Bolkhov is an ancient Russian town with quaint wooden houses and graceful onion-domed

churches. Once rich and prosperous the town was a hub for hundreds of merchants. But now
Bolkhov is a godforsaken village reminiscing of its vibrant history.
More people lie in the tightly packed church cemetery than inhabit the town. Rates of poverty
and unemployment are twice as high as they are in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Young people
desperately flee to big cities with better prospects, buying into a myth that urban and bigger are
better. Agriculture is slowly withering too — the roofs of centuries-old stone barns have
collapsed, while untamed forests invade the surrounding fields. The town’s roads have so
deteriorated over the years that ambulances sometimes cannot reach people to give first aid.
The coronavirus pandemic has become yet another challenge for Russian villages and towns.
Rumours of COVID-19 first started circulating in Bolkhov in late March, soon after the first
cases in the Khabarovsk region were confirmed. However, the majority of Bolkhov residents
decided that the virus had been made up by the government.
Now a second wave of coronavirus infections is hammering Russia. On December 6, more than
29,000 new cases were registered in a single day. Most of the cases are in Moscow, St.
Petersburg, and other large cities. But at the same time the virus is rapidly spreading throughout
rural areas, where a lack of doctors and outdated medical equipment make it harder to survive
the deadly disease.
Bolkhov is trying tooth and nail to survive the pandemic. However, one hospital with no
infection disease doctor for a population of some 12,000 people is not enough to fight off the
virus. As the Kremlin spends millions on new facilities to deal with the coronavirus outbreak in
Moscow, and scrambles to roll out the world’s first vaccine against the virus, village hospitals
are being left to wither. It is impossible to encourage doctors to live in the provinces like
Bolkhov until overall infrastructure there is improved.

Sometimes it seems to me the Kremlin is bankrolling Moscow at the expense of the

provinces. The capital’s streets are jammed with the latest Western cars and fancy restaurants
while rural areas — long considered the wellspring of Russian culture and identity — are dying.
If I needed one word to describe my beloved town, I would say it is a swamp, a stagnant swamp.
As it was, so it is. Nothing is changing.