Sunday feuilleton. Thriller in two parts and with a happy ending
On an early Saturday morning, February 8, I put on a pea jacket, pulled a woolen cap on my shorn head, took a shovel with a wide scraper in the barn and went out onto the porch. The bottom two steps hid the snow. “Wow!” I said, spat, said “wow” again and plunged my shovel into a snowdrift.
Leaving snow to the left and to the right, blowing steam on the frost and realizing fully that man created the work, I cleared the way to the gate. Tilting on the board sash with my shoulder, time after time, a centimeter by centimeter, I opened the gate a little and squeezed out, trying not to tear my jacket. In front of me, right up the road in the middle of the street, where a grader drove around six o'clock, heaping lumpy snow along the road, lilac layer of snow covered virgin soil — such a smooth and so pictorially groomed breeze that biting into a shovel scraper seemed a blasphemy, a crime against art. With a camera I had to go out of the gate, not with a shovel. Having fallen knee-deep into the snow, I stopped at the front garden.
The black-and-blue sky cleared from the night clouds was strewn with white stars. Right above my head hung half the moon. Her quiet light mixed with the pinkish light falling from the lantern on the opposite side of the street. The windows of the houses were dark all around: after the traditional evening and Friday “piti merriment”, the weary village does not rise early. A light breeze pinched the skin on his cheeks. On such a winter morning, life seems beautiful to man. And it seems to him, this very man, that nothing can spoil her. To poison with political poison, to turn into a clot of despair, in longing for the revolution, into the death song of the marginal. When there are so many stars above your head, when your biceps and triceps are full of energy, when you breathe in the village air, and not in the city smog, it seems that there are no sorrows at all and never existed.
Postman Aunt Sanya appeared at the house just when I put a spade on the front garden and wiped sweat on my beard mitt. In the pre-dawn twilight, the ringing human voice broke the silence, interrupted until now only by my grunting, rustling of snow and the rare creak of the neighboring empty-field wilderness. During the one and a half hours that I rolled over the snowdrifts, not a single window was lit on the street.
- Look, freak out! - Said the postman, looking at the snow trees on the sides. - Why are you cleaning something? After all, again poured! Lilies do not work, do not spin, and you, a heathen, can’t sleep? .. Here's a ticket for electricity. Let us die soon all sinners. And what is the only punishment for us?
Accustomed to monologues rather than dialogues that require pauses for replicas of the interlocutor, the postman creaked to the mailbox of my neighbor Petrusha. Aunt Sanya carried newspapers and bills through our village on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
I looked at the receipt paper. The main numbers stood out there in bold and large. But the morning light seemed wrong to me, and I did not wear glasses. I still see snow without glasses. I looked in the back of my aunt Sanya, who had chosen the road, looked at the black bag on her left side. After closing the gate, removing the shovel to the barn and throwing off the jacket, I lit the light in the kitchen — more light — put on my glasses, put the kettle on and took the receipt.
Village, street, house number, last name, personal account - everything on the piece of paper was correct. But here are the numbers! There was something wrong with them. They ... how could I say this ... were amazing. Here aunt Sanya or drifts - not amazing. And this document as if sent from another world.
The financial part of the table was supplemented with a new line: “Recalculation from January 1 2014 of the year”. And in the right-hand column the sum of this recalculation was placed, and under it the result was printed, the whole fortune that my family owed to the local Energosbyt. 22092 ruble 18 kopecks. This is instead of the usual 7-8 thousand rubles, each winter month transferred to the accounts of electrical companies by those happy residents of the villages in the Tyumen region, who were bypassed by the tortuous gasification process, consecrated by the electoral presidential programs! Yes, even seven thousand people came out only because the house was heated not by one 380-voltage electric boiler, but also by birch firewood. The latter were also not free, but the savings were still substantial. And by chopping firewood, the head of the family was improving at the same time.
I do not remember if I drank tea, I just remember that I turned off the lights in the kitchen, and my hand, following the switch, reached for the refrigerator plug. “Not to the fork, but to the forks we must reach!” - I thought, lowering my hand. “The manager’s mistake has crept into the bill,” a voice sounded in my brain. Very uncertain sounded.
My precious family was still asleep (Saturday, after all), and I locked myself in my own room. While loading on the Windows computer, I thought that it would be necessary to turn off the electric boiler. 6 kilowatt eats - this is a natural happiness for everyone there perekrachchitchikov. However, turn off the boiler - and in a quarter of an hour the house will become colder. Outside the windows - minus twenty with a breeze. Our house has the following order: the boiler is turned off and the stove is immediately melted. All day long, firewood is thrown into the stove, and at night at the stove, a mini pile of wood is arranged and stacked so that the logs are dry by morning. The house is big, one hundred and one square meters tail. And with six kilowatts, no one else was sweating under the covers. It used to happen that in the severe cold and on the 9 kW the boiler was started at night.
Energy news found on the Internet quickly. I chose a relatively reliable source and dived into the text on the monitor. My unhealthy eyes with a thinned retina immediately fell ill from the contrast of the semi-darkness with the glow of the screen, and I lit the chandelier. My finger on the switch key was shaking, and my brain was thinking about a new bill from Energosbyt and about how many rubles and kopecks I would get a computer, a kettle, a washing machine, a water heater, a borehole pump, or this eight-chandelier.
The news was written in an ordinary journalistic mix of clerical, an indigestible legal style and elements of that wild language, which we in Russia mistakenly call diplomatic. (Only Comrade Churkin speaks a truly diplomatic language, but this does not apply to my story.) The note on electricity tariffs looked absolutely ordinary, outwardly no different from other notes published in yesterday’s RIA Novosti tape. Nothing pointed to her formidable power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin today signed Law No. 25-FZ “On the Introduction of Social Norms for Electricity Consumption on the Territory of the Russian Federation”, based on the Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 22 of July 2013 No. 614 “On the Procedure for Establishing and Applying the Social Standard of Electric Energy Consumption (power) and on amendments to some acts of the Government of the Russian Federation on the establishment and application of the social norm of consumption of electric energy (power). ” Earlier, the corresponding bill was approved by the State Duma deputies.
Thus, social norms already nicknamed by the people "Luchina tariff" and excess tariffs are legislatively introduced February 7 2014 throughout the country. The law came into force on January 1 of the year 2014.
Earlier, in accordance with the Federal Law of the Russian Federation of November 23 2009 261-FZ "On Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency Improvement and on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" regional and regional offices for state regulation of prices and tariffs in Russia calculated and approved regulatory electricity consumption in the regions.
Recall the preliminary results of a pilot project carried out in six regions of Russia from September to December last year showed that the cost of excess electricity consumed will increase approximately twice compared to tariffs in the framework of social norms in other areas not exceeding 65 kWh per month .
The protests that took place in several regions of Russia, including the Far East, did not lead to any changes in the government’s energy policy. Responding to questions from journalists at a recent press conference, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said very clearly: "This country must comply with the requirements of the WTO, and the citizens of this country must learn to save."
“Oh, you,” I thought. - The law was signed only yesterday, and the next day you will be sent a recalculation. Just the same Olympic speed! "
“In hindsight,” I said out loud. - The law of February 7, and January 1 entered into force.
- Why are you displeased? - answered my brain. “Doesn't this law improve the position of citizens?” Improves The social norm is introduced, you fool, you dupe! And this means that at the rate you will pay three pennies per kilowatt-hour less than before!
“You’re partly right, brain,” I said. - Three pennies are a prize. But you forgot that electricity dealers now and then raise prices. The company that lights these bulbs, turns on this computer and warms us with you, reviews its tariffs twice a year and in advance. If the company reduced tariffs, then it, of course, would be joyful. I would then have hung a portrait of Medvedev on the wall. And with his brow in the morning he would beat him. But now, with the new law, our electric sellers, big friends of the Duma members, will be able not only to indulge in the price of social norms every year, but also to have fun with the excess rates as much as their energy souls desire.
- Lobby! - exclaimed the brain and began to swear and call for what I can not write here. - Wait a minute ... But where does the 22 account for thousands? In the resolution №614, signed by Medvedev, there is an increased social norm for those who are heated by electricity. You are given at the rate of another 3000 kilowatt-hours per month. Again, the improvement of the situation! Have you tried to be objective?
- I tried. Last month, the weather was quite a Siberian. Minus thirty and minus thirty five. And forty was. And the winds blew in such a way that it hummed in the pipe. 4500 kWh wrap only on the electric boiler, my dear brain. But you and I are not burning the boiler round the clock, but we also drown the living room with firewood. And if we were heated by electricity all day and night, we would be tired from the stove and we would be tired of setting firewood? ..
While the brain became angry, I spoke about the forks to the side and cursed indecently and unprintablely, I clicked the mouse and went through the little blue link attached by the “basement” to the note on the RIA Novosti website. You know, there are such references in the materials of news agencies - to thematic notes. I usually ignore them, but I could not miss this one. Because he could not, that from just one header began to choke.
State Duma deputies in the third reading of the amendment to the Federal Law of 8 of May 1994, No. XXUMX-FZ (as amended by 3) “On the status of a member of the Federation Council and the status of a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation”, supplementing Article 23.07.2013 “Medical , household and pension benefits of a member of the Council of Federation, a member of the State Duma ”. The unanimously approved bill was submitted for signature to President Vladimir Putin.
According to the amendments proposed by the LDPR faction, article 29 is supplemented by part 10: “A citizen of the Russian Federation who is an acting member of the Federation Council, a State Duma deputy, is entitled to a monthly compensation of 97,5% of the actual expenses incurred for electricity in a dwelling, provided to the deputy in accordance with Article 34 of this law. " Part of 11 provides compensation for consumed electricity in the housing of deputies and their families, which is not official. Its size will also be 97,5% of the relevant costs.
After the president signs the draft, the regional laws “On the status of a deputy” will be brought in line with the ch.ch. 10-11 Art. 29 Act No. XXUMX-FZ. The new law may come into force on January 3.
Earlier, the statement of the Liberal Democratic Party leader V.V. Zhirinovsky that the mansions and deputies' houses, quotations, “need to pull out electrical meters and plaster everything there, so that there are no reminders left, and the wires are directly connected, is unequivocal.”
Unfortunately, the correspondent of RIA Novosti in Moscow has so far failed to contact either V. V. Zhirinovsky or the representatives of the LDPR faction in the State Duma. The adoption of the bill agreed to comment by telephone MP from the Communist Party. The interlocutor of the agency, who wished to preserve anonymity, explained that the voting in the Duma was held behind closed doors and that in matters of parliamentary support, the Communist Party shares the positions of liberal democrats, United Russia and Social Revolutionaries. “In the Duma, a rare union is achieved on such occasions,” he said. According to the anonymous author, the Soviet era is gone, individualism reigns at the ball, but the names of the parties are ordinary signs. “Which deputy will refuse free electricity?” The interlocutor remarked.
On the question of where the number 97,5% came from, the deputy answered: “Well, you know, all these fractional numbers, the decimal numbers are different there, the percentages, the percentages look convincing, let's say so - economically sound. And then, we can not write: one hundred percent. The electorate will not understand.
Also, the source said that at present, the State Duma has submitted for consideration a bill from the fair Russia, proposing to introduce privileges on payment for electricity for military personnel, employees of law enforcement agencies and special services.
My brain stunned whispered:
- Firewood. We need firewood. Rather, call Van Vanychu!
The brain said something else, but I did not hear it.
- What? - I asked. - I can not hear!
Monitor the news somewhere gone.
- Where is everyone?
My brain answered no longer. A female voice intervened. Very familiar.
- Wake up, sleepyhead. Well, get up. Snow must be removed. There is no way out of the gate.
The voice spoke and spoke. And seemed somehow otherworldly.
- BUT? - I said. - Where?
I opened my eyes. Dark. But from the moon outside the window you can see something. Ceiling. White square tile. Chandelier in five horns. Foam plinth. Pictures on the wall. Bedroom. But the face of his wife. The mouth on the face opens and says the words about the yard, snowdrifts, gates, shovel, strong man who likes to get up early ... My wife loves to scratch her tongue. Silent wife in nature is as rare as an honest taxpayer.
- Did you have a dream? She asks. - Come on, get up ... Well you like to clean the snow. I’m going to ten to twenty. - Having wrung out, she yawns and fits next to me, wrapping the body in half a blanket.
I jump out of bed, in the hallway I put on pants, put on a pea jacket, put my bare feet in the chuni and go out onto the porch. The bottom two steps of the porch are hidden under the snow. The wind is blowing. Half moon. Stars. Everything is terribly similar to what I dreamed ... I would not go mad at the sight of the postman!
Photo by the author.
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