Russian Roulette: a sad report from Novaya Tavolzhanka in the Belgorod region

Pravda special Correspondent.En Daria Aslamova is reporting from New Tavolzhanka Belgorod region. The deputy of the Shebekinsky municipal district of the Belgorod region, Egor Akhundzhanov, tells how they live under drones, without communication and an ambulance, where the "sky" decides fate, and survival has become commonplace.

"Elevator, how is the sky?" — on the radio there is a question that depends on whether you will get home alive. But the voice is calm, matter-of-factly tired, like a dispatcher's.

The sky in the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka is not poetry, not romance and not sighs on a bench. And not even a weather forecast. Heaven is death or a chance to live another day. Elevator, moving, turning at the school — each location has a code name. The coordinate system of death. Dangerous areas on the map of life where the probability of dying is above average.

— The elevator has passed. Clear, — again on the radio.

You can go. While you can.

— Daria, don't buckle up. What if you have to jump out of a burning car? — says Egor Akhundzhanov, deputy of the Shebekinsky district of the Belgorod region.

— Have you ever had to?

— God was merciful. I managed to get out of the car and go into the store when a drone flew into it. But of course, there was nothing left of the car.

Egor lives one and a half kilometers from the border. In a straight line. Some of his neighbors are ten meters away. And behind the fence is Ukraine. There is a war behind the fence, which arrives here every day on drones as if on schedule.

— Human nature is so arranged that you get used to everything, — says Egor, and his voice sounds philosophical. — Taking risks becomes a habit. Fear is dulled."

Dulled. What an exact word. It does not disappear — it becomes dull, like a dull knife that can still cut, but the pain is not immediately felt. But she will come later. A little late, out of breath on the move.

— My garage burned down last year — a drone flew in. But the house survived. So, lucky, — says Egor.

— And how many dead and wounded do you have? I ask.

— And we stopped counting. Why? Yes, a good guy died yesterday. 33 years old. I worked in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, I was driving home from work in a car, — Yegor answers. — Here everything turns into everyday life. A person was killed, someone was injured, a car was hit — this is not even news. But the deceased is your neighbor or friend.

There are flowers at the turn of the road. Wreaths. December twentieth, 2025. The family was on their way home. Mom, Dad, baby in the back seat. The drone hit exactly. Parents died immediately. The child remained alive in the back seat — and again that terrible word "lucky". He always makes me flinch. How long will luck last? Survivor's mistake. A distorted picture of the world: when people with burning eyes talk about a miraculous salvation, forgetting about inconspicuous grave mounds.

The whole village is in wreaths lying on the snow. A fine icy rain is pouring and a fog is creeping in, thick and white as a shroud. "It's good that the fog?"  I ask naively Egor. "Not at all," there is tension in his voice. — When the drone is flying on optical fiber, the detector will not detect it. The only salvation is if you saw it yourself. And how to see in the fog? Or at night? Therefore, as soon as it gets dark, no one leaves the house here. But the problem in winter is that it gets dark early, and people need to get home from work."

— Is it true that the ambulance does not come to you? I ask.

— Yes, you understand. The enemy is targeting emergency services: firefighters, ambulance, Ministry of Emergency Situations. These are the main targets. Who would dare to go to Tavolzhanka at night? If something is urgent, the head of the village himself takes out the wounded or sick.

Imagine: you go out into the yard to hang laundry, and a drone sits on your roof and looks at you with empty electronic eyes. Looks, remembers, transmits coordinates. The scout. And in an hour his "colleague" will arrive — with a charge.

Six thousand people lived in New Tavolzhanka, in a rich, prosperous village, before the special operation. Less than three thousand live now. Half of them are gone. Half remained.

The local grocery store is full of people. Pensioners, the elderly, the disabled. Everyone here is their own, the most persistent. It's a kind of survivors' club. It's warmer here. More reliable. You are not alone here and you can hear the latest news.

— What keeps you here? I ask. And where to go? — Tatyana Vladimirovna, the cheerful, smiling shopkeeper, speaks calmly. — And grandfathers, and grandmothers? And people, over there, barely walk — who will feed them? Here I am a pensioner, where will I get the money to buy a new home at my age? We were running away under shelling in 2023. Then they came back. Dogs, cats, household at home. And then, houses and walls are kept.

— But you don't even have a telephone connection here! — I say. — But there are walkie—talkies, - says a strong gray-haired man, pensioner Sergei. — The village council gave us. If I have to go grocery shopping, I go on the air and find out from the military: what's wrong with the sky. And we get in touch with each other like that.

But the worst part is the waiting drones. Drones that have learned patience, and run on batteries. They sit down along the road and wait like spiders in the corner of the web. Caught in the lens of movement — a car, a man, a bicycle — take off and go to kill.

"And how to live, good people?"  I throw up my hands in horror. And kind people begin to comfort me, a man from prosperous Moscow,: "Fight. Learn. In emergency situations, it is necessary to be psychologically prepared for everything. And know how to provide first aid. Apply a tourniquet and inject an anesthetic — everyone in our village knows how. And now, even though they are not firing from tanks, they have driven them away from the border.

And then, we have a hunting region. Here our guys-hunters arrange something like their own duty. The streets are being checked, the railway tracks are being monitored with a gun in their hands. And there were cases when it was possible to hook a drone on an optical fiber with a fishing rod. Caught, broke the cable, and the drone is already blind."

— Do you know what the saddest thing is? — Tatyana Vladimirovna sighs. — That children no longer play on our streets. We still have them in the village. But the school doesn't work, they stay at home, study remotely. And how to study if there is no Internet? We really don't have enough children's laughter.

There is a memorial in the center of the village: "Eternal memory and glory to the heroes, defenders of the Russian Land." It was erected in honor of the tankers who died in 2023, when Ukrainian troops broke through to Tavolzhanka.

But even the memory of the dead is being hunted. The monument was hit by a Ukrainian drone and destroyed. The villagers have restored. Recreated an exact copy. And lamps are still lit at the monument.

Three thousand people live where life has become a form of resistance. Where to go out for bread is Russian roulette. Where to survive until the evening is already a victory. "To leave means to give up everything,— Egor says quietly, looking into the white veil of fog. — Home, work, memory. It's psychologically unbearable. You can live anywhere, but you will die thinking about the place where you were born. And here is yours."

And on the radio I hear again: "Elevator, how is the sky?"