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Russia High-Rise Collapse an Emblem of Hardships in the Hinterlands
Russia High-Rise Collapse an Emblem of Hardships in the Hinterlands
Much of a high-rise apartment building collapsed on Monday in Magnitogorsk,
Russia, killing 39 people and shining a light on unsafe conditions.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
Much of a high-rise apartment building collapsed on Monday in Magnitogorsk,
Russia, killing 39 people and shining a light on unsafe conditions.
Credit
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
By Andrew E. Kramer
Jan. 5, 2019
MAGNITOGORSK, Russia — A loud bang startled Anna P. Timofeyeva awake. She
reached for the light, but the electricity had gone out. In the dark, she
and her husband quickly dressed their 2-year-old son and prepared to flee.
“We understood something was wrong,” she said. But when they opened the
front door of their apartment they stopped short. From the doorstep of the
family’s seventh-floor apartment, she said, they could look directly down
on a heap of rubble far below, all that was left of 25 neighboring
apartments.
The explosion that collapsed Mrs. Timofeyeva’s high-rise building on Monday
in the city of Magnitogorsk in southern Russia killed 39 people and
initially stirred fears of terrorism. But the authorities have since blamed
an even greater danger to the average Russian: crumbling infrastructure,
including Soviet-era apartment blocks.
For a decade or more, as oil revenues have swelled its coffers, the Kremlin
has poured resources into its armed forces, developing new weapons,
upgrading its nuclear stockpile and overhauling and professionalizing its
army, navy and military intelligence agency.
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The results — whether military interventions in Syria and Ukraine or
meddling in politics in Europe or the United States — have buttressed
President Vladimir V. Putin’s drive to restore Russia to major-power status.
Yet, the apartment collapse and an earlier, highly unpopular cut in state
pensions serve as a reminder of the lingering hardships that ordinary
Russians are asked to endure, particularly those who live in the country’s
hinterlands.
A view of Magnitogorsk, with the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works in the
background. The factory became the pride of the Soviet Union, while its
workers lived in mud huts and other shoddy housing.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
A view of Magnitogorsk, with the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works in the
background. The factory became the pride of the Soviet Union, while its
workers lived in mud huts and other shoddy housing.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
People in Magnitogorsk watched emergency crews working Monday at the site of
the building collapse.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
People in Magnitogorsk watched emergency crews working Monday at the site of
the building collapse.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
In the case of the accident in Magnitogorsk, what was said to be a natural
gas explosion sheared off a section of the building, flattening dozens of
apartments but leaving Mrs. Timofeyeva’s unscathed. “We were lucky,” she
said.
Others were not, and Friday was a day of funerals in Magnitogorsk, a
sprawling industrial city built around a gigantic steel factory where
housing, as in much of Russia, has long been a pressing problem.
Magnitogorsk — which means Magnetic Mountain and is named for nearby iron-
ore deposits so massive they are said to distort compass readings — is a
city whose very name has long been redolent of the hardships of Russia’s
industrial backwaters.
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It was conjured from the empty steppe by decree of Joseph Stalin and
intended as a model communist city, populated by enthusiastic volunteers
known as shock workers. Its roughly 415,000 residents today earn average
monthly wages of $360.
“Magnitogorsk remained the quintessential emblem of the grand
transformation,” the author Stephen Kotkin wrote in “Magnetic Mountain,”
a history of the city. Here, building communism “became a reality one could
participate in first hand.”
The funeral procession on Friday for the Kramarenko family, a man, woman and
1-year-old daughter who died in the collapse.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
The funeral procession on Friday for the Kramarenko family, a man, woman and
1-year-old daughter who died in the collapse.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Awaiting the Kramarenkos’ funeral on Friday in a bitterly chilly
Magnitogorsk.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
Awaiting the Kramarenkos’ funeral on Friday in a bitterly chilly
Magnitogorsk.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
The Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works became the pride of the Soviet Union,
while the workers lived in mud huts in the early years and scarce and shoddy
housing ever since.
One park has a monument in the shape of a tent, commemorating a common early
living arrangement. Inscribed into the pedestal are lines by a local poet,
Boris Ruchyov: “We lived in tents with small windows, washed in the rain
and dried in the sun.”
Another monument, called Rear to the Front, depicts a worker handing a sword
to a soldier, illustrating the city’s role in supplying steel to the
military industry. Russia today spends about 5 percent of its gross domestic
product on the army, more than any other European nation.
500 Miles
Russia
Moscow
Magnitogorsk
Kazakhstan
Ukraine
By The New York Times
But living space has always been tight in Magnitogorsk. In the 1930s, the
average inhabitant got 1.9 square meters, or about 20 square feet, often
either a corner of a room or space for a cot in an open-plan wooden barracks.
Today, most residents live in tenement-style concrete high-rises like the
one that collapsed this week on Karl Marx Street. Built in 1973 and housing
about 1,300 people, it was of a type of mass-produced, utilitarian housing
seen throughout the former Eastern Bloc.
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But even after Monday’s disaster, older residents still sang the praises of
the chunky structure, having moved there from barracks or communal
apartments. Far from demanding a new and safer building, many of them spent
the week pleading with the authorities to let them stay in the part of it
that remained standing.
Rescue forces at the building on Friday. Even after Monday’s disaster, some
residents praised the chunky apartment block, having moved there from
barracks or communal apartments.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
Rescue forces at the building on Friday. Even after Monday’s disaster, some
residents praised the chunky apartment block, having moved there from
barracks or communal apartments.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Nikolai Pustavalov, a resident of the high-rise, which was built in 1973 and
housed about 1,300 people.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
Nikolai Pustavalov, a resident of the high-rise, which was built in 1973 and
housed about 1,300 people.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
“What’s not to like about this building?” said Klavdia G. Kiselyova, 78,
who moved in when the high-rise opened. Standing on her stoop bundled in
furs and watching dump trucks cart away debris, she mused aloud. “It’s an
amazing house.”
Judging by a sign on an entryway near the collapse, it looked as if they
were getting their way. “Dear Residents!” it read. “An inspection found
residing in apartments in entryway 10 is allowed.” The collapse had
occurred in entryway seven.
Yet, others were more skeptical about moving back in. Yulia V. Skalvysh, an
accountant at the steel mill, said she was told she would have to return to
her two-room apartment a few yards away from the collapse. The authorities
were apparently unconcerned about a crack in the tiled wall of her kitchen
that she said was growing longer each day.
“They say, ‘It’s safe, you can return,’ but I don’t want to,” she said
. “I want to live in safety.”
For some, the close call reinforced their belief in God. Vera D. Saravarova,
59, who lived next door to an apartment that collapsed into the void,
attributed her survival to having remained in church the day before for the
entire two-hour sermon, even though she had wanted to duck out.
Russian Orthodox churches have no pews, she said, and her feet were
beginning to hurt. But a friend told her, “You have to stay” until the
priests wrap it up, and she did. “It was a miracle,” she said. “We were
protected by God.”
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Several residents praised Mr. Putin for visiting within a day of the
catastrophe, and they directed their anger at the local authorities.
A woman selling plastic flowers close to the Left Bank Cemetery in
Magnitogorsk.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
A woman selling plastic flowers close to the Left Bank Cemetery in
Magnitogorsk.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
A monument called Rear to the Front depicts a worker handing a sword to a
soldier, illustrating the city’s role in supplying steel to Russia’s
military industry.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Image
A monument called Rear to the Front depicts a worker handing a sword to a
soldier, illustrating the city’s role in supplying steel to Russia’s
military industry.
Credit
Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Vladimir Y. Vorontsov, 71, a retired steelworker whose son died, showed up
seething for a meeting with the Chelyabinsk region governor. “My son was
crushed to death, and these clowns are still sitting here,” he said of the
bureaucrats. “They receive money and do nothing.”
The authorities are to pay compensation of one million rubles, or about $14,
800, to the families of those who died. Renters who lost apartments will get
50,000 rubles, or about $740, to compensate for personal items.
By week’s end, heartbroken families and friends had begun to lay loved ones
to rest in Magnitogorsk’s Left Bank Cemetery, where the headstones were
heaped in snow.
Beside three fresh graves cut into the frozen earth, an undertaker opened a
folding table and poured vodka into plastic cups for a farewell toast. A
hearse arrived carrying the Kramarenko family — husband, wife and 1-year-
old daughter — on their final journey.
Crows flapped about in the frost-covered birch trees. Gripped by grief,
relatives placed their hands on the coffins — the child’s draped in pink
cloth — as a funeral director, Nadezhda Monzhorova, recited a farewell.
“How can we say they are not with us?” she said. “They remain in their
relatives, in their friends, in their deeds and in our hearts.”
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A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 6, 2019, on Page A6 of
the New York edition with the headline: Collapsed High-Rise an Emblem of
Russian Hardships. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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