People who lost their homes in the wildfires want more and more new houses from the prime minister.
Yesterday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went to Voronezh where he visited the burn sites and listened to the detailed reports of firefighters and emergency officers. Our special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov reports what really happened.
Voronezh Hospital No. 8 was supposed to burn down. A ground fire and crown fire approached the building. The crown fire was stopped a kilometre from the hospital (luckily the wind was not strong), though the ground fire crawled right up to the windows.
The doctors are standing at those windows now, like they were then. Now they are asking, if it's true that the prime minister will come, and if so then why? (They did not consider this question rhetorical). Nevertheless, they described how they fought the fire.
"We got hold of hoses, fire extinguishers and spades and went out," said one of them.
The other insisted that the urologists were quite adept at using the fire-hoses.
"You didn't forget the phonendoscopes, did you?" asked his colleague. Phonendoscope is a round nickel-plated instrument for examining the heart and lungs. The doctor meant they used anything they could get their hands on to put down the fire.
They had no time to evacuate patients before the fire, but according to one of the doctors, who looked more serious than the others, the brick building was separated from the fire by a small line of vegetation that allowed patients to escape.
"Those who could walk, of course," specified the doctor.
I asked about their specialization in their normal lives.
"We are experts in resuscitation," answered one, gloomily.
This explains the quips about the urologists and the phonendoscopes.
At one point the access road to the hospital was cut by fire. But just when hospital personnel started to suppress it, busses arrived to evacuate the remaining patients. Then, as the doctors said, the firefighters showed up.
Now three firefighters are standing in the shadow by the hospital entrance near a thoroughly washed fire-engine, waiting for the prime minister.
The doctors were not allowed to go outside. They were looking out the windows like patients of Hospital No. 8.
The three firefighters had a slightly different version of what happened. They said their team was the fourth to arrive and that everything around was still on fire (what if one day they try to show up before anything is burning?). In confirmation of their own story, they showed a video made by a cell phone. Indeed, it showed a burning forest. It looked like the firefighters did not think the situation was really dramatic if they had enough time to record the flames.
It was the hospital's Head Physician Igor Ofitserov who told Vladimir Putin about their defence of the building. According to Ofitserov, the evacuation proceeded without casualties because they had recently developed a detailed evacuation plan.
"And we had a watchman on the roof the whole time," he reported, adding that the entire evacuation took an hour and a half.
"This is what effective organization looks like," the prime minister said of the hospital's personnel efforts, and then moved on to the Brno Hotel, which had provided temporary lodging to the fire victims.
The lobby was crowded. There was a lot happening: people were registered, photographed and interviewed. Mr Putin talked to some of the victims. They mainly interceded for other people.
"Mr Putin, during the last six months we have shared our house with my wife's brother," a man of about 50 rushed toward the prime minister. "Couldn't he get a separate new house! By Jesus, he deserves it!
Mr Putin said that houses will be built only for those who owned them and to build an individual house for his wife's brother would have been unfair with respect to the other (brothers and sisters – Andrey Kolesnikov).
An elderly woman asked for a separate house for her 90 year old mother.
The prime minister seemed to look at them with surprise. Probably, he did not expect that the when you lose a little, the more you want.
At the meeting with the local administration, Vladimir Putin said: "The main question now is how soon the builders will start constructing houses?" He repeated that the construction sites must be equipped with video cameras (see Kommersant of August 3) and added that the Ministry of Communications shall, before the end of the day, report on how this is to be done (the task is more than just creativity for the Ministry).
Indeed, by all appearances this issue concerned the prime minister more than others: "Any disconnection of the cable monitoring," he declared, "will be regarded as an emergency and result in the dispatch of a special commission from Moscow to the site."
Evidently, Stalin-era court troikas will seem a model of justice compared to these special commissions.
After awhile there was a hitch in the meeting. Governor Alexei Gordeyev said that in the Voronezh Region compensation for each burned down summer house will be 500,000 roubles or a newly built house, but not one larger than 40 square metres.
"What?" asked the prime minister. The governor's position was adequate. He proceeded from a realistic price and the dimensions of such dwelling, but these figures didn't match the prime minister's policy.
Mr Gordeyev repeated his figures.
"Nope," the prime minister said. "Each one will receive one million. As for the well-off and the oligarchs... and I understand what kind of houses they had... they will be given one million roubles, too."
"Those were dachas, Mr Putin," Alexei Gordeyev objected. "All dachas there had a floor area of 25, 30 or 35 square metres..."
"Houses shall be rebuilt as they were before," replied the prime minister sharply. "What if the house was 50 square metres?"
Mr Gordeyev promised to revise the figures, i.e., he got off lightly.
After the meeting Vladimir Putin met with the son of Vassily Galkin, a fire team leader from Fire Brigade No. 41 of Kashirsky district of the Voronezh Region, who died in the battle against the wildfires. The prime minister invited Andrei Galkin to sit in the arm-chair and he talked to him without journalists. Later we learnt that Andrei turned down Mr Putin's proposal to improve his housing conditions (the firefighter's son and his family share a house with the family of his 32-year old sister). Andrei thought it too bold of him to accept such offer.
I asked emergency worker Major Igor Kobzev how Vassily Galkin died.
"An investigation is underway," he said, "although, it is clear in general. It was on July 29, Black Thursday. It was real hell. They were fighting fires in Kamenno-Verkhovka. How did he die? We are fire fighting officers. We must die heroically. And so he did.
When the son of Vassily Galkin reappeared from his talk with the prime minister, Igor Kobzev took him by the elbow and led along the corridor. Andrei was a team leader too, in the same fire brigade.
"So, will you continue your service?" asked Igor Kobzev.
"Continue?" Andrei said absent-mindedly. "Why?"
"Why do you ask 'why'? You will become an officer," Igor explained to him.
"I will..." nodded Andrei in the same manner, without looking at Igor.
No, he will not.
