Residents of a Tatar village helped Turkish truckers freezing on the highway

The accident occurred on December 3 on the A-151 highway (starts in the Ulyanovsk region and goes to Tsivilsk). Not far from the village of Karabay-Shemursha, Batyrevsky district in Chuvashia, the rear wheel of a trailer bounced off at full speed at a KamAZ truck in front. It crashed into a truck with Turkish numbers, and then flew into a car. The car’s windshield was shattered. The 52-year-old driver died, the passenger who was with him in the cabin was taken to the hospital.

As local residents told us, the KamAZ driver did not even realize that he had lost a wheel, and found out about the accident only when he was stopped two kilometers from the scene.

As a result of the impact, the Turkish heavy truck Mercedes-Benz Actros was immobilized. And stood on the sidelines for four days. That place on the track turned out to be a “blind” zone. There was no stable cell service. Drivers who passed by left food and water for truckers, but they could not understand Turkish drivers without the Internet and an online translator.

“We heard that there was an accident on the highway,” says Ilnar Yunusov, who later hosted truckers. – From the place of the accident, where the Turkish truck stood, to our Tatar village of Kzyl-Kamysh – about 10 kilometers. We honestly thought they had already been taken. Realizing that they were still standing there, they decided to pull them out by joint efforts. We do not leave people in trouble. Many helped in their evacuation, including my brother Dinar, and our mutual friend Ramil, and traffic cops in the Batyrevsky district. The truck of the Turkish truckers could not move after the accident, the wheels of the car were jammed. We pulled them out using two vehicles at once, including a powerful tractor trailer. On two cars and dragged their truck to my base.

(Ilnar is engaged in trucking, he has his own fleet of cars. – Auth.)

Where were the truckers coming from?

– In the truck that had an accident, there was originally one driver – Muhammad Ali. He arrived in Russia with his father Ibrahim Khalil on two heavy trucks. The son was driving a Mercedes-Benz Actros from the Kirov region to Istanbul. His father loaded up in Moscow. They agreed to meet in Volgograd and return home to Istanbul together. When the father found out that his son’s truck had an accident, he took a taxi and came to him in Chuvashia.

In what condition did you find them?

“They had enough food. Compassionate local residents and drivers passing by supplied them with food. The villagers even wanted to take them to spend the night in their homes, but the truckers did not want to leave the car, because there was a load that they had to take to Istanbul. The trouble was that there was no cellular communication in that zone. The phone didn’t pick up. It was necessary to climb the hill, walk about a kilometer – there was already a connection there.

Many people tried to help Turkish truckers. Another thing is that it was difficult to communicate with them. The Russians could not understand them at all, the Tatar language is still somewhat similar to Turkish. Something could be caught. It was easier for me in this regard, my friend Murad is a Turk, we have been working with him for about 15 years. He now lives in Volgograd. I talked a lot with Murad, so I can understand when they speak Turkish, but, of course, not all of them. At first, we communicated with truckers through my friend. Then I downloaded the necessary application on the smartphone.

What is the temperature in your region? Was there a threat that Turkish truckers would freeze to death?

– It’s already cold here, in the evenings it reaches minus 12-15, recently the thermometer generally dropped to minus 20. Everything is covered in snow. When I came to them on the track, I was surprised that they did not have warm clothes with them. He told them: “You will freeze here now.” They cooked food on the street, built a hearth. We brought them to the base, dressed them. They gave them felt boots, they were very surprised what kind of shoes they were. Now they go only to them, very satisfied. We realized how warm boots are. They were also given overalls, which our workers wear in winter, as well as warm socks. They now live in our car depot, and their car is next to them. Ibrahim Khalil and Muhammad Ali fell in love with the Russian bath. They can steam for hours using birch brooms.

— How are things going with the repair of the truck?

— We ordered spare parts from Nizhny Novgorod. After an accident, restoring the car is quite difficult. All the details have already arrived. Then one more detail had to be ordered additionally. We began to understand, it turned out that their car was not prepared for the winter period. 80% of the work has already been done. If we ourselves fail to fix the car, we will call a specialist from Kazan. We still do not have a specialized center. Our task was to keep them warm. We think that soon the car will be on their way, and we will send them home.

Do they keep in touch with their families?

“We connected Wi-Fi to them, they communicate with relatives via video link. They show them what kind of snowdrifts we have. It snowed here for three days, pretty thick. All this is strange to them. As the guests told us, if snow falls, it immediately melts. Father and son took pictures of us, sent pictures to relatives so that they could see who helped them. Most of all, they liked that we, caring people, accepted them as relatives, considered them to be our own. We are all Muslims, believers. Together now we go to our mosque.

– Have you become guardian angels for them?

“According to Sharia, we should not speak like that. Helping others is natural. God directed us to them. I, too, can be in a quandary, and someone will help me. Our guests trust us in everything. They keep their money in plain sight when they go to fix their car. They don’t hide anything.

— Did the guests appreciate the dishes of your national cuisine?

“They all really enjoyed it. We cooked smoke, khashlama, barbecue for them. Our wives treated them to pastries. Helps, in fact, our entire village Kzyl-Kamysh. And the guests fed us with their national dishes. Prepared for us. We are now joking that there is no need to fly to Turkey, as if we have already been there.