Immigrants started to open their own business.
The point of no return for many of the residents of Donbass passed: went from his native region residents bitterly saying that are unlikely to return. For all their love to a native city they do not see the opportunity to live and work in Donetsk, do not know the future and confident in its prospects.
REPROACHES. “Give us back our Donetsk, where there was no separation from the strangers, where people did not ask each other questions: “who are You?” and where the old man had to survive for a penny, says who went to the Dnieper entrepreneur Oleg Antonov. — I’m hearing from their former countrymen reproaches, they say, escaped, betrayed the town, left it all easy because nothing good is done… Not to brag, but I for the money asphalted the driveway from the main road. Together with other neighbors, we bought benches at the entrances and planted flowers and shrubs on empty plots of land. Everyone who did, left. Those who use it, is left and curse us for something. So back I go — with angry at me for no reason people I don’t want to live in the same city.”
The settlers say: every day, lived in another city, alienates them from Donetsk. With taken a couple of months in 2014, many apartments have moved into their own homes, purchased in installments or with borrowed money. A new job — career growth and good salary.
“To come back home to Donetsk only because of the love for the turrets, waste heaps and embankments I don’t want, says living in Kropyvnyts’ke Alina Kohut. — What is there to do? Working as a salesman in the store for five thousand rubles (2325 UAH) and wait, when will fall on the head shell? In Kropyvnyts’ke I was able to buy odnushku, and this is my personal, legitimate meters. Working as an accountant at the company, I have benefits and insurance, in the summer we even managed to have a rest abroad. With his salary, I pay my taxes, including the Pension Fund. So, we can say, care about fellow countrymen who receive Ukrainian pensions.”
“RETURNEES”. There are those who failed the test of the Motherland and returned to the occupied Donetsk. These Pitmen, called the returnees also say they were subjected to accusations from both sides. “Yes, we took the children from under the shelling, we literally saved the guys from the charity Fund, which provided the bus. In controlled areas, we did not need anyone: no housing, no income, no help from the state, we have not waited. To live in a boarding house, of course, possible, but not for long, especially if it is not adapted to winter conditions. What were we supposed to do if my wife and I drove through the courts every day and every hour, although we have two small children? Not a single official came into our situation, not helped at least with the normal housing. We returned to Donetsk, and know that for the Donetsk friends, former we — the runners and generally a suspicious person, once was “the Ukraine”. Suspicious towards us, and those who remained in the controlled area, — said Sergey from Donetsk Verhovetskiy. We bring communication with friends to a minimum. Staying in my apartment, it is difficult for us, but we’ll manage. Someday this hell called “DNR” over”.
Having been in displaced persons, Sergei says that nearly three years of military conflict attitude to the Donetsk residents of other regions have only just started to change in the direction of easing. The stigmatization of residents of Donbas reached its peak in 2014-2015: whereas former residents of Donetsk, Makeyevka, Gorlovka and other occupied cities were considered guilty of all the troubles (whether it’s high utility rates or soaring crime rates). “Not infrequently addressed to the seekers of accommodation: “Donetsk not pass!” or “To work with a Donetsk registration do not take!” — said our interlocutor.
The “GHETTO”. In 2016, the severity of the internal conflict have been smoothed out, the settlers began increasingly to open your business, and after each trip to Donetsk — to relatives or to check the condition of the apartment left — back and wistful without being nostalgic.
“To go to Donetsk is torture. More all: people, streets, air. My neighbors consider themselves heroes, they say: “We live under fire and will not run away like some!”. I told them not to judge, but to be honest, sometimes disgusting. Especially when I begin to tell you how “the Ukraine” it’s bad. Thus all the narrators go there for pensions and for groceries, their children and grandchildren are studying in the universities there… But they tell me excitedly about the prosperity of the “DNR” about how everything here is almost happy, — says the immigrant Konstantin Markov. — In Donetsk, I will never be back. When the war is over, for a couple of days come to visit my old friends and back. To me there is nothing and no one keeps”.
Donetsk residents say that with the advent of so-called “DNR” Donbass was destroyed as an industrial region: destroyed mines and factories, workers be on the street. That the plants will be restored, I do not believe even the supporters of the so-called “DNR”.
“From our prosperous region made a real reservation, the ghetto. The remaining people, if they are not followers of “republics”, — the hostages that need freeing. And the proponents of the “republics”, by and large, most just regurgitate the Russian or local channels, when talking about prosperity. And left can only wish you luck, and regret that they will not return to his hometown. People are always searching for better, this is the normal course of things. If he decided to stay, that is his choice and judging him for it no one has the right!” emphasizes current resident of Kiev Alexander Zinkovsky.
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