The answer to the governor of Kuban: who is really to blame for the forest fires near the Black Sea

Sergey Lvov

To begin with, let us recall that fires broke out in the Anapa, Tuapse, Gelendzhik and Novorossiysk regions.

The most difficult situation is in the Utrish reserve near Anapa, between Bolshoy and Maly Utrish. The Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that people were evacuated from the territory, including by boats of the state inspectorate for small vessels. At 14:00 Moscow time, the area of active combustion there was 3 hectares. The fire was extinguished from the air.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Anapa opened a criminal case on a fire in the reserve. The case is being investigated under Part 2 of Art. 261 of the Criminal Code (destruction or damage of forest plantations).

And what does the governor of the Kuban Kondratiev answer?

In the style of the reporting and election meeting, the head of the region reported that in 12 municipalities of the Kuban, due to the drought, a special fire regime was introduced: fires cannot be burned there, and outsiders are prohibited from being in the forests.

"In general, the situation has improved slightly: the fire has been extinguished in the Tuapse region. In Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik, the fires have been localized. The most difficult situation is still in Anapa. It is expected that all fires will be extinguished by the end of the day", - he wrote in a telegram.

To what has been said, we can add that literally three weeks ago, being in Abrau-Dyurso, my colleague and I argued: will the reserve catch fire this year or will trouble bypass this unique place?

There was no doubt that fires were inevitable. If you drive or walk from the top of the hill along the road leading to the beach of the Imperial Hotel under the English name Abrau Beach, then a strange, almost surreal picture opens up to the gaze of the holiday-goers. On the one hand, there is a shield with a formidable warning about the prohibition to put up tents in the reserved forest, kindle bonfires and shit under the trees, on the other, behind an iron mesh on both sides of the road, there are dozens of tents and bonfire sites of the so-called "savages".

People who set up tents on tiny patches of steep slopes do not hide from anyone, do not run away, do not disguise themselves. Here is the ban, but here is its gross violation.

It doesn’t matter that the heat has been going over the top 35 for two months already. It’s not a problem that there was no rain for three months and all the surrounding lakes dried up. No question - to burn firewood and branches under trees, which themselves have become a flammable material ...Drunk "romantics" with guitars and iPhones enjoy their own savagery. That is, they drink, eat, burn fires, shit and litter right in the reserved forest.

Why on earth? By what right?

And the devil only knows.

Maybe there is no one to keep order in the Kuban? Not enough police? Not enough private security companies?

Nothing like this!

If you drive around the Krasnodar Territory by car, it seems that there will be enough local traffic cops to serve the entire European part of Russia, and not just one subject of the federation.

If you walk, for example, along the famous Gelendzhik embankment, then every two hundred meters you will meet a police outfit in white shirts. They check the documents of some citizens in swimming trunks and swimsuits ... And every five hundred meters there is also a group of so-called "Cossacks" in stupid hats or astrakhan hats. At the same time, a police car with flashing lights turned on runs along a purely pedestrian embankment, crowded with people on vacation, every 15 minutes, as if in a resort town someone is being killed or robbed every quarter (which is not at all the case).

In a word, there is no shortage of overseers, policemen and security officials of all kinds and colors on the Black Sea coast of the Kuban.

But to expel the savages (without quotation marks) from the reserved forest - SOMEONE.

Is this "merit" or the fault of the local authorities, citizen Governor Kondratyev?

Don't you feel sorry for the protected forest? Or are you unable to organize his defense?..

But you can take a comprehensive approach to solving the problem, which has long been solved by all European resort countries. For example - to equip special sites for "savages". With temperas, tents, toilets, water and barbecues. We have personally seen such people in Catalonia, in France, in Germany, in the USA ... And believe me, local budgets have not cracked at all from such concern for people.

But in the Kuban - their own ideas about beauty. Whole areas of "elite" houses are being built in Gelendzhik. But they forget to bring water to the city and establish a sewerage system. The local airport, which resembles a cattle hangar, is best kept quiet.

Abrau-Dyurso has a wonderful mountain lake. But along the banks - heaps of garbage. And there is not a single normal descent (the wooden stairs rotted and destroyed as after the arrival of the invaders).

Next to the beach under the English name is the beach of the Roscosmos rest house. There are absolutely no conveniences for vacationers. Aki are tired animals, people are hiding from the heat under a rusty landing stage, looking at the seashore, where garbage has not been removed since the time of the collapsed USSR...

So the problem is not in tourists, among whom there have always been and always will be lovers of barbecues and tents in protected forests who are frostbitten. The problem is in the government, which knows about the problem, but does nothing.