'We're Dying Like Flies': Remote Russian Village Grapples With Shortage Of Men Amid Putin's War In Ukraine
Radio Free Europe 11/27/2022
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-village-mobilization-ukraine-impact-far-east/32151036.htmlBUKACHACHA, Russia – Andrei Epov ferries passengers to the small Siberian village of Bukachacha by bus from the nearest major city, the regional capital, Chita.
Set deep in the taiga, the village of 1,200 in Zabaikalsky Krai, in Russia’s Far East, is difficult to reach – and, according to locals, an even more difficult place to live. And Russia’s war on Ukraine, which President Vladimir Putin launched in February and rages on with no end in sight, has only exacerbated the problems for Bukachacha’s residents.
A significant percentage of the village’s military-age men were swept up in the Kremlin's nationwide mobilization that Putin announced in September, including one man who ran the local bakery and another who delivers water to elderly residents, locals say.
“The authorities forgot about Bukachacha. They remembered it only now, during the mobilization,” Epov says in between calls he fields from people seeking to book a seat on his bus.
RFE/RL’s Siberia.Realities traveled to see firsthand the impact of Putin’s war and mobilization on remote villages like Bukachacha, where Soviet-era factories have long since closed and career prospects for young people lie mostly in coal mining.
Epov drew a comparison between Bukachacha and the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which was captured by Russian forces following a brutal siege that left the city in ruins.
“[Life] in Bukachacha is like after a war,” Epov says. “There’s just one difference: They’ll rebuild Mariupol, whereas we lived in ruins and will continue to do so.”
'Taken Away'In the weeks following Putin’s military mobilization, news emerged from Bukachacha that a local man who had delivered water to village residents, including the elderly, had been enlisted for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
That was confirmed by a local official, Viktor Nadelyayev, who told the news portal Chita.ru that “the drivers we had have been taken away” in the mobilization.
That has left the elderly in Bukachacha, like Natalya, to haul buckets of water from a well up to several kilometers back home by foot.
“It’s still winter, and we have no street cleaners, so it is icy. It’s not easy to haul buckets,” says Natalya, who spoke on condition that only her first name be used.