Time to read: 14 minutes(s)

Flood and people: how it happened in Orenburg

"I was left homeless at seventy-five! In just my underwear and a warm jacket. No one helped us. A deputy brought a carton of water, a neighbor brought something to eat, and that was it. We didn't get anything else," Tatyana, an elderly woman in a white headscarf, fumed.

"Somewhere on Krasnaya Street, they told us specifically: here's the address, can you come and stay the night, at least get a bottle of water or a cup of soup? We're homeless. Fat," echoes a middle-aged woman standing nearby, wearing glasses and a blue jacket.

"They forgot we even had a street here. We pulled ourselves out, like Munchausen. We're not asking for much, just that the government would see us not as a source of income, but think about the people and help," adds another woman, with short hair and wearing a red vest.

Residents of Krasnaya Street in Orenburg, flooded by the river, have gathered around a concrete block installed at the edge of the ramp leading to a permanent garage. A stream of murky water washes the lower edge of the ramp, and a rubber boat, pulled to dry ground, is tied to a nearby bush. Neat private houses are drowning in the swollen Ural River, and high-rise buildings are visible beyond them, children's laughter can be heard, and the sun shines brightly.

If you walk from the completely flooded Krasnaya Street along Chkalov Street, which is only half-flooded, a completely different picture emerges after a twenty-minute walk. Wide Uralskaya Street, lined with shopping centers and high-rise buildings, descends into a vast expanse of water that Orenburg residents have nicknamed the "Ural Sea." Here, at the very water's edge, a large crowd stands. Among the locals, tensely peering out at the horizon, rescuers and police officers scurry busily about. Inflatable boats with motors glide across the surface, carrying rescued people to dry land. The engines of KAMAZ trucks roar, which local media refer to as "shift trucks," but which also evoke images of paddy wagons (perhaps because of the bars on the windows). And above all this bustle towers a giant tractor-trailer with an amphibious all-terrain vehicle mounted on it. According to local residents, the rescue vehicle was used only as a means of transport for the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, who visited the city several times, but never as a means of evacuation.

"We haven't seen any emergency services personnel on Krasnaya since the flood started," says Viktor, a fair-haired, middle-aged man dressed in rubberized overalls and fishing boots. "No one was prepared for such a rapid rise in the water level. The city administration predicted a nine-meter rise. Our family took action, lifting the refrigerator and washing machine onto stools and covering the furniture with plastic, but in the end, the water level rose to eleven. The flood was so strong that it blew off the gate of our neighbor's house. It's a good thing it all happened during the day."

Residents of the forgotten street say the authorities failed to either prevent the situation or evacuate areas threatened by flooding.

"We barely heard the sirens here, and many people didn't notice the messages from the Ministry of Emergency Situations on their phones. When the water started flowing, we started calling the rescuers, who forwarded us to the administration, and from there back to the rescuers, and so on. In the end, we saved ourselves and helped our neighbors as best we could," says Viktor.

Victor and I rowed along the flooded street. Brown water lapped against the second-story windows of private homes. Above the gabled roofs, the gray dome of the *Vozdukh* equestrian club, from which horses had been evacuated on the first day of the flood, was visible.

"That house over there is mine, it took me eleven years to build," Victor points to a beige cottage, flooded almost to the roof. "The first few nights, we saw a suspicious amount of light from the flashlights, so the residents of Krasnaya agreed to keep a watch at night. We're not counting on the police to protect us from looters."

The current flowing down the street was quite strong and nearly turned the boat around several times, but Victor, skillfully rowing, always brought it back on course. We'd rowed the length of the street in ten minutes. On the way back, when the boat passed Victor's house again, he asked a question that's on many people's minds here:

Orsk flooded a week ago. Everyone knew the water was coming our way. Couldn't we have prepared properly?

"Happy Holidays!"

I met three residents of Krasnaya Street the next day at a humanitarian aid distribution point in the office of the Orenburg branch of the Yabloko party.

"The water's still there, and the rescuers haven't shown up yet. We're guarding our houses with our neighbors, taking turns, 24/7," said one of the residents of the flooded street, a middle-aged man in camouflage.

According to flood victims, they applied for humanitarian aid at the "Movement of the First" aid station, but received nothing, as the aid was intended for residents of the region, not the city. Residents of Krasnaya learned about the aid station being set up at the Yabloko headquarters by chance, after reading "somewhere on the internet."

"This is one of our main problems: few people know about us," explains Tatyana Pchelkin, head of the Orenburg Yabloko party. "We contacted local media outlets asking them to publish our announcements about the distribution of humanitarian aid, but they either ignored us or offered to pay us for advertising."

These days, Yabloko's office resembles not the headquarters of a political organization, but the warehouse of a small store. Every available space, every desk and corner, is crammed with grocery bags, water bottles, diapers, and clothing of every style and size. The only remnant of the office is a pennant with the party's insignia at the entrance.

"Initially, we were raising money for Orsk. The situation was catastrophic at the time, as our fellow party members living in the city told us. They conveyed the full horror to us verbally, of course, but I was still shocked," says Tatyana, a middle-aged, fair-haired woman. "I then started thinking about how to help the affected people. Our party chairman, Nikolai Rybakov, also called me and asked what measures our regional branch could take in response to the situation. I said I wanted to organize a fundraiser, and Nikolai suggested opening a relief center, and we agreed. We posted on our social media about raising money for the victims and providing humanitarian aid, and that same evening, Viktor Chebotarev, the head of Nadezhdin's Orenburg headquarters, contacted me and offered to help."

According to Tatyana, the very next morning after the announcement was published, approximately 100,000 rubles were transferred to her card to help the victims. Donations are still coming in from all over the country. The head of the Orenburg Yabloko party considers this assistance important for supporting people even after the floodwaters recede.

"After Orsk, we can imagine what awaits Orenburg once the flooding subsides. For example, in terms of compensation from the administration for damaged property. We already know that payments are being made for refrigerators, but not for microwaves, which are not considered essential household items. There are no compensation payments for clothing or furniture either; officials simply suggest drying the items and continuing to use them," says Tatyana.

"This is largely due to the incompetence of local authorities. Okay, so in Orsk, the dam burst quickly, but everyone knew the water would then flow to Orenburg. But here, the administration acted just as incompetently. We were told that the authorities sent trucks loaded with clay for the dam to the village of Kuibyshev. Once there, the trucks simply dumped the entire load on the ground and told the residents to build the protective structures themselves. Meanwhile, the majority of the village's population is elderly. And so these grandparents, picking up shovels, built the dam themselves to protect their homes. People are growing frustrated with this treatment from the authorities. It's no wonder the residents of Orsk took to the streets; not only had the dam burst, but their patience had also been exhausted. It's just a shame they were chanting, "Putin, help!" while doing so.

In addition to distributing and receiving humanitarian aid, Yabloko members sometimes deliver food and clothing to people unable to reach the party headquarters, and also establish contacts with temporary accommodation centers for flood victims. There are two temporary accommodation centers in Orenburg: Lyceum No. 9 and the Orbita Community Center. We decided to visit the latter with Tatyana Pchelkina and Viktor Chebotarev, Nadezhdin's headquarters coordinator.

The Orbita Community Center is located in a two-story Soviet-era building. Above the porch, we're greeted by a cheerful banner featuring colorful images of musical instruments and the inscription "Happy Holidays!" in red letters.

"What day? Flood Day?" Viktor Chebotarev grins.

We enter the building. Just inside the entrance doors stands a metal detector, and a bored police officer sits on a stool nearby. To the right of the entrance are three tables in a row, at which sit three middle-aged women, reminiscent of schoolteachers at a polling station. In front of them are stacks of papers for registering victims. One of the women stands up and approaches us, introducing herself as Oksana "from the administration." Tatyana asks to see the temporary accommodation center to assess the extent to which it needs assistance from the Yabloko party. Oksana agrees, but immediately adds that filming is prohibited, as she'll get in trouble.

The tour moves quickly. Oksana doesn't let us linger anywhere. We flash before us, as if in fast-forward, the assembly hall, where bags of clothes are laid out on the audience seats, being sorted by volunteers; another hall on the second floor, where the actual victims are located, we see people sitting on beds arranged in three rows; we pass the kitchen especially quickly, as well as the makeshift isolation ward, where a family with a sick child is staying. That's basically it. During the tour of the temporary accommodation center, Oksana repeatedly repeats that "you are not allowed to film" and that you are also not allowed to talk to the victims.

"We're always forbidden from interacting with people; we can only meet the victims when they go outside," says Tatyana as we leave the community center.

Viktor believes that one of the main problems with temporary accommodation centres is the public's lack of awareness about them.

"Many people don't know where the temporary accommodation points are, so we publish information about them on our public pages. I haven't seen any flyers or banners with the addresses of aid stations anywhere in the city. Many of the victims are of retirement age and don't know how to use the internet, so this kind of visual information would be very helpful. Especially since it's impossible to get through to the administration. I was once second in line and spent ten minutes on the phone. I can only imagine what would happen if I had an emergency," says the young man. "It feels like we've been forgotten. They're celebrating Cosmonautics Day on TV, the president's calling reindeer herders, but it's as if we're not even there. I think many of the problems of those affected by the floods could be solved if we sent them the money the authorities spend every day on who knows what."

"When Putin dies, then we'll talk."

On April 12, the flood level in Orenburg stopped rising and, according to the administration, reached a plateau. The bulk of the water from the overflowing Ural River flowed south, inundating settlements downstream. One such settlement was the village of "Imeni 9 Yanjana" (Named after 9 January), 14 kilometers from the regional capital.

"Our houses are seven kilometers from the river, but there are many channels here, so-called oxbow lakes, which are currently being filled with water from the Ural River," explains Dmitry, a local resident, a middle-aged man with a short haircut and wearing camouflage. "Right in the middle of the village is the Zayachy Ravine, which is usually dry, but is now filled with water. When the flood began, the villagers suggested 'building up' the edges of the ravine by adding earth, but the village administration said there was no point anyway; everything would be fine, everything would be fine. But with the floodwaters coming in, they had to reinforce the edges of the ravine anyway."

"January 9" is a cottage community where wealthy Orenburg residents have built homes far from the bustle of the city. Dmitry, in his jeep, drives me through the half-flooded streets. Locals have laid out rows of sandbags along the roadsides. The plan is for the floodwaters to lift the sandbags, carry them toward the cottages, and create a necklace of buoys, protecting the foundations of the houses. We approach a group of men and women creating a barrier at the approaches to the cottages. When I ask for an interview, everyone declines. Only one gray-haired man shouts in my face:

- When Putin dies, then we'll talk!

Dmitry attributes the local residents' frustration to two factors. Since the flooding began, no representatives from the Ministry of Emergency Situations or any other regional emergency response agency have appeared in the village. As a result, residents, seeking refuge from the flooding, have built dams themselves, wherever they deemed necessary. But the dam erected to protect homes built for mid-level managers of Gazprom Dobycha Orenburg, a subsidiary of Gazprom, has sparked particular outrage.

"In '9th of January,' we have a separate area from the rest of the village. We call it 'Gas Workers' Village.' It has its own territory, its own houses, shops, and playgrounds, built for the families of Gazprom employees," Dmitry explains. "When the flood started, they brought in a bunch of equipment to build a dam, which began constructing the embankment, ignoring other parts of the village. Many residents, especially in areas built during the Soviet era, believe that the gas workers, by building the dam for themselves, diverted the water flow toward their homes."

We decide to inspect the structure that caused the dispute. Dmitry drives the car up to a three-meter-high wall made of brown clay soil. We slide up to the top of the dam. As we reach the crest, we can see that the water on the inner side is only half a meter below the edge of the embankment. A vast expanse of water stretches out before us, with white turnkey cottages looming on the horizon. An inflatable boat with a motor, crewed by a man and a boy, zips past us. "You'll show it on YouTube, right?" the captain, middle-aged, like many others here, wears camouflage, cheerfully calls out.

“They were lucky enough to save some of their property, so they’re happy,” Dmitry suggests.

We walk along the top of the dam and turn right. There's no strong current here, and the floodwaters have created a pool with the tops of bushes sticking out. We notice movement in the brown liquid. Looking closer, I realize it's a muskrat swimming along the embankment.

"Now we definitely have someone to blame if the dam leaks. It's worse than the mice that chewed through the embankment in Orsk," Dmitry comments on the appearance of the aquatic animal.

After inspecting the Gazprom dam, we decide to visit an area of ​​the village that local residents believe was damaged by its construction. Dmitry takes us to the flooded Orenburgskaya Street. An inflatable boat carrying two men and an elderly, gray-haired woman approaches the dry part of the river. The woman from the flooded street emerges from the boat, a white handbag slung around her neck and carrying two plastic bags in her left hand.

"The dam built by the gas workers caused water to flood into our house. At the beginning of the flood, it only flowed a little into the hallway, but now it's flooded over a meter into the first floor and the entire basement. If they'd let the water out of the dam a little, we wouldn't have been flooded. My husband stayed to guard the house; he has no intention of evacuating," the woman says.

"Young people, don't film us. Go and film over there. And you, woman, don't talk nonsense. You can't drain the entire Urals," one of the men who brought the woman from the flooded house in a boat complained.

"These are village administration employees, the 'flood patrol.' In the absence of rescuers, they're carrying out evacuations at the request of local residents," Dmitry explains the men's status.

We return to Orenburg from the flooded village. On the way, Dmitry can't help but express his indignation:

I bought a house here in 2021. The purchase agreement stated that the village was in a flood-risk zone. I asked the administration for clarification, but they told me this clause was simply a formality and that there was no serious threat to the property. I'm sure many homeowners simply overlooked this part of the documents. And now we're being told we shouldn't have built houses so close to the river. Why, then, did the authorities, knowing about the flood threat, allow construction, or at least not erect protective structures in advance and sound the alarm?

"Why save if you're going to kill in a month?"

"The owner asked us not to separate these guys; they lived in the same apartment before the flood," says Yulia Babenko, a dark-haired, middle-aged woman, pointing to a cage containing a gray kitten and a black and red dog.

The Filimosha animal shelter has been operating on the outskirts of Orenburg since 2018. Since the floods, it has provided shelter to more than two hundred dogs and cats from flooded areas.

"When we learned that the floodwaters would reach Orenburg after Orsk, we immediately decided to provide shelter for animals caught in the flood zone. Our staff worked around the clock for the first few days. Initially, our residents were animals from the shelter in Stepnaya, where the waters were rising particularly rapidly, and they were transporting animals to us all day and all night," says Yulia, founder and director of Filimosha.

The room where Yulia and I are talking is crammed full; every square meter is filled with bags of animal feed and boxes of veterinary medications. Every five minutes, our conversation is interrupted by people entering, either looking for lost animals or willing to adopt a cat or dog from the flood zone. Mostly, they are Orenburg residents bringing food and other supplies for the animals. Yulia and I leave the building to receive the next shipment of aid. Two women in sunglasses are unloading water, food, and cleaning supplies from the trunk of a red Audi.

"We help animal shelters because the authorities don't provide any support," says one of the girls.

"Indeed, we haven't received any assistance from the administration," Yulia confirms. "The Housing and Utilities Department should be dealing with animal issues, but there's a trend in our region: on July 1st, a law will likely be passed allowing the euthanization of 'unclaimed animals.' Why should the authorities rescue animals if they'll have to kill them in a month or two?"

The shelter's director gives me a short tour. "Filimosha" occupies three buildings connected in a U-shape in an industrial area on the outskirts of Orenburg. Two sounds fill the shelter's courtyard: the barking of dogs and the pounding of hammers.

"The most important thing for us right now is building new enclosures. Volunteers from not only Orenburg but also other regions of the country are helping us with this; for example, we had people from Nizhny Novgorod," explains Yulia. "People have shown their best qualities during the flooding situation. Everyone feels sorry for the animals, even more than for people, because they are completely helpless in this disaster. But, unfortunately, there are completely opposite examples. Owners, evacuating from the flood zone, leave their dogs leashed and cats in the house, condemning them to die. Such cases, unfortunately, are numerous, and there is no excuse for them. If you see the water rising and you can't take your pet with you, what's stopping you from unchaining your dog or leaving the door open for your cat, so the animal has a chance to escape on its own?"

The shelter's residents include a blind black dog abandoned by its owners, three puppies whose mother, a stray Orenburg dog, never surrendered to rescuers, and an apathetic cat with a constantly runny nose. Yulia explains that almost all the animals arrive at the shelter severely hypothermic and stressed.

"Animals show stress in different ways. It often manifests itself in the animal becoming rigid, lying there, and staring into space. We recommend that volunteers, as soon as they pick up a dog or cat, immediately wrap them in a blanket to keep them warm and talk to them calmly. Animals don't understand words, but they respond to intonation," explains Yulia. "But sometimes an animal resists handling and behaves aggressively, not understanding that someone is trying to save it. For such situations, we recommend bringing thick gloves, muzzles for dogs, and bags for cats. And in the most severe cases, for example, when a dog doesn't want to leave the house it's guarded all its life, you can simply place a board next to it so it has a chance to save itself when the water level rises."

According to the shelter's director, "Filimosha," they are ready to provide shelter for animals as long as the situation requires. But the animal shelter faces a completely different threat.

"We specifically chose shelter premises away from residential areas. Filimosha is located in three dilapidated buildings owned by the Russian Federation. Ever since we moved here, we've been asking the authorities to provide us with these premises for a long-term lease or permanent use, but we've received no response from the administration," says Yulia. "And recently, we learned that this property is up for auction, which will take place at the end of April. The starting price is ten and a half million rubles. Of course, the shelter can't afford that amount, and we, along with the animals rescued from the flood, will be sent out onto the streets."