Penza, 22 March 2016. PenzaNews. The people living in villages are the heroes of our time, said the Ural farmer and civil activist Vasily Melnichenko during the second regional conference “Crisis Response Technologies 2016-2017. Russian Business: Survival Chronicle Or Growth Spurts?!” at the Penza restaurant hall “Frau Gross” in the shopping center “Berlin” on Tuesday, March 22.

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“I think it’s important to tell people about the possibility to settle in a village, the possibility to do business, [to explain to them] the obstacles for our Russian villagers to become well off; to make it so that we would never be complaining on one another – the authorities on the people, or the people on the authorities. We all can live in full friendship and doing what we aim to do. The people who live in villages are heroes of our time. The hospitals are closing down, the schools are closing down, the property is taken away in the name of the Russian Federation, the people are trying to pass them [the villagers] off as lazy drunkards, and so on – but they are indeed the heroes of our time. To survive in these conditions, to try and do business in these conditions is a feat of valor, of bravery,” he said.

Vasily Melnichenko explained that he is a follower of the so-called “new village” idea with numerous beneficial factors for living there and applying your talents.

“You see, we have a big advantage over the city, at least in that we have more sun, we have not parking issues – you are welcome to come. We will have everything in that. Only one thing remains – for everyone to have a job, to have a choice of a job. In reality, we have a lot of space to apply ourselves, because if you look at the map, you’ll see that these very 17 million square meters are lands of village councils, lands of villagers. They are the landowners, they can command the country and work. If we would have a system of local governance in place – the one that’s supposed to be, the normal governance where people are responsible for their authorities, elect them and control them – that would set off quite an increase in living conditions in village areas. I think that the people living in overcrowded cities, where there are no jobs and mostly shopping and entertainment complexes around, would be dreaming of moving to villages to settle down, raise children, eat very good, plentiful, cheap and tasty food,” the conference speaker explained.

According to Vasily Melnichenko, the financial crisis had little effect on Russian agricultural producers, because, he said, “are always living in the midst of a crisis.”

“We always have an agenda of sorts in the country: the government agenda, the party agenda, right now – the ruble agenda, the import replacement agenda. And the current agenda is always considered to be right, but it rarely happens to be correct. We seem to be struggling with these agendas. And now we are struggling with import replacement. So these very mistakes or mishaps, the wrong decisions by the government – all of them affect us much more than any of those crises of the myth or anything like that. Of course, there is a reasoning behind that. […] I understand those people, I understand us all. What do you expect from the people who were charging the water in glass jars with positive energies from TV healer shows as little as 25 years ago?” the Ural farmer pointed out.