatrist for Volgodonsk is Konstantin Galkin. He is smartly dressed in a pink shirt and purple tie. He is polite to everyone, is all smiles, and is interested in one and all. And he is not afraid to speak these terrible words in Volgodonsk: «The consequences of terrorist attack.» Konstantin Yurevich (Galkin) tells how the psyche of Volgodonsk residents changed after the terror attack: «Immediately after the blast there was a shock reaction, which lasted for up to three days. People were in shock, and either went into the 'fight' mode by guarding their homes and getting into conflicts, or the 'flight' mode by leaving town or simply hiding in the closet. »Then came acute stress disorder, during first two or three months. A person does not eat or live, and their emotions move to a lower scale. Then there is post-traumatic stress disorder, which lasts for 1or 2 years. There are attacks of instinctive fear, and often there is severe depression. The victims are constantly replaying in their heads everything that happened, or it replays all on its own. They do not wish to speak with anyone. There is a growing feeling that everybody is against them, and that everything that happened can happen all over again. There are frequent flashbacks — extremely realistic hallucinations of the past. Then comes a change in personality. Anxiety becomes second nature. There is a constant expectation that something bad is going to happen. Life has stopped, and people do not believe in the future and even avoid pronouncing the word. In this case they are extremely touchy and all are always reading between the lines. Every careless word that a bureaucrat speaks wounds them, and indifference kills. And then these people immerse themselves in silence. This is Volgodonsk today. « According to Galkin, all that was experienced by tens of thousands of people could have been avoided. »Russia, which suffered Budyonnovsk, the bombings of apartment buildings, Every morning at fifteen to seven, Sasha Shalimov heads to a bus stop near his house. He gets on the first bus that comes by. In a The rest of the time Sasha was sits at the window, next to the phone. Sasha is waiting for a vehicle with a bomb, and bends over the windowsill, peering at license plates. Sasha is also afraid that at the crucial moment the FSB will disconnect the phone, and the house will be blown up again, and it will be his fault. Therefore, every now and then, Sasha picks up the phone and listens for a dial tone. Sasha Shalimov is 35 years old. Nine years ago he was a turbine machinist in a factory and had a family: mother, father and older brother. The explosion blew his head against a wall. He had a closed On October 5th, («last time,» says Sasha) his father, Vitaly Abramovich, was the nineteenth victim found underneath the rubble. The casualty list had already been drawn up, so the Shalimov family did not receive any charitable assistance. His brother, who before the terror attack could only walk with difficulty due to multiple sclerosis, afterwards could only move about in a wheelchair. He began drinking, and in March of 2006 he joined his father. His mother held out longer than the rest, but a year after the death of her son her heart increased by three sizes, and then burst. Now Sasha and his whole family fit perfectly into the same room of the For his hard work he is only paid a pension of 2,700 rubles (ed: about $110). Sometimes Sasha is forced to leave his post and earn money by digging gardens for old women. He was offered work with the general laborers, but he cannot do this. For one thing, «the pressure in my head goes up and the fury is such that I just drop everything and start running until I fall down.» Old women have greater understanding of this, than do bosses. And another, «the most important thing», is that he cannot leave his post unattended for so long. Sasha is very excitable. He furiously gesticulates, painfully moving his hands: «Nothing will blow up ever again, I promise.» No one paid any material or non-pecuniary damages to victims of the terrorist act. According to the law on combating terrorism in effect at the time of Volgodonsk bombing, damages are compensated by the state. The state was represented by the local city administration during the early days, but it was the terrorists who were to pay reparations to legal entities and the 16 thousand civilian victims. The terrorists did not have any property, but after several years of trials, some of the victims received a postal money order for 18 rubles (ed: about 72 cents). Relatives of the terrorists had sent the prisoners money for cigarettes, and juries distributed this among the victims. Volgodonsk residents tried to find other culprits that could pay. For example, traffic cop Lyubichev drove the truck he thought was carrying sugar, but was actually loaded with explosives, past all checkpoints. The court, however, did not establish any connection between the actions of Lyubichev and the subsequent terrorist attack. But the strangest thing happened with public funds. Immediately after the terrorist attack, the region was sent a huge amount of money: public and private donations, and assistance from international organizations. It was immediately organized into two funds — regional and municipal. There was no report on the distribution of money, but soon a receipt was found, according to which the Volgodonsk city administration had borrowed for an indefinite period 6 million rubles (ed: about $240,000), so the funds were soon disbanded. Victor Alexandrovich Firsov, the mayor of Volgodonsk, is a man of remarkable charm. He has a southern accent, a simple smile, and a candor that is simply amazing for a government official. «The building vibrates you say? Yes, it's easy to say ‘vibrate’! Oh, the horror! In such a state are these affected houses! It’s a nightmare!» exclaims Victor Aleksandrovich (Firsov), and he smiles, pleased with the effect he has produced. Viktor Alexandrovich became mayor in 2004, five years after the attack. But he shares the needs of the victims in full: «It is humane to say that it was wrong to make them return to those same buildings. But it was an impoverished time; they put people where they could. »Medicine, of course, yes. We have 50% of the physicians that a city like this should have, and in individual specialties there are only 30%. Their workload is two, two and a half times greater, and they've already exhausted their resources. There are instances of rudeness. Here someone complained to me about a doctor, so I call her up and I say: aren't you ashamed? And she says: retire me for God's sake, I’m 62 years old, find me a replacement, I can't take it anymore! «I am for a law on victims of terrorist attacks,» said the mayor, once again creating a pause for effect. «But I do not cherish any special illusions. Compensation for victims of the events at Novocherkassk in 1962*, this act wasn’t adopted until just five years ago. The few victims of that who are still alive, they’re now in their 70s. I'll write to the regional legislative assembly. What else can I do?» The next day the Volgodonsk people took me to meet with their only hope. Yuri Yakovlevich Potogin is the Volgodonsk member of the Rostov regional assembly. He burns incense in the room in order to improve the energy. He is in the 'United Russia' party, and the only Member of Parliament ready to seriously promote the law on victims of terror. «By May 1st, 2009, we are to go to the federal level.» Yuri Yakovlevich explains how to solve problems: «Last year the Chernobyl nuclear plant liquidators appealed. For 5 years they hadn’t been paid their pensions. A meeting of the outgoing party was convened and they formally appealed to the governor and to the president. Then Putin arrived in Rostov and the governor, at our request, again approached him with a packet of documents. And as a result Putin gave the order and 600 million rubles were paid. The result of systematic work was achieved.» The favorite word of Yuri Yakovlevich (Potogin) is 'systematic'. Yuri Yakovlevich seems really not to understand why there is still no law. On April 19th, 1995, a maniac blew up the FBI (sic) building in Oklahoma City. The Americans created the Heartland Program to investigate the consequences of the terrorist attack. An institute of borderline psychiatry was built in the city. Eleven days after September 11th, the U. S. Congress passed a law on security and stabilization of the air transportation system, which provided a compensation fund for victims of terrorist attacks. Tellingly, the fund was set up at taxpayer expense. The amount of compensation for disability was equal to the salary of the affected, multiplied by the average life expectancy in the U. S. For each of the deceased, the U.S. government paid about two million dollars. After a series of terrorist attacks in London on July 7th, 2005, relatives of the slain were designated base compensation of $11 thousand pounds sterling. Children who died were to receive two thousand pounds a year until age 18. In Russia there is not even the legal concept of 'victim of a terrorist attack'. Irina Khalai, the redheaded chairwoman of the 'Volga Don' NGO, has for many years been trying to restore Russia's honor in this matter. At first she tried to draw the attention of the Parliament to this legal case. She wrote kilograms of letters, and then sued the MPs in court. The court said that legislation is a right, but not an obligation, and so Parliament can spit on victims of terrorist attacks as much as it pleases. Then Volgodonsk people have written the law themselves. As a basis they took laws concerning the Chernobyl and Semipalatinsk victims, and European laws protecting victims of terrorism. They are not asking a lot: a disability pension, rent subsidies, and free prescription medicines. And, at last, to call victims of terrorist attacks — victims. «The conscience of the government is not bothered by us,» says Irina. "The government is ashamed of us. " Irina teaches English, and attends conferences on the development of international standards of assistance to victims of terrorist attacks. As a rule, Irina is the only participant from Russia. But, in September of 2007, at the International Conference on the Problems of Victims of Terror Attacks, held by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, there was a representative from the Russian Foreign Ministry. He noticed in the audience representatives from the Volgodonsk, Beslan, and In 'Novaya Gazeta'. * The brutally repressed strike at the electro-locomotive factory in Novocherkassk, Rostov district, on June 2nd, 1962. KGB and Interior Ministry troops fired on strikers on ‘Bloody Saturday’, leaving 22 dead and 87 wounded, 3 later dying of their injuries. Many strikers received severe sentences, including death, while those killed in the incident were secretly buried in various locations. Little was known about the massacre until 1992. Views: 9028 |
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