The life of rural Bashkiria: cows, oil, roads and an inscription on the 100th anniversary of Lenin

In July, we rode freely around the villages of Bashkiria. Of course, not the alpine villages of Switzerland (as many people have written who have never been to the Alps), but very worthy. Today we show you several villages, many cows and Bashkir horses, introduce a senseless idea to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lenin, and also pay attention to the roads and black gold of Bashkiria.

Kaga is a beautiful village 80 km from the Bashkir Beloretsk.

Kaga is very lively: there are cows, horses, lamb around, and people sometimes meet on the streets.

In 1911, even before the revolution, a fire destroyed the local factory, which was never rebuilt and whose structures can be observed to this day. Surprisingly, the plant was not dismantled brick by brick, but closed by a lock (sfotkano through the fence).

According to the Kaga, one can imagine how the Russian-Bashkir villages looked a century ago.

Why Russian-Bashkir? Because pigs graze in the village, and Muslim Bashkirs do not eat pork.

The main joke of the village today is the Chicago store. And although there are several shops in the Kaga, guess where everyone goes, even cows.

Bashkir villages can never be confused with Russian villages: the villages in Bashkiria are huge and look like a series of multi-colored roofs stretching to the horizon. In the middle lane, a multi-story town would have grown from such a village long ago, but here it isn’t - the habit of living and working on the earth is stronger.

Bashkir villages are prosperous. Neatly painted houses, even fences, many livestock and poultry, you can see right away - strong owners live here.

Residents of Bashkir villages are not embittered. You know, in the Tver region it’s worth arriving by car with Moscow numbers and going to take pictures of the village, as you run into, to put it mildly, the unkind looks of the locals. In the Bashkir villages there is no such thing: no one here pays attention to you, which is the best for shooting. After all, this is how we see rural life as it is.

Bashkiria is similar to India in that there are cows around: in the fields, on the side of the road, on the roads and even at stops. Just wait for the bus. Where there are no cows, there are horses that graze in herds and also go on the highway.

The cows are very imposing and slow, they do not try to dodge the car, they just stand and stupidly look at them point blank :)

And we also have questions about those who mumble:

Question 1: Why do cows, when they are nibbling grass, constantly moving from place to place, although not everyone in the previous location got it out? Do they just enjoy walking?

Question 2: Where is the herd going? We have seen many times how a group of several cows keeps their way somewhere. Is there any logic in this direction? How do they find their way home, because neither a shepherd nor a dog watches them?

Cows and horses graze here together. Horses of a special Bashkir breed: a couple of centuries ago, the Bashkir troika, on which 120-140 kilometers could be covered in 8 hours, was worth its weight in gold. And the Bashkir horse is not only frisky, but also hardy, with a phlegmatic character.

Having arrived home, they read on the Internet how many problems there were in the life of rural Bashkiria. And you can’t say that: it looks more like a rural idyll.

In the village of Arkhangelsk, 80 km from Ufa, on a hillside back in 1970, in honor of the centenary of the birth of the leader of the proletariat, the inscription “100 years to Lenin” was planted with young Christmas trees.

Almost 50 years have passed since then, the trees have grown, and it is impossible to read the inscription, except perhaps from above, and even that is unlikely: the Christmas trees have grown and there is nothing left of the letters. But the locals remember the inscription and they unerringly direct it.

We think that this is the best illustration of the meaninglessness of the ideas of communism: a utopian plan, large-scale implementation, and after years, absolutely no result.

Someday, descendants will ask about all these ideas of communism, but was it worth trying to build a socialist paradise in general?

Before the trip, we imagined the roads of Bashkiria wild, broken and groomed, but in reality they turned out to be beautiful asphalt roads, which are a pleasure to drive along. The oil region is still :)

Even in the villages, the asphalt is visible, old, but in excellent condition. Apparently, the Bashkir authorities know a secret how to make the road so that it does not leak along with the melted snow, but they carefully store it.

And in what other regions of Russia have you seen good roads?

By the way, in Bashkiria, here and there, small oil pumps work. A strange sight for a resident of the middle strip :)