In the days when regions of Russia began to close for self-isolation, I drove through the northern parts of Russia, where then the winter was still struggling with spring, and the locals were just getting ready to fight coronavirus.
Here in the village of Nikolskoye (670 km from Moscow, Vologda Oblast), paramedic feldsher Irina Lapina works in six small villages. Her colleague Nina Serova, without a car, goes around to the elderly in the neighboring Kostroma region, in the village of Varzenga.
In both cases, the nearest hospitals (and the nearest normal asphalt pavement) are located more than 50 kilometers from the VILLAGE. The nearest infectious disease hospital is 350 kilometers from Varzenga.
The monthly salary of the medical assistant Nina Serova (33 years of working experience) does not exceed 20 thousand rubles (270 US dollars).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Andrey Borodulin started off as a culture and music journalist, but was thrust into news by the 2014 revolution and war in Ukraine. After covering conflicts in Eastern Ukraine, Syria, and Nagorny Karabakh, he is now drifting back to his initial journalistic interests: people’s daily lives, human interest stories, and cultural phenomena in remote and neglected places.
The original article and photographs were published in the Russian magazine "Ogoniok" (April 5, 2020)
