Analphabet, but alive: the school year in the schools of the Oryol region terminated ahead of schedule

Lyudmila Butuzova

In the Zalegoschensky district, according to the order of the acting the head of the education department Shchukin, the transportation of students to six secondary schools - Zalegoschenskaya No. 1, Lomovskaya, Lometskaya, Aleshnenskaya, Pobednenskaya and Nizhnezalegoschenskaya, has been suspended. The reason stated in the order is “unfavorable weather conditions”. The delicate wording may delight the ears of superiors, but it is unlikely to deceive children and parents. In the region of 16 educational institutions, 1460 schoolchildren, “the meteorological trouble has opened up only over those of them who live in villages a few kilometers from the school (one third of the total number of students) and get to study along trash roads. School buses can't get through here, except after a tank.

“Many parents carry their little children to school in their arms 2.5 km apart”, - the inhabitants of the village of Goldaevo in early September stated their misfortune to the governor of the Oryol region, Andrei Klychkov, without waiting for help from the local administration. - Five years ago, due to the lack of a road, a man was burnt alive, the fire engine could not pass. The ambulance, even though you die, does not arrive at the call".

They also said that money was allocated for the construction and the project was approved. The road was supposed to be completed back in 2018, but nothing has changed since then.

“We went to our administration again. We were told that the road was made. We showed the photographs: the road is in a terrible state: impassable mud and the absence of any cover. They answered: we don't know anything, they allocated money and that's it, goodbye", - write the villagers.

- When I worked in the regional council and traveled a lot around the region, willy-nilly compared the roads, - the ex-deputy told "NI" Valentina Ostroushko. -In the Zalegoschensky district, they were the worst with the same allocation of funds. But for some reason, neither the police, in whose structure there is the Department of Economic Crimes, nor the prosecutor's office promoted this story.

No, it was, they even wrote about it in the newspapers: once they caught a contractor who received money for unfulfilled road works, the second time they opened a criminal case against the deputy head of the district for registration... travel money in the region is not so much stolen as it is simply not used. This is the conclusion reached by the "Governor's control", at the beginning of the school year descended on Zalegoschi.

In total, the district received 15.5 million rubles for road repairs this year. The money was intended for 12 rural facilities ranging from 200 meters to a kilometer. With grief, only one was commissioned in half - Molodezhnaya Street in the regional center. The municipality was let down by the contractors, they simply did not go to the facilities.

“The procedures for terminating contracts and concluding new contracts started road repairs in the Zalegoschensky district in late autumn,” the “controllers” reported to Governor Andrey Klychkov. The reaction was immediate — the outsiders of road repairs were bent over at every conference call. Inspired by support, the inhabitants from day to day waited that now they would take their roads.

The problem has not been resolved yet. The only achievement on the road front is that classes in schools were canceled, relieving parents of the need to drag their children to knowledge.

The suspension of the delivery of children, according to the order of the RONO, is valid until December 21. Then, apparently, something should change for the better. But everyone understands that this is slyness. It is unrealistic to repair kilometers of country roads in such a short time. Winter has just begun, frosts will soon hit, then thaw, ice, mud, rain, slush ... And children remain ignorant at least until May, when the roads in the area dry up by themselves.

In school chats, a boom began: the constitutional right to education is being violated, parents began to ask why Lenin's behest "to study, study and study" has been forgotten in the region ruled by the communist governor, and in general, what kind of youth policy is this? to school becomes an insurmountable obstacle on the way to knowledge? The addressees do not enter into discussion, it is not a tsarist business to communicate with each village. School principals take the rap for them. Moreover, in a very peculiar way - accusing parents of misunderstanding that the forced break in education is for the benefit of their own children.

Here writes Ms. Liverko, head of the Lometsky secondary school, to which students from the long-suffering village of Maryina are assigned, “I think that there is nothing more precious than the lives of children. Every parent understands this! And I don’t understand when for the parents it's more important for their children to be at school in any way, rather than staying safe at home and being safe and sound”.

- Eyes jump on the forehead, - Nikolay Isaykin, deputy of the Grachevsky rural settlement, commented on the headmistress's message with feeling. - The fault is not of those who haven’t put a finger on their finger for years to create human conditions for children, but the unfortunate parents who are fighting for it.

For several years, the inhabitants of the village of Maryina asked the district administration to repair the emergency road to Grachevka. It is 7 kilometers between two quarries with a dangerous precipice.

"We are afraid, but we go, - says the pensioner-entrepreneur Yekaterina Yeskina. - So what to do? There are at least a few of us - six residential buildings, 30 people for the whole village, but you have to eat and drink. There is nowhere to take, everything is ruined, the store is closed. In 2007, my husband and I took up the trade. Just out of pity for the people - well, do not leave them... My husband died, bread, a pharmacy, all the botheration was left on my shoulders. And this damned road is also on me. Every time you go and do not know where you will end up - at home or in a ditch. Okay, we have already lived... But our village has a future - five children: two in the third grade, one in the fifth, the boy Lesha is a junior school and the girl is in the first grade. This year the road has become completely useless. How do I get to school? - “Gazelle” with the bread already is afraid to come to me, but with children it’s even more impossible. We cooperated with the parents, and already in chorus began to complain everywhere - the governor and the prosecutor, in the traffic police, in all the parties that they remembered. The media and the regional council deputy entered the road. They very much hoped that under such pressure from the authorities they would at least fill up the ravine, and it would be possible to drive without fear.

"Novye Izvestia" told the story of the battle of Maryinsky with the ravine ( "The emergency road to school after the elections will receive bumpers ...", 21.09.2021 ). but they could not even imagine that there would be no victory.

And there was this. On September 1, the children of Maryinsky did not go to school. The local traffic police issued a warning about the danger of a school bus passing on the road from Maryino to the village of Grachevka. The children waited half a day, cried, then a new bus just donated by the governor looked out for another week, but it did not come. Private traders were not affected by the travel ban. Parents hired a car at their own peril and risk, the driver took the children to knowledge for several days after a heart attack, and no one except God could foresee how this would end. Zalegoschensky's officials turned out to be more shrewd. There was an election campaign, stories with bad roads and school buses standing useless undermined the authority of local authorities and threatened to disrupt the elections. The problem was solved simply: from the administration they began to call their parents, begged them not to write anywhere, the then head of the district, Viktor Brezhnev, promised to repair the road before the end of the elections, and the next morning a school bus was waiting for the Maryinsky students outside the village. The principled State traffic inspectorate did not resist the holiday.

The schools reported to the region that they have organized distance learning, which is now fashionable. But, as village deputies report, not in all villages there is the Internet, and even more so laptops, smartphones and even simple computers. Andrey Klychkov, the most advanced Internet user of all governors, in one of his daily broadcasts called such a situation in his fiefdom “disorderly”. you can't, buy computers for the poor people. "

Here is an efficient advice. Much better than the wise people give to the parents of Zalegoschensky: "Why are you sitting there, leave here, just as there was no road, it will never be".

To this topic

According to the Oryol Federal State Statistics Service, in rural areas today there are 243 697 people - 33.2% of the total population of the region. Of these, 127,537 are of working age. Over the past five years, the rural population has decreased by 12,600 people. 344 villages are completely abandoned. There are 513 settlements with less than six people. 301 settlements have a population of 6 to 10 people.

One of the reasons for the decline of the rural population is the poor condition of the roads and the lack of infrastructure.

In 2021, it was planned to repair 226 local roads at the expense of the road fund in the region. For these purposes, 670 million rubles have been allocated and distributed among the districts. To date, only 7 out of 24 municipal districts have fully utilized the allocated funds.

In four years, the region received 143 school buses, which are supposed to carry almost 6 thousand children every day.