Ryazan resident dies in fire while awaiting relocation from unsafe house

The sad story of the house on Kolkhoznaya, where a man died in a fire before the New Year, has been dragging on for over 10 years. The tragedy was reported dryly in a press release: the fire occurred in a non-residential premises, information about the fire was received by the duty desk at 21:41, and the source was in a one-room apartment on the second floor. However, behind these dry facts lies a years-long history of residents fighting to have the house declared dilapidated and resettled.

In December, he hoped to get an apartment

Sergei, who burned to death in the room on the second floor, was registered at the house on Kolkhoznaya but lived with his common-law wife. Last fall they separated, and Sergei returned to his room. He was not the owner and, therefore, could not count on monetary compensation. He was supposed to be provided with new housing in exchange for the dilapidated one. As his neighbor Elena Vodyanova says, the man hoped that he would get a new apartment already in December. But he did not live to see it. A fire broke out in the room, and Sergei died. Elena was in her apartment on the same second floor on the day of his death and could also have been harmed, but she was led out by rescuers. Elena knew her neighbor well, and she was shaken by the tragedy. She decided that there were signs of a criminal offense in this case and went through various authorities: she appealed to the regional prosecutor«s office, the regional and federal investigative committees.

«On December 25 late in the evening, a fire occurred in the house. A person died. I am a witness to all the lawlessness on the part of the administration, prosecutor»s office, and Investigative Committee for the Ryazan Region. I demand that all persons involved in negligent homicide be held accountable. Initiate a criminal case,« wrote Elena Vodyanova.

The regional investigative committee replied to her that the house was inspected with the participation of a specialist and it was established that the existing defects do not pose a threat to the life and health of the people living there.

«At the same time, the residents of house No. 8 on Kolkhoznaya St. in Ryazan were offered residential premises from the maneuver fund for relocation. However, the residents wrote a handwritten statement in which they refused the maneuver fund,» states the response of inspector Polina Savchenko of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Ryazan Region.

The specified circumstances, according to the official response, became known during the investigation of a criminal case initiated by the Moscow Interdistrict Investigative Department in November 2023 regarding negligent actions by officials of the Ryazan administration. But in March of last year, the criminal case was terminated due to the absence of a criminal event.

The investigative committee also said that currently the issue of resettlement is in its final stage. And the Department of Capital Construction of the Ryazan Region is actively conducting procurement procedures. «The issue of providing an apartment is practically completed,» Elena Vodyanova was told at the end of December.

How the house began killing its residents

It all started back in 2015 when an interdepartmental commission for recognizing houses as dilapidated or emergency did not consider the two-story slag-block barrack on Kolkhoznaya, built in the 1950s as temporary housing for workers, to be emergency. As the residents say, officials cited a lack of funds for resettlement in the budget and included the dilapidated house in the capital repair program.

Before that, residents had been demanding roof repairs for many years, but as Elena Vodyanova says, they could not achieve any result. Later, at their own expense, they conducted an independent examination, which concluded that the condition of the main elements of the house is emergency, and repairing the house is technically or economically impractical.

Uniting and enlisting the support of experts, the residents went to court. The court sided with them and in March 2016 overturned the commission«s decision to carry out capital repairs.

«That is, the commission should have recognized our house as emergency back in 2015. But the commission again did not recognize the house as emergency,» recounted Elena Vodyanova, a resident of the ill-fated house at the time. After this, the residents filed a lawsuit once again and won again. But officials were in no hurry to resettle the house.

During this time, many sad events occurred in the fate of the house, and the residents did not lose hope: they held pickets, sought meetings with officials from various departments, and recorded video appeals. In July 2017, the residents recorded an appeal to Nikolai Lyubimov, who at that time held the position of acting governor. After this, Lyubimov met with activists and promised to take personal control of the house«s fate. The house was finally included in the resettlement program. But there was a nuance.

The house was included in the program in August 2017. And, as officials later responded, for the house to be on the lists for resettlement in 2019–2025, it should have been recognized as emergency before January 1, 2017. That is, having recognized de jure the residents« rightness in declaring the house emergency, the bureaucracy actually once again denied them the right to resettlement within a reasonable time.

In the end, in the fall of 2020, desperate residents recorded an appeal to the president. They then complained that Elena Sorokina, who held the post of mayor at the time, and Governor Lyubimov refused to meet with the residents of the house personally and did not respond to appeals. In the video, people listed what misfortunes had happened to the house over the years: in May 2017, the ceiling collapsed in the common kitchen; in February 2019, the balcony; in February 2020, part of the wall and roof.

«We breathe in the decay products of building materials, decomposing elements of dilapidated housing, causing cancer and other irreversible health consequences. The ceiling is held up by homemade props, leaks, and could collapse at any moment, and then we would remain under the rubble of rotten structures. Many people have died in a short time; in six months, three people died, surviving in such conditions,» the people said in the appeal.

Residents were offered to move to premises from the maneuver fund, which did not meet sanitary and hygienic requirements, without repairs, with cockroaches and a leaking roof. After the efforts of activists from the house at Kolkhoznaya, 8, repairs were made to the maneuver fund premises on Sobornaya. But people still are not eager to move there because they fear that after that they will never be provided with housing in exchange for the dilapidated one. «Once you move there, you won»t move out,« explains Elena Vodyanova.

In the end, the situation around the house attracted the interest of the Ryazan prosecutor«s office, where residents of the barrack on Kolkhoznaya had also appealed. In November 2024, the prosecutor»s office, through the court, obliged the administration to reconsider the issue of the deadline for demolishing the house and resettling its residents. But it still stands, and a person still lives in one of the apartments, even after the tragedy in the room on the second floor. True, after Elena Vodyanova, shocked by her neighbor«s death, began going through the authorities, the fate of the house once again attracted interest in the prosecutor»s office and the regional investigative committee.

Elena Vodyanova received housing instead of the dilapidated one at the end of August, but to achieve this, she went to court — the struggle took a total of 8 years. The room belongs to Elena«s brother, and she registered there after arriving in Russia as a forced migrant due to the war in Tajikistan. And officials were not eager to compensate both of them for the living space, arguing that they are one family.

Elena does not know what happened to the fate of her neighbors. She says that many owners were offered monetary compensation with an undervalued buyout price. And when new housing is provided, it is always old housing stock.

«They resettle from emergency housing into the same old housing stock, which will soon also become emergency housing. Where is the purchase of new areas, where is the agreement with developers? They do everything not for the person»s well-being, but to save money and get their own benefit,« laments Elena.

She also does not understand the situation with the resettlement queues. «Square meters come to the city»s balance, people die, they look for heirs; if there are no heirs, then the housing goes to the administration. These processes are happening. But the resettlement queue for some reason stands still,« wonders Elena.

She says that Sergei is not the first victim of the killer house and that there have been many deaths among residents in a short time. «It feels like officials are guided by the principle »the fewer people remain, the less expense for the state,«» she says.

Meanwhile, the house is located in a prestigious area of Ryazan: just 50–100 meters away is Yesenin Street, not far from Theater Square. And all around are trees, silence, and no major roads nearby. A practically unprecedented situation for Ryazan. In the 2000s, as Elena Vodyanova told, developers came to the residents and offered to buy out the house, but then compensation of 300,000–500,000 rubles per room (about $3,300–5,600 at current rates) seemed laughable to the residents, and they refused.

And darkness reigns eternally in it

When I approached the house, the song about the cursed old house involuntarily spun in my head. Outside near the house it was beautiful: all the trees in snow, students walked by on the road and laughed cheerfully. The house seemed beautiful from the outside (despite the fact that the housing was temporary, it was built with soul at one time): columns near the entrance, a slanted stylish roof, high ceilings, a spacious hall, and large windows. In its best years, the house probably delighted its residents and was a reliable friend to them.

But now the house resembles a decrepit monster that is living out its last days and venting its malice on those around it. When you step from the lively, bright, snow-white street into the semi-darkness of the ghost house, it becomes unsettling. The sounds from the street abruptly disappear, as if you are plunging under a thickness of water. The light also disappears somewhere. The entrance is illuminated only by a dim yellow light bulb.

In the house, internet and even mobile connection were immediately lost. Before going further, I tried several times to open the door to the street — made sure I could definitely get back out. My imagination painted horror movie scenarios that the house would not want to let me go free. Despite the fact that the fire occurred in December, and I was in the ghost house after the New Year holidays, there was a smell of burning. It turned out to be so all-pervasive and tenacious that I felt it on my parka for a whole day.

The room where Sergei died is on the second floor. There were no signs of life felt here. A dark, long, tunnel-like corridor, cluttered with things. Dim light from a window at the end of the tunnel corridor. The sound of my footsteps (and I tried to walk quietly because the high ceiling overhead was all cracked) and echoing drops of water, coming from an unclear source. Finally, I reached the slightly open door to the room where Sergei died. The sounds of dripping water came from there. Apparently, the fire damaged the roof, and snow melted in the room. The room was dark, wires hung near the door, charred furniture stood in puddles of water. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. It seemed that the house needed new victims. That was on an emotional level, while rationally I understood: it is not houses that kill, but human indifference.

Comments from the Ryazan administration and the Ryazan Regional Prosecutor«s Office regarding the fate of the dilapidated house on Kolkhoznaya had not been received by the editorial office of YA62.RU at the time of publication. We will publish them additionally.