Izvestia: “Vladimir Putin attends housewarming party”
Residents of the village Verkhnyaya Vereya are already used to visits form high-ranking officials. The wildfires that raged through the forest canopy on July 29 burnt down several hundred houses in a matter of minutes. Officials from the Nizhny Novgorod administration have been practically living in the village since then, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visits it every six weeks. The first time he arrived in the village was several hours after the tragedy. The second time he personally inspected the quality of new houses. Now he has come to attend a housewarming party at the invitation of Svetlana Romanova, a resident of the village.
Following the destruction caused by the wildfires last summer, officials set a November 1 deadline for the construction of new housing for the victims.
The deadline was met. Now Vladimir Putin is marching along the central street of the rebuilt village at a brisk pace approving the work that has been done. Neat houses with white and yellow siding stand along a paved road. Small flags are fluttering in the wind on almost all lampposts, reminiscent of May Day celebrations, and there are banners on almost every fence: "Thank you for not abandoning us in our time of need!"; "We believe in our Russia"; "Thank you, builders!" A shop, a post office and a primary medical care centre providing midwifery services have been built in the centre of the village. Engineers from the electric power company, the village's sponsor, have established a small park nearby with benches and a playground. Now it is called the Alley of Power Engineers. The logo since the time of Anatoly Chubais – a blazing Sun – is inlaid in stone in the centre.
The alley leads up to a big, 90 square meter house belonging to the Romanov family. Svetlana, a granddaughter of the hostess, the pensioner Nina, headed the action group in the village in the first days after the fires. Now she was waiting for the guest of honour by the gate.
She shared her story with Izvestia.
"This is the third time I am meeting with the prime minister. When our village was burnt down and he came, I simply kneeled at his feet: 'Winter is coming and we have nowhere to go. We are homeless.' He replied: 'You won't be left homeless. I give you my word.' And he kept his word. When he came for the second time, I invited him to our housewarming party."
The prime minister accepted the invitation and kept his word again. After inspecting the new construction in the village, he went to the party.
"When I was choosing the furniture I was very worried that my granny wouldn't like this modern style," Svetlana recalled. "But she proved to be the wisest and strongest of us all. She said: 'I won't look at anything and I won't control anything. I'll simply move in when the house is ready and that'll be that.' When we finished everything, she simply fell in love with the house and with the furniture."
"It looks very nice," Putin said of the interior. "When I came here for the first time, people were yelling: 'Take the governor with you!' So, shall I take him or leave him with you?"
Svetlana faltered, and finally said: "Take him if you need him."
Putin decided to leave Governor Valery Shantsev with the residents of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. He examined the household appliances in the bright-red kitchen.
"Thank you for providing us with gas," Svetlana said.
The hosts showed anyone who was interested the photos of the solid stone house they had been building for several years and finished shortly before the fires. "The new house is no worse," they said, approving of the builders' work.
By Anastasia Savinykh
