Either a pandemic, or sanctions, or officials... What Tver farmers complain about

The well-known writer and journalist Pyotr Aleshkovsky publishes his travel impressions from his trip around the Tver region on his blog. Including about the local farmers, whose life was just beginning to improve, as the pandemic broke out first, and then the special operation. The story of how they experience these times was recorded by Aleshkovsky:

“We stand with him on the bridge, the river, narrow in summer, has now overflowed, continuous backwaters. Vasily is from the locals, he is an entrepreneur, the founder of an agricultural holding. There is a flight of geese, the birds are dark, flocks fly up one after another, sit on the water.

- They fed on my winter crop, but it’s not a pity.

It was a pity for him along the way: a herd was grazing to the right of the field, the horse fought back and went to pluck the young greens. With a flock - a shepherd, but he does not care. They stopped, beckoned, ran up, understood everything: “Why, she herself, now I’ll drive it away.” And he ran, how - the boss arrived!

- These are zombie people, they live in a parallel reality, poverty is not the right word, they drink, they eat, they breed children, they fight with axes, they go to prison, they take children to orphanages, they leave, forgetting about the past, again they breed, already new ones. Their state fooled, abandoned and corrupted, but they did not notice. I carefully select people for work - my fifty-odd employees earn and hold on to their jobs. says the farmer.

He came 15 years ago, with Muscovite buddies, to bankrupt the collective farm. I looked at the huge fields, thought, figured it out, bought shares from accomplices, and set to work. He plants 500 hectares of potatoes (5 km x 1 km, to make it clearer) and 1000 hectares of winter and spring wheat.

- We feed several regions with our potatoes!

An engineer for the production of dairy products, followed in the footsteps of his father (“it was interesting, he wanted to deal with milk proteins”), he entered graduate school, but did not succeed.

- I can’t remember anything bad about the nineties - the movement was crazy - they opened cafes, in which businesses they didn’t have to participate, money was nothing - the main thing was drive! And we traveled around the country with my wife, and abroad - we love it. Then the main thing was - freedom, I even visited a regional deputy - they didn’t let the governor crush the land under him and put it in his pocket, and they didn’t go to jail themselves. Friends who moved to Moscow, ate shit for seven years, now they are rich, and I'm glad that I fell off - I'm free, my own boss, everything was in ruins, and now we stand strong. All Western equipment, combines, tractors, planters, harrows. Fertilizers. Technology. And it pays off, how it pays off. And then - such ... They cut it, not the right word.

- Will there be problems with spare parts?

- The whole country has a problem, many understand this, but keep quiet. Spare parts saved up, but still not enough. The main thing is fixed prices. If they are introduced, there will be cards, I won’t say hunger, but something like that. We are a kayuk, definitely. Last year, it already started - they tried to limit the growth in grain prices, introduced special duties, we, in the zone of risky farming, worked to zero. In short, if Venezuela is arranged here - and it’s coming to that, they’re restoring a scoop - there will be goons for everyone.

- We look at the geese, they look at us, they are not afraid, we can’t get them, and we don’t need to - the hunt is over, thank God.

- I also worked as an official - I survived for half a year - I didn’t put it in my pocket, so I ran away. And very happy about it.

- And how do you communicate now?

- Well, - he smiles, - I have gained experience, but I don't give bribes, and I never did. The nineties taught, charged with hope, and that's it ... down the drain. Although, if you think about it, it went to that. Destroyers, one word, the land is not enough for them - overgrown with their own, all in hogweed, in short - Mars is advancing! I don't hide, I say what I think. But what's the point? By nature, a creator, I trudge when it works, but I succeed. After all, they just started to fit into the world chain, a hack on it with a tank, and everything scattered ...

For many years, my wife and I took a foreign child into the family for a year under the program, we are still very friendly with one girl, a German. So I wrote to her - imagine, now, like your grandfathers in 1939, I am a pure anti-fascist!

Nobody needs our flax!

Here's a story about his neighbor, in pursuit. My resilient potato grower told me about him, I didn’t manage to communicate with his friend myself.

A man with a mind acquired 3,000 hectares of land, where flax has always been grown since time immemorial, and this is 30 kilometers per kilometer of land, to make it clearer. True, the fields are small-contour, the distance between others is 50-60 kilometers. I bought an old processing plant, re-equipped it with the latest technology. Seeds elite from Belgium. He became friends with the Belgian, who admitted that his seeds come from the very Russian places where he now manages, although he acquired the seed fund, even his great-grandfather, before the revolution. The seeds returned like a boomerang to their homeland, sprouted, sprouted, squeezed them, tied them from rolls into sheaves, put them in worts. It is not difficult to grow flax if all modern technologies are observed, but to bring it to fiber is a long story, it requires many hands. Up to two hundred and fifty people worked for a friend, and work in those places is tight. They gave out up to 40% of Russian fiber, sold it to China. And then there's the pandemic. And that's it, China got up. The economy went bankrupt instantly, now in the stage of bankruptcy. A friend, a flax grower, is sitting on the beans, dreaming of buying combine harvesters and equipment through a tender. Wherever I didn’t write, I asked for help, they didn’t give it. The Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation himself ordered to help, sent a formidable letter to the region, and the region closed its eyes. Huber came to their city to meet with voters and promised to help. He began his speech: “I just supported your flax, gave 20 million! A friend rejoices, and I whisper in his ear: “Okay, you’re lying!” The next day he called our Minister of Agriculture, and he: “And you believed? There is no money, but you hold on!”

Moreover, hunters were immediately found on the vacated fields, some of them had already been devoured - you can’t return them back. The famous Ivanovo plant, by the way, also stopped for the same reason, and, it seems, forever. Only Kostroma remained. “What about Altai? - I ask, - There, I know, flax has taken root and brings a stable income. “In Altai, the region is interested in it, they help with subsidies, as in Belarus. Agriculture without government subsidies is a hopeless business, in the United States, by the way, the largest ministry is agriculture, it occupies a whole block in Washington, I saw it myself, ”comments my cheerful narrator. “And then just give, no one will help! There was a case, I knocked out 27 million subsidies - a grant (1001 nights, how I beat it out!), The starley immediately flew in, saying - share it, you have a lot. I calculated how much it turns out for each employee in terms of, showed him a minus - it’s still not enough, but strong help, what to say, with that money we got out that year. And you thought, I’m telling you, I’m going to buy myself a Porsche immediately?” So not salty slurping and sent, he didn’t even drink tea. But flax was destroyed. But how proud they were, how proud they were, they saluted him everywhere when everything worked.

- It doesn't change a damn thing. But it's not funny, if, in truth. We fly ourselves into the abyss, some in a tank, some in a combine, and only report: “Everything is okay! All in openwork! Tighten your belts!" And the fact that two hundred and fifty people were left without a salary worries one of my comrades - they all have families, children. And they will soon boil belts in pots, as in books about the siege of fortresses in the Middle Ages. I liked to read such things in my youth, but now, however, something does not pull..."