The story of my move from the city to the countryside. Village stories Village life real stories

In 2013, in the summer, when quite urban melancholy pierced my skull, I found the site of Volodya and Yulia from the Sebezhsky district. From the window of the office, July's marinated cork cars with sweaty and irritated people were visible. In the office itself, it was physically quite good under the air conditioner, but mentally it was hard and left alone in the evening (employees drove home or stood in traffic jams) I read about the Sebezh nature and life in the Clear Sky settlement. The guys have a lake, a forest and a front of interesting work nearby. And they are their own masters in this forest thicket. Your own masters. Such a very important reason to live far from anthills-cities, from the pressure of public opinion and kleptonomics. Far from drunken screams in the yard at night and city commercialism. Away from inflated house prices, from mortgages, from crooked utilities, from chemical bread and brutal crowding.

Volodya and Yulia are a young couple from St. Petersburg, who once left for a clean Pskov field, almost in winter, and now live in their own house with all the amenities. People have all the conveniences of the city in a self-built home, from start to finish. Let's imagine for a moment what these people did in their example. Now you call from the transport company Gazelle, movers and take out with them all your things and furniture on the sly to this gazelle, and tell the driver that you need to go to the Pskov region, to the village of Osyno. Show him on the navigator where to look for this point, and forward. The gazelle is not going fast, but you have arrived in a daylight hours.

And then the most interesting. You unload a gazelle in an open field, and waving goodbye to the driver, look around the evening grove. And you are left alone, without a home and with things scattered through the bushes. There is a tent, sleeping bags, generator, laptops. Phone yet. But you really can’t call your mother, the wrong format. And it is necessary to settle down on this empty place of previously purchased land. Volodya is a programmer, Yulia is also not a builder. Feel this moment and the strength of the spirit of these people.

Women living in the countryside are different from urban women. They have something to talk about, they live a real life and feel the limits of possibilities. Many of them do not hide that they want to go to the city. Better in the metropolis. After all, there are more opportunities. Many would actually leave if the opportunity presented itself. But in reality, none of the women will go from the city to the village. There are exceptions, very few, and such exceptions are worth their weight in gold. They should be appreciated and they are worth it. They look at life more broadly, removing priorities from entertainment and travel. Their children will be active and viable, and I would very much like to have more of them.

Volodya has done a lot of good things in his life. He built a house, gave birth to a son, planted trees. He is a programmer, writes on everything. Started with the ZX Spectrum. Prefers Python. I am also very impressed with this programming language, although I am a complete amateur and completely ignorant compared to it. The ability to extract money from the worldwide network is a mandatory property of a person. Otherwise, it is difficult to earn money in the village.

Volodya and Yulia live in a small community that arose on the site of the village of Osyno. On the site you can see photos and videos of the life of the Clear Sky settlement. If you are really thinking about moving to the countryside, study the life of such settlements that appear in many regions of the Russian Federation. As a rule, the settlers are the best part of the human race and it will probably be more interesting to live there than on a distant farm. Women especially. They really need a team.

Khleb and Tanya, Volodya and Yulia's neighbor

The blog of Volodya and Yulia was one of the factors that prompted me to move. And fasting for homemade bread helped me realize the real village reality - yes, there are such people. Yes, they came to the open field. Yes, now they have a house with all conveniences, made with their own hands, and they bake bread themselves in this house. Real people, they don't lie on the couch, they don't drink beer in cafes every evening. Do not light in clubs with drugs. They arrange their life on earth, live on this earth, rejoice, give birth to children.

There is also a continuation. The guys have a good volunteer program. For the Russian Federation, volunteers are a completely new phenomenon, and in our (for sure, our?) country, the volunteer program of Volodya and Yulia was one of the first to appear. I do not want to say that this phenomenon is literally “work for food and shelter”, but this is sometimes called briefly. The volunteer program does the same as pioneer camps did in the USSR. Gather strangers and engage them in joint work and pastime. And it's not quite facebook, it's in real life. Solving life problems with unfamiliar people in a natural setting.

And the volunteers are coming. The program referrer needs to have a highly developed communications department in his brain so that the volunteers are satisfied and want to come again. In summer, the Pskov region is a flourishing land, and there is always something to do. Reading the blog, I realized that Volodya has long-term plans for beekeeping and he is implementing his plan to create groves of trees from which bees will drag honey. Will the bees scare away future volunteers? Although honey may attract others.

There is a subscription to the site materials

Below is one video from land.umonkey.net. The excavator is digging a pond. Great video. I need to do something similar.

I was prompted to write about this by questions asked by one of the readers in the comments to the post. I realized that I was really carried away by stories about the benefits of living in the countryside and somehow bypassed its difficulties and problems. But it is precisely the difficulties that are the obstacle that many (I judge from conversations with my friends) do not allow to decide to move. Let's try to understand this issue sensibly, without exaggerating, but without putting on "rose-colored glasses".

Life in the village is not only joys, but also difficulties. Author's photo

Just a little bit about terminology. Personally, I prefer the word "difficulties" to the word "problems". As a good friend of mine says, a problem is a task that has no solution, at least under given conditions. Everything else is questions. So far in my village life I have not encountered anything that fits this definition of problems. Everything is solved - this is the first.

Second- and I will probably remind you of this more than once in the course of my reflections - we are all very different. What for one is in the order of things, for another can become an insurmountable obstacle. Therefore, it is quite natural if some of my observations and comments will be controversial for someone, although I will try to adhere to the most objective point of view.

Third: village village discord. There are large villages, urban-type settlements, with a normal infrastructure and a completely comfortable way of life. There are remote villages where, not only gas and running water, but electricity is not always available. And there are "average" villages in which life is either there or not - a few permanent residents and summer residents who come for the summer. It is clear that it is very difficult to compare them. And we won't. Although I happened to live in a large village, and spend the summer in a village lost among the Pskov forests and swamps, and I know firsthand the “dacha” villages. They are just different - just like you and me. And everyone chooses...

On this, let me finish with the introductory part and proceed to the actual description of our difficulties.

1. Roads

Nothing new, right? Meanwhile, if you intend to move to the village for residence, there should be a year-round entrance to the chosen settlement - and that's it. We make an exception only for those who are attracted by the life of a hermit. But they, most likely, these conversations about difficulties are useless.

Yes, of course, people also live where the roads are in trouble, and I know such people personally. In the village, where I went to the country for 6 years, several people live all year round. In the summer there is a road. Through the fields, unpaved, sometimes impassable after rains - but there is.

The road could be like this. Author's photo

With the onset of autumn, everything ends. In winter, there is no road at all - there are paths that a few residents make, placing poles in order to find the way after snowfalls. Products - on themselves or on drags. From the bus - a kilometer and a half through the snow, and this despite the fact that all the permanent inhabitants of the village are no longer young ... And now, they say, wolves have appeared in the vicinity - four locals have already seen ...

And this is also a road ... Photo by the author

At first it was even interesting. Adrenaline goes off scale when you need to get out on the highway along the road in a passenger car, where sometimes even UAZs sit in clay up to the very sides ... But a few years of regular extreme sports were enough for me - I still wanted something more calm and predictable.

But this way is definitely better. Author's photo

There is an asphalt road leading to the village where I live now. In winter, it is regularly cleared (also an important nuance if you are going to move to the countryside to live: we have villages nearby where there is a road, but the grader does not enter in winter, and therefore it is impossible to drive through). Asphalt is periodically patched up. The road - by our standards - is very decent, in any case, better than many streets in two neighboring regional centers. And this was one of the weighty arguments when I made a decision about choosing a place to live.

2. Transport

The road is important, but the second question is inevitable: how exactly to get to “civilization” along it, whether it be a store, or a clinic, or a place of work. Hiking is good for health, but I personally prefer it as a form of leisure rather than transportation. The bike is also good, but not in any weather.

I had this experience in my life too. They lived 5 km from the regional center, with which there was even a regular bus service. But the trouble is that it was regular only according to the schedule: in life, the bus will break down, then (in the summer season) a PAZ will come, stuffed “to the eyeballs” with passengers, and it won’t even slow down at the bus stop ... But you need to go to work every day ... Here we are traveled in the warm season on bicycles. It, of course, invigorates and refreshes ... But over time, it becomes boring, I tell you, like "off-road rally" ...

A bicycle is also a means of transportation. Author's photo

My conclusion (with which you can agree or argue - this is not the ultimate truth, by no means): if you want to live permanently in the countryside, you need a car. At one time, we did not have the opportunity to resolve this issue, and when I began to work in the city (and this is not 5 km, but almost 30 km from our village), very serious difficulties arose. Public transport partly simplifies life, but does not solve all the problems - those who have come across, I think they will agree with me.

Another nuance that matters to me personally is ecology. This spring, when Alyonka and I went to the city once again, I noticed the snow in one of the villages: it was black. Not only on the roadsides, where this is understandable and understandable, but also near houses, and in gardens ... Yes, there are excellent transport links - the village stands on a federal highway, and several transit intercity bus routes go through it. But I don't want to live there.

We have white and fluffy snow. Author's photo

And we have white and fluffy snow - public transport does not go to us. The nearest bus stop is 4 km away. And I understand that if something suddenly changes dramatically (gasoline prices go up catastrophically, or I won’t be able to drive a car, or something else like that happens), we will have great difficulties. But the ideal solution to the transport issue probably does not exist - you just need to imagine different options, think about them, weigh and choose, realizing the pros and cons of each of them.

3. Life

This is, in fact, a separate big topic. Since rural life is different from urban life in any case. For better or for worse - a rhetorical question, because here everyone has their own truth, and both options have their own advantages and disadvantages. But it is the domestic side that frightens many, as far as I know. Let's see how everything is "scary" in reality.

Water supply

I put this question first, because from my point of view it is the key one in this topic. I know that there is such an opinion: what is there - we will drill a well, and we will always have water, no problem. But in reality, it's not so simple. For example, the same village where I had a dacha stands on a hill, and no one who wanted to get to the aquifer was able to get there. There is not a single well in the village, the sources of life-giving moisture here are springs. They beat in abundance on the banks of the river flowing at the foot of the hill on which the houses are located.

Spring. Author's photo

In the summer, we collected rainwater in all conceivable and unthinkable containers - for irrigation and household needs - and carried drinking water from a spring. In a dry summer, they installed pumps and pumped water - but there were many who wanted it, and the resource was limited, so they stocked up in turn, filling, again, all free barrels, tanks, buckets and basins.

In winter, they melted snow and carried spring water in large plastic bottles for tea and soup. When winter comes, the permanent residents of the village all go to one spring - by joint efforts it is easier to clear and tread the path to it.

Well. Author's photo

Now we live where it is realistic to drill a well, and even have local water supply. The village well on this occasion is abandoned.

Where to get water from is one of the first questions to ask when choosing a place for your rural life. Unless there is a desire to carry buckets on a yoke. Although for this you also need to know the answer to the question of where to wear ...

Heating

And this is also very serious in our - far from tropical - climate. There is gas in the village - well, one less question: you can put a gas boiler and live in peace. But with the gasification of the village, everything is far from rosy, according to my observations. And then there are two main options: solid fuel (wood, coal, etc.) and electricity.

Furnace heating is still one of the most reliable options. Author's photo

I chose the first one for myself, which I do not regret. From my point of view, it makes sense to install electric heating as a backup - in case of a long departure, for example, or other circumstances when it is not possible to heat the stove (boiler). Electricity supply in the countryside is sometimes unstable - this winter, for example, when suddenly fallen snow broke the wires throughout the district. Those of the neighbors who have electric heating did not feel very comfortable at home at that time ...

On the other hand, a stove or a solid fuel boiler also presents certain difficulties. For example, in winter I cannot leave the house for a long time - both heating devices require human participation in order to generate heat. Simply put, firewood must be thrown up, otherwise the fire will go out. And if the stove still stores heat for some time, then the water heating system (from the boiler) without constant heating in cold weather can simply freeze.

The first rural winters for a city dweller can be difficult. Author's photo

Firewood, by the way, must be stored. Preferably on time and in sufficient quantity. For those who live in the countryside from birth, this will seem like a banality, but believe me - for a city dweller, the first village winters can be difficult just because there is still not enough experience. How much firewood do you need to live comfortably through the winter? Ask me about this two years ago - I would not have been able to answer. Now I can, but the price of experience is quite high.

Now I know that firewood can be of different quality. And even learned to prick them. Until recently, it seemed to me something prohibitively complicated - it turned out that everything is real. But at the same time, I realized one more thing (since we are having a frank conversation about difficulties, it would be a mistake to keep silent about it): furnace heating (a solid fuel boiler is not much different from it in this sense) is physical work. And you need to sensibly evaluate your strengths, health and capabilities.

You also need to know a lot about firewood. Author's photo

Someone can cut and chop firewood himself, and for someone else it’s not an easy task to put chopped wood into a woodpile. And what was easy yesterday may turn out to be difficult today: for example, my right hand got sick - but I need to chop firewood, because the stocks have run out ... Well, I also manage the tool with the left, otherwise - completely yearning. A trifle - but life throws up such trifles every day in batches ...

Household issues

Any owner of a private house will probably confirm: economic, domestic issues will never be transferred here. You can once make a cool repair in an apartment and forget about such troubles for several years. Perhaps, this will never be possible in your own house - you will always find something that needs to be corrected, built, adjusted ...

In addition to the house, of course, there is also a garden-garden, outbuildings. Sooner or later, there is a desire to have birds or cattle - living in a village and buying eggs in a store is illogical, it seems ... And all this requires a master's hand.

Your home requires constant attention. Author's photo

Here is another nuance, which is somehow not very customary to talk about. According to my observations, women tend to move to the village more often. Moreover, often - those of them who have long been accustomed to managing all matters without male help. Girls, I myself am one of those. And I'll be honest: yes, we are strong, and we can do a lot on our own (maybe we can even do everything!) But in village life, much becomes easier if there is male support.

Let me tell you one telling story. In the village, still in an old dacha, my drain somehow broke, and from the canopy the water flowed directly onto the flower bed and path located under it, and from the path it also flowed under the shed where the firewood lay. In other words, something had to be done about it. I suffered, probably for two hours, trying to restore the destroyed structure with the help of wire, nails and pieces of wood. It turned out very mediocre - the first rain confirmed this, returning almost everything to its original state. And a week later I arrive - my drain is in place, attached firmly, in a businesslike way ... And the neighbor says: “Excuse me, I've been hosting you a little. I watched you suffer - your heart bled, but there was no time to help. Here, he came in a week - he did it ”... No comments ...

In the city, if a tap leaks or something happens to the wiring, we call the housing office (or whatever these offices are called now) and call the master. There is nowhere to call in the village. That is, maybe there is where - but this question should then be puzzled in advance: find out what services are, how they can help, on what conditions. You need to understand very clearly what kind of household issues you cannot solve on your own, and what you will do if they arise one day (and they will certainly arise, you can believe me!)

4. Communication

It's funny, but one of the main arguments that my friends and acquaintances made, trying to convince me that the idea of ​​​​moving to the countryside was crazy, sounded like this: “You will be bored there!” It really sounds funny to me: I can't imagine how that could be. As one of the greats said (I can’t vouch for the literalness of the quote), “if a person has a garden and a library, he doesn’t need anything else.” And besides that, I also have the Internet. I'm not talking about the fact that when there is a child in the house, boredom is generally unthinkable. And yet...

Returning to what was discussed at the very beginning: people are all different. I am an introvert by nature, and communication sometimes tires me. I am comfortable being alone, and there is always something to do with myself. If you want human communication - there is a phone, skype, there are neighbors, after all. Personally, this is more than enough for me (sometimes even in excess) - I love solitude.

I like silence and solitude. Author's photo

But for a person who needs communication, like air and water, this situation can become a problem. For example, I have a friend who does not move to the village, including for this reason. Despite the fact that she herself was born and raised there, that she has a good house, and not in a "bear's corner", but in a settled village, where there are plenty of acquaintances and relatives live nearby; despite the fact that she is already retired, and her work in the city does not keep her - she is so used to being “in the center of events”, participating in public life, organizing something, always being among people, that rural solitude seems to her completely inconceivable, impossible.

However, there would be a desire, as they say ... Even in the village (if you do not take extreme situations: for example, there is only one resident there, and that's you) you can find both interlocutors and a field for activity: get to know your neighbors, find common interests; to organize something socially useful - from summer leisure for children to winter sports recreation for city guests. Therefore, “boring” and “not enough communication” is, from my point of view, a matter of more internal state than external conditions. You may not agree with me, but in any case, there is also something to think about before deciding to move.

5. Work

This is one of the first questions people usually ask when they find out that I live in the countryside. Thanks to modern technologies - today it is possible to work remotely, via the Internet. Moreover, the scope of remote work is expanding by leaps and bounds, and the quality of the Internet is growing right before our eyes.

I have something to compare with: 6-7 years ago, in our area, USB modems outside the city allowed only to view mail - the page loaded for a nauseatingly long time, and, of course, there could be no talk of any work in such conditions. Now I can watch videos and download images, and there are practically no technical barriers to browsing the web, communicating at all.

It’s the same with finding a job: there was a time when only programmers and web developers worked remotely. Now the list of professions has expanded significantly, and the list continues to grow. The only (but essential!) nuance: you should take care of finding a job before moving to the village, and not after. If only because it takes time, and life needs money.

The garden and the garden are fed, but a source of income is still needed. Author's photo

Remote work via the Internet is my option, but it is clearly not the only one. I know those who live off their own farms (they grow seedlings, flowers, berries for sale; they keep chickens, geese and goats - they sell eggs, meat and milk; and so on). She herself once lived in the village, and worked in the district center - 5 km from it. That is, there are always options. Moreover, for those who own one of the professions in demand in the countryside, some farms even today are ready to offer good conditions, including the provision of housing or lifting for construction. Although there are many such villages where you will not find jobs in the entire district ...

Therefore, I repeat, it is necessary to look for acceptable options for yourself before moving. And proceed with this from their real capabilities and abilities. Let's say I can easily cope with the cultivation of vegetables, berries - but I absolutely do not know how to sell the results of my work, and all my attempts to make money in this area ended in a complete fiasco.

By the way, I cannot ignore one more important point here: from a financial point of view, life in the countryside is easier. Anyway, that's what my experience says. While the city acquaintances lament what they will eat if they lose their jobs, I know that we will not stay hungry, in any case - the earth will feed. Compare also utility bills and transportation costs - these are very serious items of any family budget.

6. Children, their studies and leisure

If there are children in the family, their interests, of course, are among the priorities. Is it good for a child in the village? From my point of view - certainly good. But children - like adults - are all different: they have different characters and temperaments, interests and hobbies. Therefore, there are no universal recipes. I will focus only on general points.

Country life. Author's photo

Parents, of course, are interested in kindergarten and school (depending on the age of the child). As for the kindergarten, I can’t say much: when it was important for our sons, we lived in a village where a kindergarten and a school were located right next to the house. Alenkin's kindergarten age fell on the urban period. I like the option of home education, especially in rural conditions, but I know from experience: children need a team of peers, it is more difficult for home children to adapt at school later, they lack communication experience.

With school, everything is both more complicated and easier at the same time. It is more difficult, because here we are, in general, deprived of a choice. Whether to send the baby to kindergarten is the decision of the parents, but such a question does not even arise about the school. Although in theory we have the possibility of family education, in practice it is very difficult to realize this right. But there are very few schools left in the countryside, alas. For example, we have only one secondary school in the entire region - in the regional center and one nine-year - in a neighboring large village. Once upon a time in our village there was a large school where children from all over the district studied. It has been closed for a long time, and almost no one lives in the villages anymore ...

School is an obligatory stage in the life of a child both in the city and in the countryside. Author's photo

On the other hand, everything is simpler, because there may not be places in the kindergarten, but in any case they are obliged to take the child to the school at the place of residence. As for the level of education, my deepest conviction is that one can often get better knowledge in the countryside than in urban educational institutions. In any case, I am very pleased with the school where Alenka is studying now, and I am glad from the bottom of my heart that she also likes everything here.

Often one hears the question whether the child is bored in the countryside. On this one I will say: depending on which child. Mine doesn't get bored. In the summer summer residents come, many with children, so she always has a company - not in her village, but in one of the neighboring ones. And if there are no children, she will find something to talk about with adults. During the school year - constant communication with classmates and friends from other classes, circles, extracurricular activities. Plus, household chores, walks, books from which you can’t tear her away - when to be bored?

There is no time to be bored in the village. Author's photo

Naturally, children grow up and their interests may change. For example, both of my older sons used to go to the country house, and at first it was interesting for both of them. Now the older one still has a normal attitude towards village life, and the second now needs big cities ...

7. Health and medical care

Of course, it is better to be healthy, but alas, none of us is immune from diseases. And here, too, everything may not be so simple. If earlier there were FAPs (feldsher-obstetric stations) in many villages and villages, now one often has to go to the district center or even to the city for medical help.

We have a clinic in the district center, and a hospital - in general, it's a sin to complain, as they say. But you still need to get to the regional center - it's 12 km from us. And here we return to point 2: without your own transport, many issues are resolved much more difficult and longer. Well, as for the level of medical care ... Personally, I have considerable complaints about urban medicine; I am convinced that the point here is not in geography and not even in the amount of funding, but in people.

In general, there are also two sides here: on the one hand, in the village it is easier and faster to recover from an illness, literally get on your feet - I told my story when I wrote about. On the other hand, if health has begun to fail, rural life can become a burden: it is more and more difficult to do the usual housework, it is not easy to get to the doctor in case of serious problems. Here, relatives of old people are taken to the cities - and those, cut off from the roots, sometimes fade away literally before our eyes ...

Probably, it would be worth writing about a lot more, but even so my story turned out to be quite lengthy. I would be glad if those who live in the countryside, like me, supplement it or simply share their thoughts about the difficulties of rural life.

Hello dear members of the forum, I will tell a little about our story about a dream come true to move to the village)
I dreamed of living in the village from the age of 20, I lived in the village for a short time, there was a cow and three little pigs, a little chicken, a garden, but unfortunately the circumstances were such that I had to leave for the city.
There were a lot of things) as they say, fire and water and burning huts went through) BUT I won’t talk about this, off topic, and how many people have so many fates)
I got married already with two children, older girls) Through the prayers of my grandmother, God sent me a wonderful husband) Smart, kind, cheerful, jack of all trades and loving of course) He is completely urban, born and raised in St. Petersburg) we began to go to my village every summer with children) then we had two boys and a dog) My husband was very critical of the village at first, then he gradually got involved, building something (he loves it very much), but he couldn’t even think to live in his house) and then, after a few years, he began to understand the advantages of a private house (not life in the village) He began to dream of building a house)
The year 2014 has come... the crisis is on its heels! somehow things didn’t go according to work and the work was not the same as before, the husband began to get tired psychologically a little, he began to talk about changing the type of activity ... But he loves construction very much and is perfectly versed in his business and I haven’t seen him in anything else ... Before that, I never insisted on leaving for the village, secretly dreaming that my husband himself wants, because if a person does not want, then he will still not be nice, but I wanted the whole family to be happy!
So this is how it was during a conversation when the husband again raised the topic that he was tired of guest workers who do not know how to do anything, from customers who only want to reduce their costs and from traffic jams, etc.
I started talking about the fact that if there is no work, then it will be hard for us with the children, we need to feed them, well, it’s clear that with such hands and brains as my husband’s, we wouldn’t be hungry and as soon as the baby grew up I would immediately go to work anywhere ... at least wash the floors ... but there is no stability and for an apartment of 10 thousand per month, in short, she led, led such a conversation and blurted out that it would not be bad to move to the land and to an ecologically clean place, that the land will always feed + work, of course !) began to describe all the pluses, of course, she also spoke about the problems, he listened ...) Agreed that if there is an option, you can try)
Then I started looking) and my mania began) at night I dug the Internet, read aloud about people who moved to the village or about those who really want it, in order to strengthen their confidence that we are not the only ones) and searched) I found an option that us interested, and in August, leaving the village, we stopped by (not far there) on the ad) my husband liked it so much that he immediately said put the apartment up for sale) I spoke with the children, asked for an opinion, spoke about the advantages of village life) Lucky) The kids supported, could and do not try) They love my nature and lived with pleasure all summer in the village and did not want to leave in the fall)
Oh yes, it’s clear that all this is not done quickly, but I so much wished for this and believed that this was the right decision, that I didn’t think how long it could take, it seemed that if the decision was right, then God would arrange everything) And He arranged it) But not at all like that )
She put the apartment up for sale and began to move) But then suddenly the seller abruptly changes his mind to temporarily sell the house that we liked! Shock! horror! but ... My husband was so infected with this idea, he got sick, you can say that he said, don’t be upset, we’ll find another) True, they tried to contact the owners for a long time to find out what happened and can persuade ... it didn’t work out, worries ... They started looking again. .. in the same direction, yet we know everything there and our native places ... along the way, thinking about how we will live on earth and what to do) The husband is very responsible and for him this is a very serious step ... so he prefers to think and calculate everything ) and I'm impulsive) and everything to me at once) This is how we complement each other)
We traveled a lot of houses, my husband looked through the houses like a scanner and immediately saw what problems and whether it was worth buying such a house) Some houses in front of us directly paid a deposit and we did not have time to look at them (although I recently saw them for sale again and I regard them as nothing more than something that God took it)
Then I find out that a city will be built in that place and it will be industrial, and of course, there is no talk of any kind of ecology, and that's it ... a dead end? No, they started looking in one of the eco-friendly areas and not far from St. Petersburg - Pskov region) It was important for my husband that the house to the site had water, a river or a lake) they began to wool near Lake Peipsi, but it’s expensive and very dilapidated houses, but it’s winter and we wouldn’t take risks with the kids in such conditions ... We made a list of what we want to have and what should be nearby) and searched for these parameters) I clicked on Yandex real estate and determined the areas on the map around the rivers and lakes of the Pskov region and then checked ads) Again, several good options went out from under the nose, found one option that my husband really liked, but not me) he considered from the technical side that the house is ideal) Brick with 5 rooms and water and steam heating, in general, of course, the house is good, but 15 acres! for me it’s very little, but I didn’t argue, my husband will be happy with this house, I decided, and I live on earth) and if the parents are happy, then the children too) but doubts overcame me ... the house is not cheap, but in plans to buy a newer car because ours is already old, there is nowhere in the village without a car, and the village is so huge ... everything was agreed and they began to sell the house more actively, because there seems to be an option) I say to my husband: well, we will buy this house, and also car and then what? there is no land! you need to buy or rent, then build a barn and buy animals, but it seems that there will be no more money! Let's say we'll look again, if we don't find it, then buy this house! my husband agreed and started looking again, again trips with my youngest son almost 2-3 times a week!
And then one day we went to see the house in which we now live! we looked at that day 2 more options and this came to this late, the owner, 70 years old grandfather met us in the nearest small town! and rightly assumed that at night we wouldn’t see anything there and we should spend the night and watch in the morning) well, of course it’s better, especially since the baby is completely tired! rented a hotel room, spent the night and went to see! We arrived at the village, stopped, got out of the car, and in front of this house there is a beautiful view of the lake with swans) It took my breath away, the owner immediately led me to the lake, and I stood on the road and cried ... imagine the feeling that now I wandered for a long time and finally came home! I felt HOME! cried and thanked God that he brought us here) and when we looked at the whole farm, our eyes lit up in general) 2 houses, a bathhouse on the lake, a plot of 1.5 hectares adjacent to the lake) almost 100 apple trees and PASEKA) of course it was the best place and it was not a pity to change the apartment for this particular place, in a small village of 20 houses) and when you go out to the lake and only on our site there is an open access to the lake (for others it is overgrown with forest), it feels like the lake is only ours) there are no houses on the shores) the lake is small, not deep and with clean drinking water) and there is a field behind the plot) and when I also found out that the school bus takes children from us to school, it’s just that all the items on our list were underlined) These are wonders)
Of course, we told the owner what we would like to buy, but we have an apartment for sale and we need to wait ... it wasn’t there) the grandfather got caught so that mom don’t cry) businessman) says no, dear, I won’t wait, I don’t accept deposits, bring money and sell)
oooooh) what have we suffered) and then after buying a house, this grandfather shook our nerves) but these are already trifles and we said to him, thank you for such a good house! when they came to congratulate on NG) he certainly kept the house in the master's hands) but now we have a client for an apartment (which suggests that we still found the very place and God approves and arranges everything) but everything is not so fast) and we nevertheless, already on the verge of nerves) and we don’t want the house to be sold not to us) in general, the husband borrows money from a friend for the sale of an apartment and we buy this house)! and after 4 days we moved to our new house) and my husband solved issues with the sale and everything else) on the 27th it will be 10 months. how we live here) have grown here with all our hearts) even older children really like it) The school is very good with teachers from the Soviet school, when there was at least some kind of education and children are seriously taught here, unlike our city school) But minus there are children missing their city ​​friends!
In the city, in such a time, we would all have already been ill five times) here, not even once! settling down, making plans, setting up) plans include a cow and a couple of pigs, a few rams and chickens, geese) of course, not all at once, gradually) Here we got another cat and another puppy) I don’t know what will happen next and how ours will develop here life, what children will say when they grow up and what difficulties await ... I know one thing we are happy, we are very good! And for some reason God led us to this decision and to this place) means that it will be ...

We came to earth not for wealth) but for the stability and health of our children... physical and psychological) To achieve harmony of body and soul)
I apologize for the mistakes and confusion

My name is Natalia Nikolaevna. My husband and I have lived in cities all our lives, we have seen villages only from the car window. My early childhood was spent in Kasli, a small town in the Urals, mostly privately built. The family lived in a large, sturdy wooden house built of thick logs. The yard was fenced with stone walls, built of tilers, high, more than 2 meters, as it seems to me. There were massive strong gates made of wide thick boards and a gate in them. A large garden with the same stone fence descended directly to the lake. I remember that the house had a Russian stove of immense dimensions. The husband also remembered some fragments from village life: they told something, read about something.

He and I envied the villagers, especially when in the summer, under the windows of the house, drunken youth played tricks all night long, slamming car doors like shots, and from the salons music turned on at full power rumbled, reminiscent of savage tam-toms.

But what can I say, with the "charms" of life in a multi-story anthill, when everyone does not care about everyone, everyone is familiar. During my husband's service, we changed six apartments. The cities changed, but the neighbors remained the same.

So we dreamed of a quiet life.

When there was nothing left before retirement, we decided that we would leave for the countryside. Moreover, by that time our son had graduated from the institute and was invited to work in Dubna. He insisted that we say goodbye to the radioactive dump and move closer to him.

I have been looking for a home for almost a year. At first, I took up the Internet and looked through all the offers in the Moscow region. Then she went to Dubna, settled with her son, and from there she began to travel around small towns in the vicinity. Announcements and reality were very different. In general, it is not clear what people are guided by, painting the hut for sale as an excellent house, completely ready for living. And his wall is about to collapse and the foundation has collapsed. They hope, apparently, that someone will buy without looking. The prices of these houses were astronomical, we absolutely cannot afford it. My husband and I planned in advance that we would buy an inexpensive building and completely rebuild it. At such prices, there was no money left for construction. Then it dawned on me that all these inflated prices were only for the name of the region - Moscow. So I gave up on this business and moved to Tverskaya. There, too, everything was not going smoothly: either the realtor was a swindler, or the owners kept silent about something and played around.

In the end, I climbed completely 140 km from Dubna and found a house cheaply, but with what we had indispensable condition: the presence of main gas brought into the house.

Since no one had lived in it for a long time, it still looked the same. But gas is available, although the heating system was defrosted, the foundation is strong (brick, and on top of a thick larch), a plot of 16 acres, although terribly neglected. But there were several bushes of good currants, seven old neglected apple trees (Stripel, White Pouring, Melba, Anis Scarlet and some other nonsense ones). There was no garage, bathhouse or well. The weeds on the site stood to the waist, and the most disgusting, such as thistle. But to Tver 13-14 km., A tolerable road, every hour there is a bus. We bought this wreck for 240 thousand rubles, and all the neighbors were amazed because they thought it was very expensive (this was more than 10 years ago).

We were very lucky: we stumbled upon decent people. The construction company that we hired to rebuild the house did everything very conscientiously. They themselves purchased building materials, while respecting our interests: so that the quality is decent and the price is reasonable. We still maintain friendly relations with the owner of the company. From Nicholas we received a lot of valuable advice. He also advised us plumbers who were engaged in heating and sewerage, and plasterers.

We arrived in the village immediately with our things at the end of May. These three months were hard for us, my husband and I worked like draft horses. The builders arrived at 6 am and departed at 11 pm. We ourselves put them in such a framework - so that until the fall the house would be ready for living. They laughed at us, but they worked in such a way that now it’s scary to remember. We helped as much as we could, although we were not asked to. Nikolai, the owner of the company, did not even stutter about the project, he saw how naive and stupid we were. At the end of September the house was completely ready. We didn't want a four-part broken roof, and we didn't know which one. Luckily, Nikolay had good taste, as well as building education and experience. He, without even asking us, built a roof, unusual for this area. Tall, sharp, light in appearance.

Nikolay told us that in this area the main type of building is Karelian. When I traveled through the villages, I noticed that the houses were strange, completely unlike those in the Urals. In the Urals, there is a large yard near the house, it itself stands in the depths. In the courtyard there is a booth-toilet, in the same place somewhere there is a barn in which they once kept or keep cattle and poultry. The house necessarily has a cold canopy.

It's not like that here. The house, toilet and shed make up a single building. There is no canopy, but there are some towns called "bridge" and "terrace", knocked together, as a rule, from improvised materials and not insulated. Directly from them, there is access to a cold toilet and a barn called "yard". Amber specific. Nikolai explained that once there was so much snow here that the houses were covered under the roofs. That is why access to cattle was required directly from the house.

We saw such snow only once, in the first winter. Indeed, we had to dig a tunnel from the front door to the gate.

We were not lucky with the people who dug the well. They correctly found the water vein, but treated the work in bad faith. They got to the bottom of the water and everything, they said that the well was ready. A week later the water was gone. We were in a panic, because it was already October, it was raining, sometimes with snow. On our calls, the performers got off with promises to come and see. We called on ads in the newspaper, but no one agreed to redo someone else's work. In the end, the son brought a man from Dubna. They, in turn, descended into the well and lifted sand up in buckets. It turned out that we stumbled upon a quicksand - a powerful sandy "tongue". He went far to the side, and he had to be selected so that water appeared. Next to the well, the soil collapsed along with the old apple tree. Then this deep hole had to be filled up, and the apple tree died. The sand that was scooped out was of excellent quality: very clean, fine-grained, somehow beautiful. But there was a lot of it - with a truck. They worked for a week in terrible weather conditions, and then a powerful jet of water hit. They lowered two pumps, but they could not cope, and the son began to flood in the well. They didn’t dig anymore, the water was icy, clean and strong. After the spoilers-diggers, two more concrete rings were lowered, six in total, each one meter high. Later, we poured washed river pebbles into the well so that it would not silt up.

The same people dug a septic tank for us, but it was difficult to spoil something there, so we did not redo it. It consists of two communicating wells. The septic tank was not concreted, only the rings were lowered. From it, at a great depth, two pipes were taken to the garden. In addition, we regularly sprinkle powder from bacteria that process waste. The bacteria destroy the odor and turn everything that enters the septic tank into fertilizer. It settles at the bottom in a uniform thin layer, and water settles on top - completely transparent, without any smell.

I decided that for the time being I would confine myself to such a brief introduction. If someone is interested, I will continue the story about the townspeople who moved to the village.

It was so bright and colorful that ten years ago I finally moved live in the village from the city and do not regret it.

As it turned out, many people support my idea, they may not have moved at all, but they tend to be in nature more often, to cultivate their large and small plots.

All of us, to varying degrees, are convinced of the need to return "closer to the ground." Most of these enthusiasts are people who lived and live in cities.

But among the "real" villagers, such admiration for clean air, their clean products, etc. most often not. Maybe that's why the villages are dying one by one. People are leaving, striving for the city. And most of them are...

The rural reality in this sense is depressing. Many villages simply ceased to exist, you can’t even find them on the map. And of those that remained “alive”, most of them are on the verge of existence.

Our village

Our village is one of the oldest in the area. This year we will "turn" 1300 years old! And there are modern buildings, there are ancient ones. Visitors are happy to buy such old women-huts. They breathe easier and are not hot in summer.

For the last five years, there has been a fashion to sell old huts for scrap. And what is the analysis from the old clay hut? In the middle are clay walls. Outside - lined with bricks. Here is a brick and attracted. So how much is there?

And in order to draw up documents, enter, for example, into an inheritance, and then sell it to the same summer residents, you need to invest a considerable amount of money. And it's much easier to sell at least something. And get at least some penny. The village now looks like after the bombing. Disassemblers take the bricks, break the roof, and the half-ruined hut in the middle of the village remains standing.

Why are villages disappearing?

What are the reasons for the devastation of villages? Personally, it seems to me that the whole point is the extinction of our entire people, and not just urbanization and the resettlement of villagers closer to factories.

After all, the decrease in the number of people is catastrophic. And in the cities people are dying, it’s just that the population density is higher there, a person “falls out”, the ranks closed, and we live, like nothing happened.

And in the village there is no one and nowhere to “close up”. Here, if a person died, then immediately the whole yard turned into a wasteland or ruins. Over the past ten years of my life here - already half the cemetery - people I really know personally. And most of them are by no means old men of 70-80 years old.

They say that drunkenness and moonshine destroy the village, that's why people die. But it seems to me that this is not the problem of the villages and the reason for their devastation. In cities, large and small, this is enough.

Rather, the trouble of society as a whole, and not specifically the village.

There are no jobs in the village...

They also offer as an option - banal laziness. No desire to strain day by day, no weekends for you, no holidays in the villages. It is generally problematic to get settled in such a way that you do nothing and get money for it in the village. Especially if you work for yourself.

Now it has become fashionable to say the following phrase: there is no work in the countryside. How is it not work? Yes, here, if you want to sit down to rest once. If you carefully follow all the prescribed, then in the morning he left the house early, especially in spring and summer, and late in the evening he entered the house "without hind legs." And also take care to send the fruits of your activity to the consumer in order to see the result of labor not only in the form of corns, but also in the form of banknotes.

So, probably, it happened historically, dispossession and repression destroyed the layer of conscious owners of their land almost completely. In any case, we have it in Ukraine. There was a layer of mercenaries. And now we, the descendants, have a psychological moment: it is easier to work for someone than for yourself.

What's easier? You don’t think about anything, you don’t answer for anything. Completed some part of the work, got a pretty penny and forgot about what was done. And you can't forget about your personal business. I think this is the moment that drives people when they say “no work”. Nowhere to hire!

Although the presence of real owners is always pleasing, because there are such, and it's great! Not even at the level of the recipient farmers of the former collective farms. A lot of well-known enthusiasts who develop, introduce new modern technologies. And they started at the same time from scratch, and achieved certain success in animal husbandry, crop production, etc.

The village is too quiet...

Plus, the city supports many of our inner rhythms and moods. And, as our readers have rightly noted, it helps to forget and hammer in oneself despondency, boredom, and disappointment.

The village is too quiet. And the rural rhythm seems to many to be too calm and slow. Although, of course, I can’t understand this - with good health and good mood - you just don’t have time to get bored, there are so many impressions and events in a day.

There, the rooster took a fancy to sleeping on the back of a cow. He escaped from the cold, it got warmer, but he is not going to be loaded from the back, so funny!

A small calf is about to be born, and you will look once again to your little cow, look at this pot-bellied little bun - how can you not rejoice here.

I'm not talking about raising children. There is simply no time to do joint drawing, modeling, embroidery. Or, for example, go with the children to wander somewhere in the forest.

In the comments, a woman wrote: a rural reality, she walked a kilometer back and forth for bread and did not meet a single soul. And how do you like this standard urban situation: you come home in the evening, whom you met today, no one! people, if not more? Of course, we say this in the sense that none of the acquaintances met. But the moment of self-absorption and some detachment is still present.

In cities, with a visible unity of people, all the time someone is near - almost complete disregard for each other internally. Everyone is just like a drum: who are you, what is with you. Our friends’ son-in-law suddenly died right at the bus stop. I was driving to work in the morning, decently dressed, heart attack, fell and lay for a couple of hours - no one even came up, everyone was busy with their daily affairs and worries.

In villages, on the contrary, with external fragmentation with each other (indeed, you can walk a kilometer back and forth and not meet anyone on the way), there is great close attention to people. Internal very close living together. you do, up to what you think, everything is under supervision and discussion. As in the local proverb “Dance in the cellar and everyone will know”!

Ancient reality is interesting, but does it have a future?

(Visited 4 487 times, 1 visits today)