My mother lived in the village, and my older sister and I lived in the city 4 km away. because I had to go to school. We spent the whole summer on my mother's beds and the weekends when we studied. I hated this village with all my body. Literally. I don’t know how to explain it myself, only when I come to this Kamenka, I naturally get diarrhea.
When I finished school (in the dashing 90s) I went to Moscow to work. She was also studying to be a lawyer. I applied some knowledge of the law and bought an apartment in Lyubertsy. Then I paid her more and life seemed to be a success ... A Cavalier from Muscovites (a homeless one) appeared ... I only felt something was wrong behind me when I planted cucumbers instead of tsetochki on the loggia. And they turned out so successful for me that it didn’t become a loggia, but a jungle. And then I also wanted to lay out the bathtub with tiles and went to the building materials market "Gardener" ... And it borders wall to wall with a bird market ... That's it ... I'm walking, then, past a warehouse with tiles and I feel such a pleasant smell. Familiar, but I can not understand what kind of smell it is. She began to turn her head and then between the metal sheets of the fence she saw a trading row of chickens. Big ones... As I remember now. The rooster towered over all the cages. So businesslike. It turns out the smell of the bird yard was. The best fragrance in the world. So my hands went down. I think: "What are you, Lera, doing with your life?"
I sold this apartment and returned back to Novovoronezh. But not to my mother, but to my city housing. I met my future husband. And she immediately said that she needed to buy a house in the village. But he did not take it seriously, and when it dawned on him, it was too late ... He resisted as best he could! But the woman (that is, me) "carried"! As they say, you are at her door - she is at the window. With a baby, I went to look at the March snowdrifts at home. I invited the sellers to my house so that they would talk with my Yura, since Yura did not go to any of them. I hung photos of houses on the wall. Nothing helped. And once (evaluate the act) for no reason, on one day in May, I bought a garden plot with a house and the next day I moved there to live with my one and a half year old daughter, although there was nothing there except a table of furniture.
Of course. The month of May is the time to plant a vegetable garden. Couldn't wait any longer.
And then Yura realized that this was the end. The following year, we already bought a house, but did not sell the apartment. My new lifestyle is now a year old. I had two children with Yura. And also rabbits, chickens and two cats ... Fortunately, there is no side chapel. Only the sister, every time she comes, purses her lips with displeasure and the husband whines and whines that he is a city man and all this annoys him ... What to do - such is life ...

Well, friends, I think it's time to write this. Outside the window, a light snow is sowing, the earth is frozen, in some places the still preserved green shoots are covered with a white blanket, so that they can go under the soft fur coat of snowdrifts with protection from frost.

Guys, to everyone who is not yet familiar with me: my name is Vadim, I am the author of this blog and the author YouTube channel video - check out my channel, there are many interesting things from life in the village!

It's been fifteen months since my first night in my own house. During this time, there was some baggage of experience, impressions and learned from the first two knowledge. I do not undertake to write in general about the life of modern villages in their various manifestations: dying and turning into summer cottages, I will not touch on the fate of people either. I will only write my own thoughts that are in my head today. And yes, I still mean a village, or a dacha village, but not a cottage village within the city with all the amenities of civilization.

By the way, if you are interested, here are a couple of old videos - about the first night in the village in your house and about the first month of life in the village:

About impressions after the first year of life in the village i shared before.

It is also worth, probably, keeping in mind the following fact: there are quite a few similar articles on the Web, but they are somewhat different. Let me explain. Firstly, some articles are written unequivocally by people who have no experience of moving to a permanent residence at all. outside the city, they were simply asked to write an article and given money (this topic is now in demand). Secondly, the vast majority of other articles written by real migrants are written on behalf of people living in a family of several people. My article will be written on behalf of a person living alone. I think it will be useful to someone (my opinion about usefulness is based on frequent discussions in personal messages on Vkontakte with single people). Those pluses that can be pluses in a large family may turn out to be minuses for single settlers. There is also the fact that I work remotely and do not go to work in the city. So let's start with the positives!

Old alley outside the village

Pros of living in the countryside

• The absence of neighbors behind the wall, above the ceiling and under the floor. And as a result - predictable silence and calmness. And also - you are close to the ground, not hanging 10 meters above it in one of the fastened reinforced concrete boxes;
• Fresh, healthy and fragrant air - without exhaust gases, dust from brake pads and other evil spirits;
• Great autonomy and independence - you will feed yourself in any crisis unambiguously; There is a land where something will grow;
• Heating when you want - there is no need to suffocate from the heat of the battery and heat the air on the street through an open window (while paying for all this mess), there is no need to freeze when, according to some schedules, it is not time to turn on the heat. No water outages due to pipe repairs in the yard;
• Always free parking - no one will take your place;
• You can alternate work - at home or in the yard - I like it. And there is always something to do in the yard;
• There is always something to do, as well as freedom of action and the flight of thought with its subsequent embodiment into reality - opportunities for creativity or the study of any craft. You can at least open your own furniture workshop, even a forge;
• Around - beauty! Nature, forests and fields, mushrooms and fish, as well as various running and flying goodies, if you allow yourself to get them; In general, if you wish, becoming a hunter or fisherman for your own benefit is much more interesting than living in a city;
• Retired to you doesn't matter you will want to move to the ground))) so ... this simply will not need to be done! Already done!

Cons of living in the countryside

Although, to be honest, I would call many of these minuses rather some features, or maybe difficulties, but rather features than directly minuses.

• Get ready to work physically. And the point is not even that it will probably occur to you to build a chicken coop, a firewood shed or a barn, but at least that you will have to chop and bring firewood in winter, remove the attacking snow (and it falls and falls on purpose)));
• To be warm in the house - you still have to order firewood (or coal, or something else), all this stuff must be prepared for the winter. Simply paying online for battery heating services will not work. Yes, you can, of course, be heated by gas - but its summing up will cost you, oh, how not cheap, despite the fact that this is the "property of the people." I am not talking about heating with electricity at all;
• You will have to carry water from the key or order a well (in the first case - your strength and time, in the second - a one-time injection of funds within 100 thousand rubles);
• There is no shop in my village. I have to go to the city for groceries. True, I bake bread myself, and I rarely drink milk, so I don’t often go for provisions;
• You will probably have to maintain the road near the house on the street yourself - the municipality will do this very rarely and not willingly (and not on time);
• All this, which is listed above, takes some time (and pretty well). And if you decide to have chickens, turkeys, pigs, goats and dogs, then you will have to work most of the day (and you will probably live off the products produced). So you will have no more free time than if you work in an office or a factory in a city;
• If you happen to get seriously ill, it will be difficult to get to the hospital (in case of a high temperature or something like that - poisoning, for example). And there is probably no hospital in the village, and if there is, then it is unlikely that you will be helped in it .;
• Well, yes. If you are alone - in old age, it may become more and more difficult to maintain your household. However, here is one reliable fact: all the old people, having lived in the village to such times, do not refuse to move to the city to children or to a boarding house. It's just worth keeping in mind. I think that everyone will be able to draw their own conclusions from this fact;

It must be understood that when moving to a village, you can buy such a house, and choose a village where some of the disadvantages described above are absent.

Afterword…

After re-reading the resulting material, I found most of the pros and cons weak and unconvincing). But I can say this: so many people told me - you will run away in a week, you will run away in a month, you will run away in a year. And I, after a year and a half, understand exactly that not only do I not want to return to the city, but I would not mind having an even more secluded place in addition. Sometimes when I find myself on some business in the city, when I return home to the village, I just get bastard from it, sitting on the threshold in the hallway and talking with my Malamute. And therefore, guys, it's not about the pros and cons, and no reviews about moving to the village will help you make the right decision. It just has to be "yours" or "not yours". You just have to try if you feel like moving. Not everyone decides to leave work and climb somewhere in the wilderness. Try to buy collective garden plots! It is on it, spending your leisure time at any time of the year, that you can understand whether you need more or whether this is clearly not your thing. Why Garden Association? Because there is probably no gas there, there are power outages, the road is probably of mediocre quality and the roads are not cleared of snow every day, this is essentially a reduced village.

"There would be no happiness, but misfortune helped." Perhaps this folk saying is best suited to describe causes, which prompted me three years ago to change not only my place of residence, but also my views on life and its values.
Not so long ago, I, a purely urban resident, could not even imagine that I would accept decision to move live in the village.

We lived with my husband and two small children in a one-room apartment in a prestigious district of Ufa for some reason. Cramped, of course, but still not a hostel and not a rented apartment. I even managed to equip myself with a working studio next to the apartment, having issued one of the tiny premises of the local housing department for use. The eldest son went to the lyceum, which was located in the yard. The youngest daughter was about to turn three years old and we were preparing to go to kindergarten. Everything seemed to be in good order and in order.

Misfortune.

But it so happened that my very elderly grandmother had a stroke. And she just needed to be taken to her and looked after her. But where? It was definitely impossible to transport a bedridden patient to our one-room apartment. Of money to buy a bigger apartment with us did not have. As well as time: in three weeks, while my grandmother was in the hospital, the housing issue had to be resolved. Moreover, using the "bash for bash" method - in fact, to exchange our small apartment for such housing, in which children would fit and there was a worthy place for a sick person. It is clear that in Ufa it was impossible. And I started frantically looking for a house in the suburbs. In such a way that every day you can take your children to school and go to work yourself.

Found a way out.

And such a house was found in Chesnokovka. Not in that part of the village where servants of the people live in castles on the mountain, but in the so-called "lower" part, where mere mortal local residents live. The house used to belong to the elderly and was in an appropriate condition. But still, it was made of brick, with water supply, AOGV and sewage-shambo. In addition, a small plot of land was attached to the house.

And most importantly - the house was four times more spacious our one-room apartment, and at a cost of almost did not exceed her. Here, of course, I was just lucky: the seller wanted to exchange the house he inherited from his parents for money as soon as possible.

The move came at the most slushy time - the end of October. And although my brain understood that at the moment I had found a good solution to a family problem, my eyes with horror looked at the muddy earth in the yard, peeling paint on the walls of the house and cracked window frames. The clearly rusty tap water also did not add optimism. But - where ours did not disappear, we will settle down!

First trouble.

The first year was definitely tough. Little by little, the house was put in order: the windows were replaced with plastic ones, and children's rooms were equipped. I had to almost quit my job. bedridden patients require constant presence. I'll skip the details, except to say that it's much easier to raise another child than it is to care for someone with dementia. But we all get old someday...
The first week after the move, we still experienced the "syndrome of a one-room apartment": after walking a bit around our rooms, everyone gathered on the same sofa and sat like that for some time.

1) The most embarrassing moment for me as a stylist was the fact that tap water is only suitable for technical use. We brought bottled water for drinking and cooking. And I had to say goodbye to platinum hair color: tap water inexorably enriched my hair with a wide palette of red shades.

2) Stylish boots have moved into the category of interchangeable shoes and were worn only in the car. And for everyday use, everyone bought rubber galoshes.

3) By the middle of the day, my legs really started to hurt from winding an unusually large mileage of moving around the house.

4) In winter, I had to clear the snow. Shovel.

5) To live outside the city, everyone needs to have their own car.

Now, of course, all these experiences just cause a smile.

Son I first time drove to the city to study, but then decided to transfer him to a local school. For all three years of study at the Lyceum, we spent every evening at home again study material of the day lesson. Plus, constant requisitions and communication style of teachers in the format "do you even realize where you study?" In general, I thought that we would not lose so much if we simply did not waste time on a trip and spend money on gasoline - after all, all the same, studies take place in the evenings on their own. What was my surprise when in an ordinary village school there were wonderful teachers! The son began to understand everything in the classroom, even the handwriting improved in a month! And the school itself is good - clean, warm, equipped, with a good dining room. The school often receives guests - various delegations, famous people come. And children are also often taken to various events. There were no problems with the kindergarten for the youngest either. We wrote an application, they gave me a place. And then I realized that more pluses.

First pluses:

1) Just have a place to live. Each child has their own room.

Grandmother was also placed in a separate room. And even my husband and I could now sleep not on the loggia or in the kitchen (which was in the "odnushka" in the order of things), but also in a separate room.

And it turns out that if the kitchen is spacious, then cooking is much more pleasant, culinary inspiration just comes!

2) There are no such neighbors as in a city high-rise building. No one throws garbage and cigarette butts under the windows, no one rowdy at night and no one walks dogs on the playground.

3) Here you can get such animals that you have been dreaming about for a long time, but you cannot afford in a city apartment.

4) There is clean air here, children can safely play in their yard, which can be arranged as you like.

5) AOGV is a very good thing. You can regulate the heating according to the weather, and not as the housing department decides. The children stopped getting sick. The snot was completely forgotten.

6) It turns out that a bath is very convenient and useful.

7) Friends constantly come and this does not bring any inconvenience - there is enough space for everyone. On holidays there are always a lot of guests and children, fun.

8) It takes 25 minutes to get from the house to the city center.

9) Very quickly and without visible effort, excess weight went away: just good physical activity.

10) New skills are constantly emerging.

11) You can work remotely.

12) If there are two cars in the family, it doesn’t matter if you live in the city or outside the city.

13) An ambulance arrives within 20 minutes in any weather.

14) The village has almost all the necessary infrastructure: a school, two kindergartens (state and commercial), a clinic, a post office, a supermarket, state and private pharmacies, many small shops and hairdressers, a car service, a garden center, an auto center, a church and a mosque.

Overwintered.

With the onset of spring, I was surprised to find that for some reason I want something do with thawed earth. To me, a person who had no idea at all which side to take a shovel from and how dry seeds from bright bags turn into plants.

Pulled to the ground.

But everything turned out to be not so difficult. Seeds have successfully grown into strong seedlings, fortunately there were 6 window sills in the house and the need for a greenhouse disappeared. I am absolutely ignorant in terms of observing the rules and deadlines, and therefore I planted seedlings quite early, in early February, and transplanted them into the garden just when it seemed to me that the earth had warmed up enough - in early May.

For decency, I covered the planted with plastic wrap, which I pulled over the metal arcs found in the barn (thanks to the previous owners - a lot of useful things remained from them in the house). Probably the earth was also lucky, it turned out to be light and crumbly, seedlings were friendly and grew up without being capricious. In June, I treated my neighbors with cucumbers and tomatoes.

The neighbors were surprised and chuckled: "Did you plant them on New Year's Eve?" And they added "Oh, well, this is just a light hand. Yes, and stupid beginners are usually lucky." In general, they made a mistake in terms of only one month .. But I didn’t confirm this - why should I recognize myself as a fool newcomer, since the main thing is the result and vegetables yet grew up.

The result of labor still needs to be preserved.

And in such quantities that I had to master the harvesting process. Fortunately, the house turned out to be a good roomy cellar. This point, by the way, deserves a separate comment. Our apartment in the city was located on the ground floor and on the loggia there was a small about 2 sq.m. recess - something like an underground where we kept skis, sleds, winter tires, etc. But for food storage this place was absolutely unsuitable. because It was warm there - there were basement heating pipes nearby. And all the vegetables were bought in small quantities in winter, you know at what prices.
In the house in which we now lived there was a real cold capital brick cellar, the entrance to which was from the kitchen. It turned out that a person who has such a useful device as a cellar in general not scary none sanctions food character. Unless, of course, you did a good job in the garden in the summer, prepared pickles and jams and filled up a sufficient amount of potatoes for the winter. Here's something, but we just bought potatoes at the Zatonsk wholesale base in the fall - I didn’t plant it myself (I did all the garden work alone and simply could not have accomplished such a feat).

Flowers.

Flowers have always been my weakness. Even while living in the city, I tried to plant something flowering under the window. Of course, it was predictably trampled down, ripped off and littered with garbage from the neighbors from the upper floors. And here it turned out that I can grow any kind of flowers and set up flower beds anywhere on my site and no one will ruin them. Even capricious petunias unanimously turned green in seedling boxes and a little later bloomed with lush caps of inflorescences in flower beds.
And this indescribable subtle aroma of night violets and fragrant tobacco ... Is it possible in the city at night to open a window and feel gentle scent night flowers. It seems that the sounds of nightingale trills, which are heard very close from the dark bushes by the river, smell like this. No, my friends, in the city of a nightingale, the alarm system of neighboring cars will replace you, and I assure you that the smells will be completely different ...

For old and small.

I took a little land in front of the house under children's possessions.

She sowed the lawn, put up swings, houses, a pool and other children's joys. Of course in the city it would be unrealistic.

The price of my garden and landscape work was farewell to extended nails. Gel polish didn’t really save me either, and I just began to process the cuticle more often and cover short nails with dark polish.

Grandmother partially recovered by the summer and was able to get up and move around quietly. She, too, could now sit in the air and bask in the sun. Have you noticed that in many windows of high-rise buildings the faces of elderly people are constantly looking? This is often all that is available to them - it is already difficult for them to just get dressed and go down the endless stairs, enter the frightening elevator .. Yes, and there are simply no shops at the entrances, they simply have nowhere to sit down. It is difficult for them to simply move around, let alone carry a chair for this purpose.
Grandmother lived after a stroke for a year and a half and died at the age of 93. She felt really good here - all the conditions of a city apartment, care + clean air and sun. Of course, it was not easy for us, but children should see that this is a normal human law of life - at first, parents take care of children then it's your turn to take care about old people. During all this time, we naturally could not leave the house for more than a few hours. Of course, I constantly took the children to the cinema, to the pool, to dances, but we all could not go somewhere to relax. But surprisingly, we didn't want to.

Good is not sought from good.

We used to take the slightest opportunity break out from a tiny city apartment, at least for the weekend - to the beach with a tent, if finances allowed - then to Abzakovo or Kazan. And now we had at home what we used to leave for: air, a river, expanse for children, a bathhouse, barbecue, friends. And all this in normal civilized conditions and in absolute proximity to the city.

Now our life has entered a calm channel: I resumed work, even was able to expand my profile. The son is already finishing the 6th grade, the daughter goes to kindergarten (although lately she has been trying to sabotage - "it's more interesting at home"), the husband has discovered a lot of talents in terms of repair. Besides, spring is coming, and as you know "spring day feeds the year".

"The devastation is not in the closets, the devastation is in the heads."

We have become free in our movements, but we do not want to leave for a long time. In addition, the former owners left the premises and cells for chickens and rabbits.
And if at first we laughed at the calls of friends to have living creatures, now we understand that the time seems to have come. With the garden, it turned out quite well. With a crisis quite possible successfully fight. Well, you definitely won’t leave such an economy for a long time.
Of course, living in your own house, you will never be able to lie in front of the TV or surf the Internet for half a day. There is always a lot of work here. But this is a pleasant job, you get incomparable satisfaction precisely from the result of your efforts: you see that your children feel good and understand that you still have something to improve. Physical labor keeps the body in constant tone. Thanks to constant employment, there is absolutely no desire to quarrel, gossip, etc. with someone. I just want live and create.

It doesn't get boring!

There are enough difficult moments in life outside the city, but there are undoubtedly more pluses. So there’s definitely nothing to lure us into a city apartment, we chose life outside the city! And if someone is also thinking about moving out of the city, but doubts - I hope my article will help you make a decision.

It was so bright and colorful that ten years ago I finally moved live in the village from the city and do not regret it.

As it turned out, many people support my idea, they may not have moved at all, but they tend to be in nature more often, to cultivate their large and small plots.

All of us, to varying degrees, are convinced of the need to return "closer to the ground." Most of these enthusiasts are people who lived and live in cities.

But among the "real" villagers, such admiration for clean air, their clean products, etc. most often not. Maybe that's why the villages are dying one by one. People are leaving, striving for the city. And most of them are...

The rural reality in this sense is depressing. Many villages simply ceased to exist, you can’t even find them on the map. And of those that remained “alive”, most of them are on the verge of existence.

Our village

Our village is one of the oldest in the area. This year we will "turn" 1300 years old! And there are modern buildings, there are ancient ones. Visitors are happy to buy such old women-huts. They breathe easier and are not hot in summer.

For the last five years, there has been a fashion to sell old huts for scrap. And what is the analysis from the old clay hut? In the middle are clay walls. Outside - lined with bricks. Here is a brick and attracted. So how much is there?

And in order to draw up documents, enter, for example, into an inheritance, and then sell it to the same summer residents, you need to invest a considerable amount of money. And it's much easier to sell at least something. And get at least some penny. The village now looks like after the bombing. Disassemblers take the bricks, break the roof, and the half-ruined hut in the middle of the village remains standing.

Why are villages disappearing?

What are the reasons for the devastation of villages? Personally, it seems to me that the whole point is the extinction of our entire people, and not just urbanization and the resettlement of villagers closer to factories.

After all, the decrease in the number of people is catastrophic. And in the cities people are dying, it’s just that the population density is higher there, a person “falls out”, the ranks closed, and we live, like nothing happened.

And in the village there is no one and nowhere to “close up”. Here, if a person died, then immediately the whole yard turned into a wasteland or ruins. Over the past ten years of my life here - already half the cemetery - people I really know personally. And most of them are by no means old men of 70-80 years old.

They say that drunkenness and moonshine destroy the village, that's why people die. But it seems to me that this is not the problem of the villages and the reason for their devastation. In cities, large and small, this is enough.

Rather, the trouble of society as a whole, and not specifically the village.

There are no jobs in the village...

They also offer as an option - banal laziness. No desire to strain day by day, no weekends for you, no holidays in the villages. It is generally problematic to get settled in such a way that you do nothing and get money for it in the village. Especially if you work for yourself.

Now it has become fashionable to say the following phrase: there is no work in the countryside. How is it not work? Yes, here, if you want to sit down to rest once. If you carefully do everything that is supposed to be done, then in the morning he left the house early, especially in spring and summer, and late in the evening he went into the house "without hind legs." And also take care to send the fruits of your activity to the consumer in order to see the result of labor not only in the form of corns, but also in the form of banknotes.

So, probably, it happened historically, dispossession and repression destroyed the layer of conscious owners of their land almost completely. In any case, we have it in Ukraine. There was a layer of mercenaries. And now we, the descendants, have a psychological moment: it is easier to work for someone than for yourself.

What's easier? You don’t think about anything, you don’t answer for anything. Completed some part of the work, got a pretty penny and forgot about what was done. And you can't forget about your personal business. I think this is the moment that drives people when they say “no work”. Nowhere to hire!

Although the presence of real owners is always pleasing, because there are such, and it's great! Not even at the level of the recipient farmers of the former collective farms. A lot of well-known enthusiasts who develop, introduce new modern technologies. And they started at the same time from scratch, and achieved certain success in animal husbandry, crop production, etc.

The village is too quiet...

Plus, the city supports many of our inner rhythms and moods. And, as our readers have rightly noted, it helps to forget and hammer in oneself despondency, boredom, and disappointment.

The village is too quiet. And the rural rhythm seems to many to be too calm and slow. Although, of course, I can’t understand this - with good health and good mood - you just don’t have time to get bored, there are so many impressions and events in a day.

There, the rooster took a fancy to sleeping on the back of a cow. He escaped from the cold, it got warmer, but he is not going to be loaded from the back, so funny!

A small calf is about to be born, and you will look once again to your little cow, look at this pot-bellied little bun - how can you not rejoice here.

I'm not talking about raising children. There is simply no time to do joint drawing, modeling, embroidery. Or, for example, go with the children to wander somewhere in the forest.

In the comments, a woman wrote: a rural reality, she walked a kilometer back and forth for bread and did not meet a single soul. And how do you like this standard urban situation: you come home in the evening, whom you met today, no one! people, if not more? Of course, we say this in the sense that none of the acquaintances met. But the moment of self-absorption and some detachment is still present.

In cities, with a visible unity of people, all the time someone is near - almost complete disregard for each other internally. Everyone is just like a drum: who are you, what is with you. Our friends’ son-in-law suddenly died right at the bus stop. I was driving to work in the morning, decently dressed, heart attack, fell and lay for a couple of hours - no one even came up, everyone was busy with their daily affairs and worries.

In villages, on the contrary, with external fragmentation with each other (indeed, you can walk a kilometer back and forth and not meet anyone on the way), there is great close attention to people. Internal very close living together. you do, up to what you think, everything is under supervision and discussion. As in the local proverb “Dance in the cellar and everyone will know”!

Ancient reality is interesting, but does it have a future?

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I was prompted to write about this by questions asked by one of the readers in the comments to the post. I realized that I was really carried away by stories about the benefits of living in the countryside and somehow bypassed its difficulties and problems. But it is precisely the difficulties that are the obstacle that many (I judge from conversations with my friends) do not allow to decide to move. Let's try to understand this issue sensibly, without exaggerating, but without putting on "rose-colored glasses".

Life in the village is not only joys, but also difficulties. Author's photo

Just a little bit about terminology. Personally, I prefer the word "difficulties" to the word "problems". As a good friend of mine says, a problem is a task that has no solution, at least under given conditions. Everything else is questions. So far in my village life I have not encountered anything that fits this definition of problems. Everything is solved - this is the first.

Second- and I will probably remind you of this more than once in the course of my reflections - we are all very different. What for one is in the order of things, for another can become an insurmountable obstacle. Therefore, it is quite natural if some of my observations and comments will be controversial for someone, although I will try to adhere to the most objective point of view.

Third: village village discord. There are large villages, urban-type settlements, with a normal infrastructure and a completely comfortable way of life. There are remote villages where, not only gas and running water, but electricity is not always available. And there are "average" villages in which life is either there or not - a few permanent residents and summer residents who come for the summer. It is clear that it is very difficult to compare them. And we won't. Although I happened to live in a large village, and spend the summer in a village lost among the Pskov forests and swamps, and I know firsthand the “dacha” villages. They are just different - just like you and me. And everyone chooses...

On this, let me finish with the introductory part and proceed to the actual description of our difficulties.

1. Roads

Nothing new, right? Meanwhile, if you intend to move to the village for residence, there should be a year-round entrance to the chosen settlement - and that's it. We make an exception only for those who are attracted by the life of a hermit. But they, most likely, these conversations about difficulties are useless.

Yes, of course, people also live where the roads are in trouble, and I know such people personally. In the village, where I went to the country for 6 years, several people live all year round. In the summer there is a road. Through the fields, unpaved, sometimes impassable after rains - but there is.

The road could be like this. Author's photo

With the onset of autumn, everything ends. In winter, there is no road at all - there are paths that a few residents make, placing poles in order to find the way after snowfalls. Products - on themselves or on drags. From the bus - a kilometer and a half through the snow, and this despite the fact that all the permanent inhabitants of the village are no longer young ... And now, they say, wolves have appeared in the vicinity - four locals have already seen ...

And this is also a road ... Photo by the author

At first it was even interesting. Adrenaline goes off scale when you need to get out on the highway along the road in a passenger car, where sometimes even UAZs sit in clay up to the very sides ... But a few years of regular extreme sports were enough for me - I still wanted something more calm and predictable.

But this way is definitely better. Author's photo

There is an asphalt road leading to the village where I live now. In winter, it is regularly cleared (also an important nuance if you are going to move to the countryside to live: we have villages nearby where there is a road, but the grader does not enter in winter, and therefore it is impossible to drive through). Asphalt is periodically patched up. The road - by our standards - is very decent, in any case, better than many streets in two neighboring regional centers. And this was one of the weighty arguments when I made a decision about choosing a place to live.

2. Transport

The road is important, but the second question is inevitable: how exactly to get to “civilization” along it, whether it be a store, or a clinic, or a place of work. Hiking is good for health, but I personally prefer it as a form of leisure rather than transportation. The bike is also good, but not in any weather.

I had this experience in my life too. They lived 5 km from the regional center, with which there was even a regular bus service. But the trouble is that it was regular only according to the schedule: in life the bus will break down, then (in the summer season) a PAZ will come, stuffed “to the eyeballs” with passengers, and it won’t even slow down at the bus stop ... But you need to go to work every day ... Here we are traveled in the warm season on bicycles. It, of course, invigorates and refreshes ... But over time, it becomes boring, I tell you, like "off-road rally" ...

A bicycle is also a means of transportation. Author's photo

My conclusion (with which you can agree or argue - this is not the ultimate truth, by no means): if you want to live permanently in the countryside, you need a car. At one time, we did not have the opportunity to resolve this issue, and when I began to work in the city (and this is not 5 km, but almost 30 km from our village), very serious difficulties arose. Public transport partly simplifies life, but does not solve all the problems - those who have come across, I think they will agree with me.

Another nuance that matters to me personally is ecology. This spring, when Alyonka and I went to the city once again, I noticed the snow in one of the villages: it was black. Not only on the roadsides, where this is understandable and understandable, but also near houses and in gardens ... Yes, there are excellent transport links - the village stands on a federal highway, and several transit intercity bus routes go through it. But I don't want to live there.

We have white and fluffy snow. Author's photo

And we have white and fluffy snow - public transport does not go to us. The nearest bus stop is 4 km away. And I understand that if something suddenly changes dramatically (gasoline prices go up catastrophically, or I won’t be able to drive a car, or something else like that happens), we will have great difficulties. But the ideal solution to the transport issue probably does not exist - you just need to imagine various options, think about them, weigh and choose, realizing the pros and cons of each of them.

3. Life

This is, in fact, a separate big topic. Since rural life is different from urban life in any case. For better or for worse - a rhetorical question, because here everyone has their own truth, and both options have their own advantages and disadvantages. But it is the domestic side that frightens many, as far as I know. Let's see how everything is "scary" in reality.

Water supply

I put this question first, because from my point of view it is the key one in this topic. I know that there is such an opinion: what is there - we will drill a well, and we will always have water, no problem. But in reality, it's not so simple. For example, the same village where I had a dacha stands on a hill, and no one who wanted to get to the aquifer was able to get there. There is not a single well in the village, the sources of life-giving moisture here are springs. They beat in abundance on the banks of the river flowing at the foot of the hill on which the houses are located.

Spring. Author's photo

In the summer, we collected rainwater in all conceivable and unthinkable containers - for irrigation and household needs - and carried drinking water from a spring. In a dry summer, they installed pumps and pumped water - but there were many who wanted it, and the resource was limited, so they stocked up in turn, filling, again, all free barrels, tanks, buckets and basins.

In winter, they melted snow and carried spring water in large plastic bottles for tea and soup. When winter comes, the permanent residents of the village all go to one spring - by joint efforts it is easier to clear and tread the path to it.

Well. Author's photo

Now we live where it is realistic to drill a well, and even have local water supply. The village well on this occasion is abandoned.

Where to get water from is one of the first questions to ask when choosing a place for your rural life. Unless there is a desire to carry buckets on a yoke. Although for this you also need to know the answer to the question of where to wear ...

Heating

And this is also very serious in our - far from tropical - climate. There is gas in the village - well, one less question: you can put a gas boiler and live in peace. But with the gasification of the village, everything is far from rosy, according to my observations. And then there are two main options: solid fuel (wood, coal, etc.) and electricity.

Furnace heating is still one of the most reliable options. Author's photo

I chose the first one for myself, which I do not regret. From my point of view, it makes sense to install electric heating as a backup - in case of a long departure, for example, or other circumstances when it is not possible to heat the stove (boiler). Electricity supply in the countryside is sometimes unstable - this winter, for example, when suddenly fallen snow broke the wires throughout the district. Those of the neighbors who have electric heating did not feel very comfortable at home at that time ...

On the other hand, a stove or a solid fuel boiler also presents certain difficulties. For example, in winter I cannot leave the house for a long time - both heating devices require human participation in order to generate heat. Simply put, firewood must be thrown up, otherwise the fire will go out. And if the stove still stores heat for some time, then the water heating system (from the boiler) without constant heating in cold weather can simply freeze.

The first rural winters for a city dweller can be difficult. Author's photo

Firewood, by the way, must be stored. Preferably on time and in sufficient quantities. For those who live in the countryside from birth, this will seem like a banality, but believe me - for a city dweller, the first village winters can be difficult just because there is still not enough experience. How much firewood do you need to live comfortably through the winter? Ask me about this two years ago - I would not have been able to answer. Now I can, but the price of experience is quite high.

Now I know that firewood can be of different quality. And even learned to prick them. Until recently, this seemed to me something prohibitively complicated - it turned out that everything is real. But at the same time, I realized one more thing (since we are having a frank conversation about difficulties, it would be a mistake to keep silent about this): furnace heating (a solid fuel boiler is not much different from it in this sense) is physical work. And you need to sensibly evaluate your strengths, health and capabilities.

You also need to know a lot about firewood. Author's photo

Someone can cut and chop firewood himself, and for someone else it’s not an easy task to put chopped wood into a woodpile. And what was easy yesterday may turn out to be difficult today: for example, my right hand got sick - but I need to chop firewood, because the stocks have run out ... Well, I also manage the tool with the left, otherwise - completely yearning. A trifle - but life throws up such trifles every day in batches ...

Household issues

Any owner of a private house will probably confirm: economic, domestic issues will never be transferred here. In an apartment, you can once make a cool repair and forget about such troubles for several years. Perhaps, this will never be possible in your own house - you will always find something that needs to be corrected, built, adjusted ...

In addition to the house, of course, there is also a garden-garden, outbuildings. Sooner or later, there is a desire to get birds or cattle - living in a village and buying eggs in a store is illogical, it seems ... And all this requires a master's hand.

Your home requires constant attention. Author's photo

Here is another nuance, which is somehow not very customary to talk about. According to my observations, women tend to move to the village more often. Moreover, often - those of them who have long been accustomed to managing all matters without male help. Girls, I myself am one of those. And I'll be honest: yes, we are strong, and we can do a lot on our own (maybe we can even do everything!) But in village life, much becomes easier if there is male support.

Let me tell you one telling story. In the village, still in an old dacha, my drain somehow broke, and from the canopy the water flowed directly onto the flower bed and path located under it, and from the path it also flowed under the shed where the firewood lay. In other words, something had to be done about it. I suffered, probably for two hours, trying to restore the destroyed structure with the help of wire, nails and pieces of wood. It turned out very mediocre - the first rain confirmed this, returning almost everything to its original state. And a week later I arrive - my drain is in place, attached firmly, in a businesslike way ... And the neighbor says: “Excuse me, I've been hosting you a little. I watched you suffer - your heart bled, but there was no time to help. Here, he came in a week - he did it ”... No comments ...

In the city, if a tap leaks or something happens to the wiring, we call the housing office (or whatever these offices are called now) and call the master. There is nowhere to call in the village. That is, maybe there is where - but this question should then be puzzled in advance: find out what services are, how they can help, on what conditions. You need to understand very clearly what kind of household issues you cannot solve on your own, and what you will do if they arise one day (and they will certainly arise, you can believe me!)

4. Communication

It's funny, but one of the main arguments that my friends and acquaintances made, trying to convince me that the idea of ​​​​moving to the countryside was crazy, sounded like this: “You will be bored there!” It really sounds funny to me: I can't imagine how that could be. As one of the greats said (I can’t vouch for the literalness of the quote), “if a person has a garden and a library, he doesn’t need anything else.” And besides that, I also have the Internet. I'm not talking about the fact that when there is a child in the house, boredom is generally unthinkable. And yet...

Returning to what was discussed at the very beginning: people are all different. I am an introvert by nature, and communication sometimes tires me. I am comfortable being alone, and there is always something to do with myself. If you want human communication - there is a phone, skype, there are neighbors, after all. Personally, this is more than enough for me (sometimes even in excess) - I love solitude.

I like silence and solitude. Author's photo

But for a person who needs communication, like air and water, this situation can become a problem. For example, I have a friend who does not move to the countryside, including for this reason. Despite the fact that she herself was born and raised there, that she has a good house, and not in a "bear's corner", but in a settled village, where there are a lot of acquaintances and relatives live nearby; despite the fact that she is already retired, and her work in the city does not keep her - she is so used to being “in the center of events”, participating in public life, organizing something, always being among people, that rural solitude seems to her completely inconceivable, impossible.

However, there would be a desire, as they say ... Even in the village (if you do not take extreme situations: for example, there is only one resident there, and that's you) you can find both interlocutors and a field for activity: get to know your neighbors, find common interests; to organize something socially useful - from summer leisure for children to winter sports recreation for city guests. Therefore, “boring” and “not enough communication” is, from my point of view, a matter of more internal state than external conditions. You may not agree with me, but in any case, there is also something to think about before deciding to move.

5. Work

This is one of the first questions people usually ask when they find out that I live in the countryside. Thanks to modern technologies - today it is possible to work remotely, via the Internet. Moreover, the scope of remote work is expanding by leaps and bounds, and the quality of the Internet is growing right before our eyes.

I have something to compare with: 6-7 years ago, in our area, USB modems outside the city allowed only to view mail - the page loaded for a nauseatingly long time, and, of course, there could be no talk of any work in such conditions. Now I can watch videos and download images, and there are practically no technical barriers to browsing the web, communicating at all.

It’s the same with finding a job: there was a time when only programmers and web developers worked remotely. Now the list of professions has expanded significantly, and the list continues to grow. The only (but essential!) nuance: you should take care of finding a job before moving to the village, and not after. If only because it takes time, and life needs money.

The garden and the garden are fed, but a source of income is still needed. Author's photo

Remote work via the Internet is my option, but it is clearly not the only one. I know those who live off their own farms (they grow seedlings, flowers, berries for sale; they keep chickens, geese and goats - they sell eggs, meat and milk; and so on). She herself once lived in the village, and worked in the district center - 5 km from it. That is, there are always options. Moreover, for those who own one of the professions in demand in the countryside, some farms even today are ready to offer good conditions, including the provision of housing or lifting for construction. Although there are many such villages where you will not find jobs in the entire district ...

Therefore, I repeat, it is necessary to look for acceptable options for yourself before moving. And proceed with this from their real capabilities and abilities. Let's say I can easily cope with the cultivation of vegetables, berries - but I absolutely do not know how to sell the results of my work, and all my attempts to make money in this area ended in a complete fiasco.

By the way, I cannot ignore one more important point here: from a financial point of view, life in the countryside is easier. Anyway, that's what my experience says. While the city acquaintances lament what they will eat if they lose their jobs, I know that we will not stay hungry, in any case - the earth will feed. Compare also utility bills and transportation costs - these are very serious items of any family budget.

6. Children, their studies and leisure

If there are children in the family, their interests, of course, are among the priorities. Is it good for a child in the village? From my point of view - certainly good. But children - like adults - are all different: they have different characters and temperaments, interests and hobbies. Therefore, there are no universal recipes. I will focus only on general points.

Country life. Author's photo

Parents, of course, are interested in kindergarten and school (depending on the age of the child). I can’t say much about the kindergarten: when it was important for our sons, we lived in a village where a kindergarten and a school were located right next to the house. Alenkin's kindergarten age fell on the urban period. I like the option of home education, especially in rural conditions, but I know from experience: children need a team of peers, it is more difficult for home children to adapt at school later, they lack communication experience.

With school, everything is both more complicated and easier at the same time. It is more difficult, because here we are, in general, deprived of a choice. Whether to send the baby to kindergarten is the decision of the parents, but such a question does not even arise about the school. Although in theory we have the possibility of family education, in practice it is very difficult to realize this right. But there are very few schools left in the countryside, alas. For example, we have only one secondary school in the entire region - in the regional center and one nine-year - in a neighboring large village. Once upon a time in our village there was a large school where children from all over the district studied. It has been closed for a long time, and almost no one lives in the villages anymore ...

School is an obligatory stage in the life of a child both in the city and in the countryside. Author's photo

On the other hand, everything is simpler, because there may not be places in the kindergarten, but in any case they are obliged to take the child to the school at the place of residence. As for the level of education, my deepest conviction is that one can often get better knowledge in the countryside than in urban educational institutions. In any case, I am very pleased with the school where Alenka is studying now, and I am glad from the bottom of my heart that she also likes everything here.

Often one hears the question whether the child is bored in the countryside. On this one I will say: depending on which child. Mine doesn't get bored. In the summer summer residents come, many with children, so she always has a company - not in her village, but in one of the neighboring ones. And if there are no children, she will find something to talk about with adults. During the school year - constant communication with classmates and friends from other classes, circles, extracurricular activities. Plus, household chores, walks, books from which you can’t tear her away - when to be bored?

There is no time to be bored in the village. Author's photo

Naturally, children grow up and their interests may change. For example, my eldest sons used to go to the dacha, both of them used to go, and at first it was interesting for both of them. Now the older one still has a normal attitude towards village life, and the second now needs big cities ...

7. Health and medical care

Of course, it is better to be healthy, but alas, none of us is immune from diseases. And here, too, everything may not be so simple. If earlier FAPs (feldsher-obstetric stations) were in many villages and villages, now one often has to go to the district center or even to the city for medical help.

We have a clinic in the district center, and a hospital - in general, it's a sin to complain, as they say. But you still need to get to the regional center - it's 12 km from us. And here we return to point 2: without your own transport, many issues are resolved much more difficult and longer. Well, as for the level of medical care ... Personally, I have considerable complaints about urban medicine; I am convinced that the point here is not in geography and not even in the amount of funding, but in people.

In general, there are also two sides here: on the one hand, in the village it is easier and faster to recover from an illness, literally get on your feet - I told my story when I wrote about. On the other hand, if health has begun to fail, rural life can become a burden: it is more and more difficult to do the usual housework, it is not easy to get to the doctor in case of serious problems. Here, relatives of old people are taken to the cities - and those, cut off from the roots, sometimes fade away literally before our eyes ...

Probably, it would be worth writing about a lot more, but even so my story turned out to be quite lengthy. I would be glad if those who live in the countryside, like me, supplement it or simply share their thoughts about the difficulties of rural life.