Tragedy in Fontany: two lives paid for electricity

They were accorded a restrained welcome in their native land, with its plentitude of political, economic, and social problems, and now the repatriates. Some were lucky, others were not. Some were accommodated by local authorities as best they could, others settled relying primarily on their own resources. The good thing was that they had relatives and friends nearby. Most of those returning to the Crimea were in a constant state of despair, feeling like outcasts, without jobs, money, or basic amenities — worst of all, without hope for a better future. And when the local authorities came to cut off the electricity, depriving them of the last semblance of civilized existence, a shot was fired. It was a terribly senseless act but only to be expected, which made it even more terrible. When a man is overwhelmed by despair tragedy is imminent. The shot fired in Fontany was also a warning: the sharpening “reform” against the backdrop of ruined individual lives had reached its peak.

The Kurtmalayevs lived on Azatlik Street dividing the neighborhood into two different parts. The houses on one side belong to a settlement known as Ak Mechet and are subordinated to the city council of Simferopol. People have everything they need: electricity, gas, running water, roads, and even telephone lines. The name of the settlement comes from that of a large medieval Tatar city. In 1783, Count Grigory Potemkin chose the site for the guberniya center, Simferopol, meaning the City of Gain in Greek. Actually, for reasons best known to themselves the local authorities refer to the place as Novomykolayivka, but none of the locals do so; they have always known it as Ak Mechet. There are thousands of populated areas called Novomykolayivka on the map, but few even know that they exist

The houses on the other side of the street administratively belong to the township of Fontany and are subordinated to the Chystensky Village Council in Simferopol district: no electricity, no running water, no gas, no roads, and no one would even dream of a telephone. While almost every building in the Ak Mechet sector looks like a mansion, in Fontany one finds shacks, often without roofing, with walls built of cheap local coquina rock, accommodating over 5,000 former deportees. Fontany is divided into Lower and Upper Fontany [Fontany translates as fountains] and 543 lots, although 100-120 are actually inhabited, meaning a population of 400-500 counting the children. These are people having nowhere else to live, not in Uzbekistan or anywhere else in the Crimea, with relatives or anybody else. They are painfully envious of all those living in Ak Mechet and do their utmost to make the Simferopol district council and the local state administration provide them with at least some of the amenities. The authorities, however, remain for the most part passive; the Tatars are traditionally disliked in Simferopol district, as all trhe plots surrounding the city have been appropriated by repatriates.

The local officials must have adopted an attitude something like: you’ve made the bed, now lie in it. They promise to do something to help, of course, but that’s as far as it gets. For example, they promised to finance the construction of a 2-kilometer road and a power line, yet none of the local residents is certain that they did. Elvira Suleimanova, chairperson of the local (Fontany) Majlis, says she visited the district executive committee recently and was even shown a bank statement attesting the transfer of UAH 100,000 as an advance on the power line, but people do not believe it, saying they are simply lying like always. And even if they did allocate the money, construction could start in a year for all we know.

EMIRUSEYIN DZHERBYNOV AND RUSTEM KURTMALAYEV

Emiruseyin Dhzerbynov was luckier than many others. He arrived in the Crimea earlier, and his family settled in Ak Mechet, at 12 Ametkhan Sultan Street. He had to put the finishing touches to the house, which still showed shell rock walls, and the patio had to be tended, but they had a place to live, the roof was firm and the walls solid enough to keep the interior warm. His wife found a job, teaching German and as a deputy to the dean of a faculty at what is known here as the Tatar Industrial Pedagogic Institute. He also had a job. He will never put the finishing touches to his home, because he died, and the reason was his job as a Krymenerho district electricity company inspector. Rustem Kurtmalayev shot him dead with his 16 gauge shotgun. He was sick to death of the inspector pestering him with checks, coming from that Ak Mechet paradise on earth and threatening to cut the wire. As if he couldn’t see that all Rustem had in his trailer home was electricity. Cutting off electricity was like cutting the family’s life short. So on his previous visit Rustem had warned, “You come again, and I’ll shoot you.” Emiruseyin didn’t believe him, visited again, and Rustem was as good as his word.

Rustem Kurtmalayev was younger than Emiruseyin Dzherbynov: the latter was over 60 and Rustem was 41. Rustem was not a lucky man. He had come to the Crimea from Armalik considerably later, there was no decent place for his family to live, so they had settled in a friend’s barn, and three years ago Rustem bought that plot on a street separating Fontany from Ak Mechet and borrowed a trailer from another friend. Last summer he had built a wall a couple of feet from the trailer and covered it with a makeshift roof, making it a lean-to of sorts, serving as a chicken house. This made the family’s life easier a little. There was no electricity on their side of the street, so he hooked up to the Simferopol line. Everybody did the same. Almost one-third of the residents on their side lived in trailers, so electricity was essential; they could cook and keep their miserable homes warm. But they could not pay for the electricity, and that was why Emiruseyin kept visiting him. Rustem had remained unemployed for a long time and found a job at the local morgue as an orderly only recently. His wife had been working as a nurse at a city hospital for just a couple of months. Together they earned 300 hryvnias a month, enough for food and some clothes. Their son was 13 and had to have decent clothes. Many in the neighborhood never paid any electricity bills and Rustem followed suit. But for Emiruseyin’s dutiful insistence and Rustem’s temper, both would still be alive and well, looking after their families. After all, cutting off electricity lines was nothing new; the Tatar neighborhood took it philosophically: so they come and cut it off. Then they leave, and we fix the wire. What else can we do? We can’t live in trailers without electricity, especially in wintertime. So the inspector comes, cuts it off, then he leaves, we fix it, he comes again and does it again, we fix it again...

Emiruseyin and Rustem happened to be a bit too ambitious, none would back down, so now both lie in the same cemetery...

THAT FATEFUL SUNNY DAY

All will remember that day: it was bright and sunny. As is often the case on the peninsula, summer seemed to have returned in November, the mercury reaching up to +20 C in the shade and +25 C out in the steppe. The subject of outstanding electricity bills in the Tatar settlements had long been considered in the Crimea, although no one knew how to solve the problem. The debts totaled several hundred million hryvnias. The autonomous republic’s government and Majlis had sent proposals to Kyiv, reading that one and all would be made to pay from such- and-such date, while writing off the arrears. This did not work, as two- thirds of the local squatters remained jobless, having spent all their savings on building materials. Even if ordered to pay, they would not do so because they had no money. Of course, the electricity could be cut off, but they would fix the wires once the inspectors were off their premises. On the other hand, those people should be treated with understanding. How could they live without electricity in their makeshift homes? They would not be able to keep them warm and cook meals; their children would not be able to do their homework; they would be unable to watch television or read newspapers. After all, those manning the energy consumption oversight committee were also human. This was obviously a deadlock.

Antonina Dombrovska, the energy company inspector team leader, visited Emiruseyin in the morning. They had to check the consumers again and prevail on them to pay the electricity bills on pain of cutoff. Perhaps some would pay, a little something by way of Krymenerho revenues, perhaps enough to secure the payroll for Antonina, Emiruseyin, and other inspectors. As he left, Emiruseyin told his wife he had to walk his beat, that there was a fellow, Kurtmalayev by name, who said he would shoot him if he saw him again: “Funny. We say we’ll cut off the electricity, and they say they’ll kill us for it. If we cut off the electricity they’ll die, if they shoot us we’ll die. That’s how we live, threatening each other with death. That’s our life these days...”

No one, of course, could have believed that it was so deadly serious.

Walking from Ametan Sultan to Azatlyk Street takes quite some time: it means crossing half the settlement. No one will ever know what Emiruseyin thought on that last ride in his car. Most likely not about Rustem and whether he had meant it, saying he would shoot him if he ever saw him again — otherwise he wouldn’t have made the trip. Why risk your life for a government-run electric company?

There it was. Kurtmalayev’s trailer home the other side of a wire fence. Chickens running around the yard. No one in sight. His wife must be at work, the boy at school. Emiruseyin parked the car and walked up to the door, also made of wire in a wood frame. The dog, a funny red creature, barked. Then the door of the trailer opened and Emiruseyin saw a gleaming gun barrel, but perhaps never saw it spew the fire as the buckshot hit him in the head. Dombrovska and a woman assistant jumped out of the car and raced away. Rustem spotted them, rushed out of the trailer and fired at Antonina when she stopped to catch her breath. Fortunately, she was far away and the buckshot reached her spent. Rather than collapse under one mighty blow, the woman felt as though a swarm of lead wasps had bit her legs and stomach.

People ran. Someone called the militia and for an ambulance. A company of highway patrol men arrived, armed with pistols and submachine guns. They saw an empty car and Emiruseyin lying dead nearby. They surrounded the trailer, calling out to Rustem to surrender. Then they attacked, smashing the windows and bursting inside. Rustem was gone. People said he had headed for the cemetery, gun in hand. The highway patrol men spread out and advanced on the cemetery. Rustem had hid among the graves and bushes. Once again he was ordered to surrender. He opened fire in response, some of the buckshot hitting a sergeant’s knee. No one knew how much ammunition he had; he could also have grenades and other weapons. Who would assault him under the circumstances without facing imminent death? Who would risk his life to capture a Tatar said to be acting under the influence of drugs? The patrolmen opened fire and heard a shriek. They ceased fire and all was quiet. Rustem Kurtmalayev survived Emiruseyin Dzherbynov by only a couple of hours. His body lay there until a truck was sent to pick it up toward the end of the day.

LILIA KURTMALAYEV

Lilia, Rustem’s wife, says that the fateful day was no different from their family routine, except that she felt some pain deep inside. Done with her work [at the hospital], she went home and was told of what had happened only when she got off the bus at the last stop. She does not remember running to the trailer. She remembers seeing the smashed windows and the door closed, bearing an official seal. She remembers tearing it off and rushing inside, seeing the place in a shambles, tears running, obscuring her vision. Where is Rustem?

She was told to take their identity papers, so she could have her husband’s body released from the morgue. She pulled the drawer and found it empty, pulled another one. Nothing. Gone were the two gold rings and other jewelry. No one knew who had taken it all.

When we arrived in Fontany we saw a crowd by Rustem’s trailer. The pet had got tired of barking and hid in its doghouse. No one dared ask Lilia any questions. The woman was overwhelmed with grief. “How could we have paid for the electricity? With what? We were living on just 150 hryvnias a month,” was all she could manage.

The crowd was getting angry. Oman Zemin, the community’s elder, stepped forward and everyone became respectfully quiet. The old man spoke softly:

“You see, they took away everything from us in 1944: our homes, cattle, plots, mosques, our implements, schools, and libraries. We spent fifty years living in strange lands. Now we are back home, but we are treated as though we were foreigners, especially here in Simferopol district. Why is it that all accommodation and facility problems are solved in the city, but no such problems are solved here? Here everybody hooks up to power lines by himself, unauthorized, but how could these people have done anything else? The authorities tell us to buy power line supports, transformers, wire, and pay for the [erection and installation] work. Where is all that money due us under the deportee resettlement program? Who has stolen that money? Couldn’t the authorities have provided us with at least power lines over the past decade? Why do we have to pay 500 hryvnias for the installation of an individual electric meter? Why do we have to build homes at our own expense? What about our homes that were taken away from us? We all lived there. As for Rustem, they needn’t have killed him. How much ammunition could he have had? Five or ten rounds. They could have scared him into submission by firing a couple of bursts in the air. He would have fired in return, running out of ammo, then they could have taken him alive. Is this what we know as our skilled spetsnaz? He would have served his term and returned to his wife and son. Everybody in the neighborhood knows that he was ill; he also threatened the census takers with his gun. He should have been treated with caution; the man had been driven up against the wall by life itself. He was weak; he didn’t know what to do with his own life. And there was no one to help. He got killed in the end. Does it mean that his widow and 13 year-old son will start paying this government for electricity? Will their earnings increase? Why is it that everybody knows about the problem with debts and nobody does anything about it? We have all those funds, we could make that problem a top priority, we could pass the hat and pay for those in dire need. Why is it that our Majlis does not seem concerned about the problem?”

That same day Ak Mechet saw a funeral. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the late Emiruseyin’s house, still in need of finishing touches. Server Ametov, chairman of the elders’ council, spoke: “We are stricken with grief. Two of our residents have died senselessly ...” Rustem Alimov, head of the local Majlis, asked rhetorically, “Had we lived normally, would anything like this have ever happened?”

COMMENTARY

Remzi ILYASOV, Vice Speaker of the Crimean Tatar Majlis [officially unrecognized parliament], believes that the Krymenerho Corporation’s approach to the installation of electricity supply meters has not always been proper. “There is evidence of ethnic discrimination in the installation of such meters,” he noted, adding that “people came from Luhove with complaints, saying they lived in the same street [with residents representing other ethnic groups], but for some reason, being Tatars, they were required to have such meters installed, while others were never even visited [by electricity company inspectors],” and that similar complaints have been filed by numerous visitors. He considers Krymenerho’s attitude as “strange,” assuming that “electric meters could be installed in everyone’s home.” As for the Ak Mechet tragedy, Remzi Iliasov pointed out that “the situation is most likely explained by the overall hard economic situation; people have no stable employment opportunities; their living conditions are hard, due to depression and perhaps degradation.” He went on to say that a team of members of the regional Majlis had been dispatched to the scene to “pacify the people.”

Nevertheless, the Crimean Republican Committee for Ethnic Affairs insists that the tragic affair has nothing to do with ethnic problems, because one of the victims, the electric company inspector, was also a Crimean Tatar. Simferopol’s power distribution authorities offer statistics stating that Tatar settlement electricity consumption payments are “quite low”. In previous years, they paid for a mere 7-8% of the electricity consumed; of late, owing to the installation of external distributor boxes, the payment situation has improved somewhat, reports the Crimean News Agency.

The agency also reports that Edip Hafarov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Crimea, considers that Krymenerho inspector Emiruseyin Dzherbynov did not act in full conformance with professional ethics and that the law enforcement authorities responded to the situation rashly. Mr. Hafarov is quoted as saying that “There are homeowners in Ak Mechet actually stealing electricity; there are electric appliances consuming 40-50 kWh. That’s where they should start, with two and three story buildings,” he stressed, not with people like Kurtmalayev and his family, for these people in trailers, “there is nothing to check there, just a bulb, nothing else.”

Mr. Hafarov said that Krymenerho should straighten out the power consumption situation in all such compact ethnic communities, to prevent such tragedies from recurring. He disputed Krymenerho reports that the Crimean Tatars owe them UAH 83 million worth of outstanding electricity bills: “Impossible. We have made our own computations; an urban dweller consumes the average of 70-100 kWh a month, but their records show over 1,000 kWh. This is an obvious overstatement.” Also, in his words, most Crimean Tatars have been paying their electricity bills, with rare exceptions. The Crimean vice premier was surprised by the Krymenerho stand with regard to the Crimean Tatars: “I don’t understand their attitude. There are miles and miles of power lines, so many transformer boxes built and installed at state budget expense and then handed over free of charge, yet they can’t put the place in order.”

A. YOFFE, CEO, Simferopol City Power Grid: “The conflict took place obviously for reasons including personal hostile intentions. Kurtmalayev was known to have threatened to shoot Dzherbynov on previous occasions. Had the good man [i.e., Emiruseyin] reported these threats to law enforcement authorities or avoided further contact [with the assailant], nothing would have happened. Power consumption inspectors have been exposed to an increasing number of assaults recently; people sic their dogs on them, attack them, and throw rocks at them. Such incidents have been recorded in Nyzhniohirsky and Lenine districts. Krymenerho, however, can do nothing to enhance their safety, for this would require considerable funds. This would in turn call for increasing electricity rates, perhaps several times over. We resort to security arrangements only as an exception, when carrying out unscheduled inspections to cut off consumers who are chronically in default. It is only on such occasion that Krymenerho inspectors work together with the militia. But when it is necessary to simply cut off an electricity power consumption meter, no such precautions are necessary. Today, Krymenerho inspectors are armed only with tear gas cans and ultrasonic devices to scare off vicious dogs. We must combat unauthorized power consumption, for we have to pay our power plant fuel bills and pay our staff, but we must try to avoid such excesses. What happened [in Ak Mechet] could have happened between a mailman and a resident of that settlement, or with, say, a gas consumption inspector — if they had gas — or between a visiting physician and a patient.

“I am visited by hundreds of people receiving token pensions or wages; they are faced with the alternative of buying bread and milk or paying their electricity bills. It is certainly a social problem. That’s the point. At present, millions of people cannot pay their utility bills. This social problem can be solved only by the government. Once these people are paid higher pensions, once the unemployment rate lowers, people start earning more, they will show a more human attitude to all monetary relationships; then the problems will vanish...”