[REGNUM] Thousands of people in the LPR are in need of food, clothing, and medicines. They have nowhere to live. Their houses are broken by Ukraine. Social services haven't gotten to them yet. And volunteers from different cities of Russia got there.
A frosty morning is just beginning to light up with a lazy sun. A truck drives up to the humanitarian center "Not Indifferent" in Novoaydar LPR (here, Ukrainian HIMARS recently shelled a hospital). On the road, the truck was iced over, its door was difficult to open. He came from the Russian outback, brought parcels. Volunteers, lined up in a chain from the truck to the warehouse, pass the boxes from hand to hand. Gazelles are coming soon - they will deliver targeted parcels to different settlements. All free places in the gazelles are clogged with food and things.
- The other day there was a call from the city of Naro-Fominsk - allegedly their fighters are starving here, they asked to bring them food, - says Yuri Mezinov, head of the Indifferent. “Now we will take them, and at the same time we will distribute parcels from relatives.
He digs through the boxes - looking for something else useful for the fighters. At this time, volunteers stuff his UAZ with packs of warm socks, boots, winter balaclavas, candles, burners, and sleeping bags. Finally, the heat gun is brought in. Yuri as a general for volunteers. They listen to him unconditionally. He gives a short military order, and the volunteers scatter around the republic.
The gazelles are full. Drivers step on the gas and the parcels are sent to the front line to the tankers. On the outskirts of the village of Nizhnyaya Duvanka (near the Kharkiv region), Gazelles are catching up with the Ural. It contains the same tankers from Naro-Fominsk. Accepting parcels, they say: the rear supply service did not keep up with the advanced units a little, the soldiers had to sit on dry rations, but now everything has improved.
Satisfied tankers reload food, water and gifts into the Ural and rush to catch up with their unit. And we go with parcels to the artillerymen. But we find it only in the evening on some farm. Mail will definitely not reach here, and Yuri's "all-terrain vehicle" literally on a whim taxis right at them, having driven a dozen fields. Artillerymen are terribly happy with gifts and letters from relatives. One of them, a 26-year-old boy from St. Petersburg with the call sign Russian, cries when he sees a letter from his mother.
“I have been serving here for four months,” he says, ashamed of tears, “I miss my mother. No, of course, I found new comrades here, these do not let me get bored. But she is still drawn to her mother. Nobody was going to fight, but since such a thing has already happened, we will fight until victory. And then ... I'll go to my mother, - a new tear comes to his eye.
The road back to the volunteer base is difficult, so we are all silent. The SUV struggles with the rut in the frozen fields, thoughts are swarming in my head about how many more thousands of kilometers the volunteers will have to travel in order to merge the field mail with combat units. Fighters every day waiting for letters from relatives. On the front line is a letter from mom - more expensive than gold.
We return to the base. There we are met by Galina Sozaeva from Kabardinka. She is the real mistress of the base. For everyone will find a kind word. During the day she works in a warehouse, and in the evening she is the soul of the entire volunteer company.
- Humanitarian aid comes to us in different forms, - she says, - something is ordered, and something is inconsistent. Prior to my arrival, the warehouse was a "creative" mess. Everyone came in short shifts, and no one had time to clean up thoroughly. And I came for a long time. I wouldn't leave here at all. Where else, if not here, to feel their need for people? For people, stew is not important, they need to understand that we have not abandoned them. This is the most important thing.
The next morning I find the chief physician of the center, Olga Melnikova from Vladimir, in the warehouse. She completes targeted applications for medicines for different villages. She says she's used to spartan conditions and takes patients along the front lines. Having collected a first aid kit, she puts on a “medical” body armor and leaves for people who have not received medical care for a long time. She treats people in almost completely burnt houses.
And we are going to Sirotino, a satellite village of Severodonetsk. We rush past the broken villages, interspersed with harsh checkpoints. I'm talking to volunteer Mikhail Khabarov from Moscow. This is his first trip here. In Moscow, he works as an industrial climber and electrical engineer.
“Here is the real air, the meaning of life,” he says. - I would like to advise all sofa experts from Moscow to come here and try real life without any glamor and embellishment. It is here that friendship, mutual assistance and help are worth something!
Sirotino greets us unkindly - “hailstones” stick out of the ground, the streets are blocked by broken cars, burned houses in almost every yard. They fill the soul with quiet horror. I feel a little calmer when we meet a local woman going for water. She says that there is no electricity or water in the village, everyone here survives as best they can. Many receive help from the priest in the local church. Previously, 2,500 people lived here, now three times less. Who died, who left. Everyone needs food, clothing, medicine. We have all this in the Gazelle. And also candles, lamp oil and Cahors for communion. The woman shows us the way to the temple.
February 9, 2023
Alexander Dimitrovsky