In Orsk, people are fighting for humanitarian aid and have not washed for more than 10 days

One of the places where humanitarian aid is given out is the Neftekhimikov House of Culture in the city center. The line here starts early in the morning. There are young people, elderly people, families with children. When asked what they give, a pensioner at the end of the line shrugs: “I don’t know. We have nothing left, maybe I’ll pick out shoes and clothes for the first time.”

A man comes out of the cultural center with a striped mattress under his arm. “I have nothing to sleep on,” he says as he walks. Behind him is a girl with diapers.

Many go empty-handed: “Everything has been snapped up.”

I approach the man on the bench. His leg hurts. Can’t stand for long. Therefore, a friend is holding the line for him.

– I have no idea what they give there. Ask the woman over there, she picked up the bags,” she nods towards her neighbor on the bench. – It seems, according to rumors, they give everything: clothes, mattresses, and blankets. My house has completely floated away. I was sleeping in my shorts when the water came. They knock on my window: quickly run away from here. Where to run? I have a motor boat, everything is left in the garage. I didn’t have time to take anything. I have nowhere to live, I didn’t go to the temporary detention center, it’s somehow awkward.

The man’s belongings include one package.

“I only managed to grab my waders, I’ll try to break home… I still have documents and identification there.” Now go prove that I lived there. I worked in a private security company. He left the weapon on the table. You have to hand it over. Another headache…

A healthy man runs out of the cultural center and shouts to my interlocutor: “Come on quickly, the line has come, take your things to prove that you are naked as a falcon!”

I approach the woman who is sitting right there on the bench. At her feet are two 5-liter bottles of water and a bag.

— I took toilet paper, paper napkins and water. There were a lot of used things: children’s, adults… They provide garbage bags. But I didn’t see the products. They wrote in the chat that the food package included two loaves of bread, cheese sauce and stew. I don’t know how true this is. By the time I got it, a lot was over. I saw that people were carrying pillows in packaging, new bed linen, a man was carrying a foam mattress… Now there is nothing. There were scandals here: at first, people did not share the bed linen, it seemed that the last set was left. It almost came to a fight. Whole families of migrants jumped ahead of us without waiting in line. We held them by the elbows, and they broke free and climbed through. How is that?..

According to the interlocutor, she spent about two hours in line. Five people are allowed into the cultural center. Each person in need is given 10 minutes to choose their items.

“In the morning, the entire square in front of the cultural center was filled with people. You must show your passport upon entry. If you are registered in the affected area, go choose humanitarian aid. I didn’t see any new things there; ordinary Orchans bring things they don’t need. You can still find decent ones for children, but it’s a problem with things for adults. Something is in very bad condition. I was looking for rubber boots for my husband, but I couldn’t find them. By and large there is nothing to choose. But people whose houses were flooded under the roof are happy with old things. They say: even if they offer us scratchy army blankets, we’ll take it all…

Another pensioner comes up to us: “Did you hear that the Masterok store was robbed? It was flooded. When the water receded, the owner returned, and all the windows were broken, the doors were ripped open, everything was pulled out: concrete mixers, construction supplies…”

“In Nikel, when the power was turned off, the owner of the grocery store took all the goods outside,” my interlocutor adds. “There were homeless people left there, they had nowhere to evacuate, she told them: eat.” Then I even made soup for them: it would disappear anyway. One woman said that she saw a whole pig carcass in the trash. Apparently they froze it, but didn’t have time to eat it.

— Is it possible to live in your house now?

“We lived with friends for two days, and now we’ve returned to our place.” The lights were turned on for us, there was cold water, but there was no gas or heating. Without gas, you can’t wash, you can’t heat water. They say that gas will be gradually supplied to the regions. In general, there is little information. I even found out about the distribution of humanitarian aid by chance: I was passing by. I’m also entitled to 20 thousand rubles, but I can’t get it yet. I am registered with State Services, but money is transferred only to the Mir card. I don’t have this card, I’ll have to apply for it.

People continue to leave the cultural center.

“It’s strange to me that people come here who haven’t suffered much,” one of the people in need complained. “There was a man standing in line with me who lives in an apartment, but the basement of his house was flooded. Everything is dry now. But he also came for help. I didn’t have any home left, but by the time my turn came, I didn’t get anything…

A girl stopped nearby. He looks at the queue.

— I have many friends who were left without a home. With whomever I spoke, no one received anything new. They are trying to sell them second-hand items. Today an IL-76 arrived, it looks like they brought humanitarian aid. But where is she? I wouldn’t be surprised if they start selling it in stores. I recently saw a couple at the bank; they were processing payments. It is clear that people urgently evacuated. They live in a temporary temporary detention facility. The girl was wearing rubber boots and house shorts, the young man was wearing flip-flops and sweatpants. That is, what they ran out in is what they’ve been wearing all these days, they didn’t play around with the weather…

“The smell of technical water makes me sick”

A huge problem in Orsk remains with water. People in some areas have not seen water since April 5. People come out into the courtyards with posters: “We haven’t washed for 10 days.”

Elena has a family of three. The water was turned on in her house today. A thin stream runs. The woman fears that the water will be turned off again.

“A water truck only came to our yard once; we caught it by accident when we were returning after work. We collected 10-liter buckets. So the water had such a pungent smell, like a corpse. I don’t know where they get it from, but we almost suffocated, we felt sick for a long time. Now we don’t know when this stench will disappear. It would be better not to bring her. It seems to us that this water is dangerous to use even for technical needs.

Elena hasn’t washed for more than a week:

– There is no question of washing. We thought about going to our friends, started calling people – it turned out that everyone had the same situation with water. I go to the office with a dirty head. But everyone there is like that. Offices also have problems with water. No coffee or tea. We don’t wash dishes at home, we use disposable ones. We don’t cook. We buy ready-made food in the store or make do with canned food. We buy drinking water at the store. Standing in line for free water is quite an ordeal. And still it is not enough for everyone. A lot of money is spent on water. In some small stores the prices for water are inflated. Bottles were delivered to large supermarkets at a normal price. But not everyone has the opportunity to go to large grocery stores, so people are forced to buy at inflated prices.

Over the weekend in Orsk, prosecutors will hold a reception for citizens affected by the flood.

“They only accept residents of the Sovetsky and Leninsky districts who are in the flood zone. And our Oktyabrsky district and others where there is no water are off the list. We are not considered victims,” explains Elena. — There was information that the children will go to school on Monday. How will they go, dirty, half-starved? I wonder if the schools where the TAPs were located will undergo sanitation if there are such problems with water? We don’t have any information about this. They report on TV that work is being done in the city, life is being restored, children are going to school, but they don’t say anywhere how it really is.