Time to read: 8 minutes(s)

Planned emergency

Pavel and Elena Markelov lean on their Lada and stand by the gate, looking out onto a field that's now a sea. The Ishim River, which runs several kilometers from their home, has swelled so much that it has merged with the lake, filled it, and then flowed on. It has entered their village of Pakhomova, their vegetable garden on Novaya Street, their barn, their bathhouse, their flocks, and is now moving toward the house. There are no more than five meters left. The Markelovs, like hundreds of families in the Tyumen region, are powerless against the elements, but they are not despairing. They are simply watching the rising waters and hoping that the rise will soon stop.

How the Tyumen region sank underwater but remains afloat, in an article by NeMoskva.

The sea in the garden

"Three days ago, a truck arrived, dumped a load of sand on the road, and drove away. We were told that was all the help they could give us to fight the flood. They didn't give us any bags or people," says Pavel.

He looks at a pile of sand in the middle of the road, which is already flooded. It offers no protection. Before the sand was completely washed away, the children turned the mound into a sandbox. The toy excavator and KAMAZ truck are still sitting on the hill.

"What should we do with this pile? Fill it up? What can you do with it? It should have been filled up beforehand. It's just an excuse," Pavel reasons. Elena agrees: "If they'd built a proper dam, the water wouldn't have reached the village."

Residents of Pakhomova's village tried to save it, but from the other side of the settlement. Homeowners on Beregovaya Street banded together, took soil from the administration, and packed it into sacks. They piled some of it onto the roadway, blocking the street from one uninhabited house to the next. They wanted to extend it all the way to the shore, thereby protecting part of the village. But a scandal erupted: the homeowners arrived and forced them to remove the dam, threatening legal action. Eventually, the water reached their homes.

The Markelovs had no one to join them. After urgent warnings from the administration and the Ministry of Emergency Situations about the need to evacuate immediately, their neighbors packed up and left. Pavel and Elena signed papers vowing not to make an emergency exit—the authorities need such papers so they can report back—they did everything they could, and it's not their responsibility to take action.

The family has lived in their house for 55 years and remembers four floods. The largest was in 2017. Part of the Ishim River was submerged, but their house was not wet; only the garden and outbuildings were washed away.

"We need to build a dam, then it would protect us too. But who needs it except us? Our government here changes every year. Deputy, not deputy. In 2017, they refused us compensation—we're not entitled to anything, since the water didn't get into the house. We've never been entitled to anything. They only recently laid asphalt near our house; for several years, they couldn't get five meters. There's no electricity near the house—a pole was missing when they installed the power line. If you even go and complain, they'll do something," Pavel says. He waves his hand dismissively—this time he won't complain, he'll just observe. But the Markelovs took the most valuable things from the house: they got the potatoes out of the cellar, took the chickens to relatives, packed up the belongings and sent them to their daughter—she lives here, but in a two-story building in the center of the village. The water shouldn't reach her, and if it does, they'll all move together to Ishim to stay with relatives.

They're worried about what to do with the soil and debris washed up on their house by the river's waves when the water recedes. The 25 acres beyond their gate took several years to recover from the last flood, but they weren't completely healed—they had to bring in soil and fill everything up. Now there's standing water again, both in the vegetable garden where they grow potatoes and where the greenhouse and fruit trees and berry bushes used to stand. Elena admits that the reserves may be enough for this year, but not for next year.

"Our house could sell for 300. But what will I buy with that money?" Pavel asks, and then answers. "Nothing. We'll rake the area. As soon as the water starts to recede, I'll put on my tall boots and push the trash away, and then we'll grab a rake and start collecting everything."

"Maybe the wind will pick up and blow all this dirt away?" Elena asks, and answers hopefully. "That's happened before."

Crossing to the island

Ishim is a small town in the Tyumen region, near the border with Kazakhstan. It is from here that the Ishim River flows, which over the past two weeks has become a local Volga. The flood was caused by Kazakhstan's Sergeevskoye Reservoir, which filled and began to overflow. Along the way, it washed away Petropavlovsk, then spread to the border with the Tyumen region, and reached dozens of villages located on the banks of the Ishim or adjacent rivers.

This is what happened in Malye Yarki and Bolshie Yarki. In the latter, you can still take a detour by road or drive waist-deep in a KAMAZ truck. But in Malye, the only way is by boat.

The boat crossing opened in the first days of the flood, when the water cut off all other routes. Several houses on the outskirts of the village and some in the center were flooded. Most of the houses have not yet been touched by the water, as they are located on higher ground.

Two women climb out of the boat and run to a taxi. The car will take them to the regional center, the village of Kazanskoye, where they have rented an apartment. Anna and Anastasia work at the hospital around the clock, and between shifts they return to their home village.

"We went home for the weekend to check on everyone. We'd love to stay home a little longer; the house, the farm, everything is there. It's hard to keep running around like that, really hard. The water level is still the same, it's not rising. If not today, then tomorrow we're expecting a second wave of flooding. We received a warning from the head of the administration—the water level is expected to rise by 30-40 centimeters. The flooded houses don't seem to be flooded any further," says one of the visitors.

As we speak, the boat makes another trip to Malye Yarki and returns. This time, it brings two men with bags. One, Andrey Demin, is a 30-year-old shift worker. He returned from his shift to discover a flooded village. Although his house wasn't flooded, he and his family moved to the village of Kazanskoye—it's more comfortable.

"There's so much water! I packed my things, checked out the situation, and went to Kazanka. It's impossible to live there. Although my father stayed behind—he looks after the farm and the livestock. I bought him a motor and built him a boat. I don't think he'll need it, but I'll keep it just in case. We're sitting right at the top—the house hasn't flooded. Once this is all over, I'll go back. I tried living in the city, but I can't stand it; I don't like the hustle and bustle," says Andrei.

Malye Yarki also flooded in 2017. The road was also cut off.

"We were warned about this flood in advance, but people don't believe it. They're hoping for someone, for something. They can evacuate people, but no one will move their homes upstream. There's nothing we can do about this flood, we can only accept it. Once the water recedes, there'll be a lot of panic because people's property has been damaged, their houses and gardens are flooded. But we'll help as best we can; we're good at what we do. We'll fix things, we'll get things done," says Andrey.

As long as the boat is needed, it will sail. Local men have been placed at the helm and manning the dock. They work for municipal services—some are plumbers and electricians, others work at the local water intake. The boat sails in the mornings, when many people need to leave for work, and in the evenings, when people return home. Periodically, provisions and animal feed are sent from land to the "island."

Malye Yarki isn't the only village cut off from the land. The same situation affects villages in four districts of the Tyumen region. In one of them, Abatsky, the federal Omsk-Tyumen highway is at risk of flooding; it's currently blocked with earth barriers. Whether this will prevent the flooding remains to be seen.

Water is also rising along the Tobol River, from the Kurgan region to the Tyumen region. Some villages have begun evacuations, which they had been preparing for for the past two weeks—building dams, evacuating residents, and stocking up on food and water.

"As if the emergency was planned," Tyumen residents joke, taking a stroll along the flooded embankment in Ishim itself. After all, it's now not just a city landmark, but a landmark, albeit a flooded one.

Common dam

In Ishim itself, gardens in the Plodopitomnik area were flooded. Hundreds of dachas were protected by a dam, but it burst. Yedizaveta Mirgorodskikh, former head of the Nadezhda gardening community, which flooded in 2017 and was flooded again, says the problem lies with a new section of the dam, which was built in 2024 in anticipation of the flood, but should have been completed in 2019.

"After the 2017 flood, when our gardening community was washed away and our little house floated away, I, as chairperson, wrote a petition to Putin—about 600 people signed, and there are about a thousand plots there. I didn't receive a response, only the secretary from Tyumen called and asked why we were complaining to the president. I asked that they build a dam for us at Plodopitomnik. We even sued the district administration. We won the case; they slightly filled the dam, but didn't finish it—they didn't complete the entire length. After that, there were no floods. This spring, when it became known there would be a flood, they brought in fresh clay. When the flooding started, it washed away. And everything was flooded," says Elizaveta Mirgorodskikh. "If they had finished building the dam in 2019, Plodopitomnik could have been saved. The existing dam didn't flood; there's no overflow."

She has two flooded dachas in the Plodopitomnik area, and another in the "Gardens" area, where volunteers and property owners are currently building a new dam. For several days, dozens of people have been loading truckloads of soil into bags and piling it onto the existing embankment, raising the barrier several meters in height. The water has already reached the dam but hasn't yet spilled over the crest.

In 2017, the Gardens flooded. But many people restored their houses and plots. Mirgorodskikh bought a plot there after the flood: it has a solid house, suitable for living in for six months. She used the remaining dachas in the Plodopitomnik for planting and potato gardens, but decided not to restore the house. Now she hopes that at least this plot won't be washed away by the flood. She won't have the strength to restore it.

"I'm just praying that at least this area doesn't flood. We're pensioners and sick people. There are so many volunteers here. They're great, it's true what they say: adversity brings people together."

Among those loading bags of soil are summer residents from gardening associations (SNT) who are threatened by flooding, and there are also those whose summer houses are already in water.

Ibrahim Filiyev's dacha has already been flooded, but the water hasn't reached the house yet.

"We restored our house after the 2017 flood, rebuilt it, and did some repairs. And now it's flooded. There's nothing we can do there now, but here we can still save people. My wife, daughter, and I packed up and came. We have to save at least someone," says Ibrahim.

While some people fill bags, others rest along the road. For those taking a break, locals hand out pies and sausage rolls. The accordionist has been playing for three days. He says he's there "to set the mood." Sometimes the volunteers even sing along.