“We’re all tired. There is no more strength” – Residents of the flooded TSN Ivanovskoye have been waiting for payments in tents for the third week | 04/25/2024 | Orenburg News

In the Orenburg region, more than 2,000 people were evacuated from the flooded area by TSN Ivanovskoye and SNT Zarya. About 400 houses were in water up to their windows and roofs. Among the victims are young and large families, pensioners, most of them bought housing recently and are now left without everything: furniture and belongings drowned in the dark waters of the Urals.

“Orenburg Media” from the very first days followed the situation that was happening in the village. Here the residents themselves organized themselves and kept a 24-hour watch against looters, helped each other remove things, and cut off communications in flooded houses. Residents created a chat in messenger and notified everyone 24/7 about what was happening. Footage of drowned houses, filmed from a bird’s eye view also appeared on federal channels. State Duma deputy Nina Ostanina came to visit the people.

Today, water is gradually liberating the occupied territories. Until now, two streets remain completely flooded – Lazurnaya and Solovyinaya, where water has been standing in the houses for three weeks. Residents of these streets were the first to bear the brunt of the disaster and the last to wait for it to recede.

Residents of TSN Ivanovskoye have a lot of questions and questions for the authorities: from the timing of lump sum payments to their amounts, from humanitarian aid to housing (many have lost their only home). The water goes away, revealing more and more problems.

— Our houses have been standing in water for more than 2 weeks, and we have not received any payments. Almost no one has received even the 20 thousand that were promised. We all survive here only due to the fact that they bring us humanitarian aid, people sort it out very quickly. We have a lot of people who have nowhere to live, for whom this is their only home and have neither relatives nor friends here,” said the owner of the house on the street. Lazurnoy Alena Captain.

Alena, her husband, child and parents moved into a new house last fall. Now it still remains flooded, but it is absolutely clear that all property will have to be disposed of. What will happen to the housing itself is a sore point.

“Many people here don’t understand what will happen to the houses – there are cracks, both outside and inside, doors don’t open, windows don’t open, we don’t have any understanding of what’s next. We are all so tired, we are all so exhausted that there are simply no words,” says Alena.

Together with Alena, dozens of residents of TSN Ivanovskoye are on duty in the tent city today. Alexandra Grinina and her mother moved to the Orenburg region from Belgorod. They believed that there would be a quiet life here in the Orenburg region. Now the only house and all property are under water. Being left with nothing is a big fear, but despite this they do not lose faith in people, they help at headquarters, with humanitarian aid, and are on duty in tents day and night. Finding an apartment in Orenburg for a short period of time, at least for the summer, without prepayment turned out to be a big problem. Therefore, for now, both nights are spent in a tent city. “We are all already one big family here“says Alexandra.

The most needed humanitarian aid today remains clean drinking water. Here, hundreds of liters are sorted out in a couple of days. Non-perishable products, children’s products, and household chemicals are required. Elena Kozhevnikova is the owner of a house in TSN Ivanovskoye. She built it for her daughter and held a housewarming party there literally in December 2023. Elena herself lives in the Urals, but could not ignore the misfortune of the neighboring village and today actively helps with humanitarian aid collections.

“Many people have responded to what is happening here, bringing humanitarian aid every day. Sometimes people just come and bring us, for example, pilaf, because hot food is in short supply. Thanks to the director of the Ecodolye school, Galina Aleksandrovna Nikolaenko, they fed us all the time while there was a temporary accommodation center there. Both the head of the district and the head of the village council came. They set up a large green tent for us here with 10 beds, and they are helping us with humanitarian aid. Volunteers come every day and bring things, although we already have a lot of them. We will then transfer them to other points where they are needed. Enterprises also help. It’s impossible to pass by here,” Elena said.

There is a security guard next to the tent city, with several dog kennels nearby. Here residents sheltered several animals rescued from their homes, as well as a couple of stray dogs. The owner’s dogs are also going through a difficult period here.

One of the most pressing problems of the tent city is the garbage cans that were brought, but for some reason they refuse to take them out. In two weeks, the garbage truck visited TSN Ivanovskoye once. In hot weather, this issue turned out to be especially relevant.

“The water is leaving, families are returning to their homes, many are crying, they can’t stand it. We are trying to calm each other down, this is our common problem,” says Elena Kozhevnikova.

The support measures from the authorities are called very belated and chaotic by the affected families. “Tired of waiting and tired of crying– they say in unison. During three weeks of absolute hell, many of these people did not have a single day of respite.