Muscovites are massively moving to the countryside to wait out to engage in self-isolation in the garden
Recently, I heard two numbers that puzzled me. The first is information that about 850,000 residents left Moscow in early April in their own cars and… they did not enter the capital back. The second figure was announced in the report of the Executive Director of the UN World Food Program (WFP) David Beazley. The official said the pandemic could lead to a famine of truly biblical proportions - there are now 821 million undernourished in the world. man. If the situation with the virus cannot be resolved within the next four months, the number of hungry people could rise to 1.5 billion.
You ask: "How, are these two numbers related?" It's very simple! Lack of food is a very real problem! And here you should not expect favors from the state, you have to decide it yourself. Apparently, the concept of "village Muscovite" takes on visible form and ceases to be a joke. There are many abandoned villages within a radius of 150 km from the capital, where you can buy a small plot for just a penny land with buildings (well, you can not count on them - usually, houses and sheds are in a deplorable state and require repair). The mass exodus of Muscovites to the countryside indirectly indicates that people have decided to come to grips with growing food on their private plots.
I interpolate the situation in the village in which I have been living for 5 years already (I am located 150 km from Belokamennaya). So, we have officially registered 9 residents. Three streets, about 60 buildings. I will clarify again: with only nine residents, there are practically no abandoned houses. Who populates them? Judging by how my village came to life in the summer, Muscovites used these houses as dachas, i.e. seasonally. I managed to get acquainted with many.
This spring the situation has changed dramatically. Many of my neighbors arrived in the village at the end of March and intend to stay here until the fall. Some Muscovites, like me, decided to move to the village for permanent residence, i.e. live here permanently, and not only in the summer season. And yet, the following is striking: before, many summer residents did not bother with cucumbers, potatoes and tomatoes (buying them at a local bazaar), preferring to sow backyard lawn grass. Now this "sybarism" has come to an end. Almost no one has lawns and sun loungers, but even beds with seedlings are visible. The neighbors are actively planting potatoes, already eating their radishes and a young green onion.