'The Far East of Russia is waiting for you!': how Ukrainians are taken to God-forgotten Russian villages, promising mountains of gold

At the end of April, 308 people from Mariupol were brought to the village of Wrangel, Primorsky Krai, Russia. It is located 200 kilometers from Vladivostok. But many are trying to return to Central Russia. How did Ukrainians end up in the Far East? Pravmir.

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Angela went down to the basement with her three-year-old daughter and husband when she was eight months pregnant. On the ninth day, she was taken to Donetsk in an armored personnel carrier by the Russian military.

“They didn’t take men,” Angela said, “but my husband was the first to get into this armored personnel carrier, and then everyone else. A lot of people, we were like herrings in a barrel. In order to get my husband out of the armored personnel carrier, it was necessary first to drop all the others. There was no time, so they left it.”

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Angela and her family were taken from Donetsk to Taganrog. And there they were offered to go to Vladivostok. Angela was already 34 weeks pregnant. She and her husband got the impression that in the Far East they would be given housing and land almost free of charge, that salaries were high there. So they decided to go.

On the train it turned out that he was not going to Vladivostok, but to Nakhodka. From there they were brought to Wrangel.

Far East hectare

Upon arrival, Angela's husband tried to find a job. But they offered only low-paid, for money that would not even be enough to rent a house.

Or to pay a mortgage, albeit at 2%. And the promised Far Eastern hectare turned out to be just a forest located far from civilization.

The couple decided to urgently return to Central Russia. Angela was afraid to give birth in Wrangel and stay there for a long time.

Volunteers collected money for Angela and her daughter for a plane ticket to St. Petersburg. From there, she has already moved to Estonia.

Volunteers failed to buy a ticket for her husband - his passport burned down in Mariupol. And now Viktor is hitchhiking from Nakhodka to St. Petersburg. He needs to overcome 10 thousand kilometers. How long his journey will take, Angela has no idea. But, obviously, she will have to give birth without him.

Special conditions

A transit point for refugees from Mariupol is located in Taganrog in a sports school. There, people were placed in two large sports halls - and brochures were distributed to everyone:

“The Far East of Russia is waiting for you! Special conditions for participants in the State program for the resettlement of compatriots from abroad who have chosen the Far Eastern regions of the Russian Federation for life.

• $2760 lifting (payment for the arrangement);
• $9740 housing certificate for 6 square meters for each migrant;
• up to 3 months - accelerated acquisition of Russian citizenship;
• $ 140 - a benefit in the absence of income at half the cost of living;
• up to 2% per annum - Far Eastern mortgage;
• 1 hectare is free land, a Far Eastern hectare.”

“They looked at these conditions and thought that they still had nothing to lose,” says volunteer Elena, who works with refugees in Primorye. “They had houses, they had cars, they had property—and now there’s none of that. They considered that here they were offered social guarantees, at least, and they went. The vast majority told me that they came here solely of their own free will, no one forced them, they made this choice - the Far East - consciously. Only a few said: “At 4 o’clock in the morning they brought us to Taganrog and said: “At 9 o’clock in the morning the first echelon is leaving. You sit on it and ride."

People boarded a special train that went ten days to Nakhodka. Of the 308 people, 90 are children. The families were accompanied by their pets: dogs and cats.

“Initially, people were told that they were going to Vladivostok, no one warned them that they would end up in Wrangel,” Elena says. — They were told that Vladivostok is a big coastal city, like Mariupol. They were told: there is a sea, there is a climate similar to yours. You are driving to a booming seaside town. They drew a picture like this. As a result, the train stops in Nakhodka. They are loaded onto buses and taken to Wrangel.”

Wrangel is more than 200 kilometers from Vladivostok. You need to go on the relay, on buses, more than five hours.
It takes 40 minutes to get to Nakhodka from Wrangel by bus. Although Wrangel is officially considered part of Nakhodka, it is, in fact, 40 minutes away from civilization. They need money to travel, which the refugees do not have.

Mortgages for young people only

In Wrangel, people were accommodated in a departmental hotel in the port of Vostochny. It's called East.

“There is a very strange number of floors in this hotel: on the one hand you enter - four, on the other - six,” says Elena. - It is difficult for a person to understand these labyrinths. Endless stairs, transitions. The feeling of an endlessly unfolding space, it is difficult to navigate.”

There are rooms for four and six. Shower and toilet are separate in each room. One family or two can live in a room.

“This is a three-star hotel,” says the volunteer. - This is the best that the village of Wrangel has to offer. There is a good three meals a day, children are fed extra. And volunteers bring fruit. No one complains about the food."
Soon after the arrival, the Mariupol residents realized that not everything was as simple as they had been promised.

“Only on the train did they learn that mortgages at 2% are for young families under 35 or for those who will build a house on a Far Eastern hectare. But no one said that the Far Eastern hectare will be somewhere in the taiga, where it is necessary to cut down the forest or drain the swamps and there are no communications. Most often it is 120 kilometers from civilization. For a family that doesn't have any money, doesn't even have clothes, it's all impossible."

People are offered to work for little money, and renting a house is expensive.

“They are offered a salary of $560, and rent costs $490,” says Elena.

“The Far East in general is a place where housing is very expensive, where food prices are 20-30% higher than in the rest of Russia.

There are special living conditions. People are now looking for a place to live, and they write to us in a volunteer chat: “The prices here are so wild, we don’t need a cosmic price,” she says.

For those who want to leave Wrangel for Central Russia, the state, of course, will not pay for the journey. People are trying to find different ways.

“I was a trusting person”

Denis, together with his wife and 2,5-year-old son, came to Wrangel from Mariupol in mid-April.

“During the “actions of the special operation” we were in the house,” says Denis. “We couldn’t go down to the basement, it would have filled us up there, it is not equipped for all this. It was scary, we boarded up the windows. When the windows are boarded up, you are less afraid.”

On February 24, Denis was given an advance payment at work, so the family managed to stock up on food: they bought four bags of potatoes. They went to a nearby well for water.

“But then people began to say that the water in this well was poisoned. I did not believe until my temperature rose to 38,8 - and did not go astray. You take a pill - the temperature drops to 37 and rises again in half an hour. Also, my neighbor got sick. I lay there for two days, I could not get up. My wife cured me with some pills, I don’t remember what they are called. Then we went to another well for water.”

A shell fell near Denis's house and the chimney was blown off the roof with a shock wave. The walls inside the house burst. A crater “seven meters deep” formed at the impact site.

On the same morning, DPR troops came to Denis's family and asked them to leave the house “urgently”.

“We were taken by bus to a school in Dokuchaevsk, where we were fed very well. Then on April 10 we were transported to where we went through filtration. This is fingerprinting, we looked at phones, we filled out a questionnaire with questions. On April 11 we were taken to Taganrog. And already on the afternoon of the 12th we heard about the program for the resettlement of compatriots to the Far East... I was just a gullible person. The program interested me very much because it provided some concrete help. We were promised certificates for housing of 600 thousand rubles and lifting certificates of 170 thousand. They told us they would take us to Vladivostok,” Denis said.

According to Denis, the train in which they were taken was brand new, the compartment was comfortable, the conductors were friendly. We fed canned food: stew, buckwheat, rice. The child was given the same canned food and more juice. Sometimes chocolates. Bread began to be distributed only on the sixth day of the journey.

“The food could be warmed up,” says Denis. - I met the conductors on the train and warmed them in the microwave. The shower was good in the car. For four days we ate canned food, then everything ... somehow it became impossible.”
After five days of travel, it turned out that the train was going to Nakhodka, and not to Vladivostok.

“People were shocked. I cannot express in decent words what emotions all the people had. And on the last day we found out that we were going to Wrangel - they told us three hours before disembarkation. Everyone was in such a state... I just can’t find the words to express it,” he says.

Two weeks after the arrival, a meeting was held in the canteen of the Wrangel TAP, which was attended by the governor of Primorsky Krai, Oleg Kozhemyako. He told the residents of Mariupol how the resettlement program to the Far East works.

“From his speech, I understood that the housing certificate will be given within three years only,” says Denis. - That is, not immediately, but sometime there, in a year and a half. And lifting 170 thousand will not be given immediately either - half of the lifting can be received only after six months. A housing certificate is given only if you already have Russian citizenship. And if you join this program, you can not change the place of registration for three years. I will not be able to work in another region. The Far Eastern hectare, they said, would be given within five years. And somewhere in the forest. What to do with him in the forest, you ask? After this meeting with the governor, we decided to leave the Far East. We decided that we needed to move closer to Mariupol. Work in Russia and then return to our city.”

“I was offered a job as a welder for $800,” the man says. “Given the prices of housing and food, this is simply impossible for us. In St. Petersburg, for example, I offer $ 1460 with accommodation for the same job.

Volunteers helped the family buy plane tickets to St. Petersburg. Now Denis and his family live in a TAP in the village of Tikhvin near St. Petersburg.

“We are waiting for the documents from Wrangel to be sent to us,” says Denis. - I registered a temporary asylum there (when applying for this status, the passport is taken away. - Approx. ed.), But they did not sell a plane ticket for it. It is impossible to fly by VU from Primorye, only with a passport. Therefore, I took the passport and gave the VU. Now I’m waiting for a VU to be sent here – I can’t work without it.”

Denis left his mother in Mariupol. There is no connection with her.

“Together with us, 22 people were looking for specific ways to return to Central Russia from Wrangel,” says Denis. “But in general, about half of those who were brought from there want to leave.”

“Wherever they take it, they take it there”

Alena and her husband have been living in a TAP in the village of Wrangel for more than a month.

“ Honestly, in Mariupol we said goodbye to life. We thought we would not survive,” she says. “There was such a strong bombing that we thought we would never get out of the basements.”

Alena had a workshop for the preparation of sausages and lard - a full freezer at home. Therefore, when she and her husband hid in the cellars, they had food. There were also water supplies.

“One day Russian soldiers came. And they say: “Go there until the church - there will be a passage, there will be a checkpoint and the Russians will meet you.” Where else could we go?” she says.

Alena and her husband were taken to Taganrog. There they were offered to join the state program for resettlement to the Far East.

“We had no choice. They tell us: “You can go wherever you want - at your own expense.” Like this? We don't have any money! And four days later we went to the Far East - out of hopelessness, firstly, and secondly, I wanted to see if there might be something really worthwhile there,” says the woman.

The train went to Nakhodka for ten days. As Alena says, “brand new, we were the first passengers”.

“We spent so much time in the basement! Only the third time when I washed, clear water came out of me. After these conditions, the train was so clean and it was so warm in it—I couldn’t believe that this could happen,” says the woman.
There were many children on the train. According to Alena, they sat at the windows almost all the way.

“Oh, look, a river, oh, mountains, oh, a river again,” someone saw some kind of animal. After the basements, after the bombings, they were happy about everything,” she says.

“We were told that we would go to Vladivostok, and then in the process, already on the train, it turned out that we were going to Nakhodka,” says Alena. - I thought: “But in general, what's the difference, we are homeless, if you call a spade a spade, where they will bring it, they will bring it there. And why not go if we don’t have anything, and they say everything will be there.”

Alena and her husband found work in the village of Slavyanka - 176 kilometers from Vladivostok. Her husband is a crane operator by profession. Alena is in the kitchen as a cook. Location - accommodation and meals.

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“They said that the company would rent an apartment for us. I was promised a salary of 35 thousand, and my husband 70 thousand. In order to receive the 170 lifting money, we need to register in the “Resettlement of Compatriots” program and write an application for receiving this money. And you can apply for a housing certificate after obtaining citizenship of the Russian Federation. We will stay here, there is work and housing, where we can go even further, ”says Alena.

Her sister and mother are still in Mariupol. What happened to them, the girl does not know.

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