Petrozavodsk Tour No. 024

Yaromir was going to show me around as Borislav would scare off anyone who tried to touch my beauty.

I walked out and looked at the big building to the west,

He could see my gaze, "That's our workshop factory, most machinery is stored in there and is used there. We have been struggling to find coal and gas to power our generators consistently."

I remained silent and just stared and nodded at the building.

"We were just in the 'garages' it is where we store our scouting vehicles and all vehicles that are working, we keep a set of tools and a few jacks in each one so each driver can inspect their own baby. We all love our cars, across the street are our houses so we can always be close."

I was just amazed at the simplicity yet impressivness of the layout.

South of the garages and north of that first farm are mostly residential houses. They all have a basic fireplace and cooking supplies, but about the middle of the street one of the houses is a designated kitchen for complicated meals. Mostly for special events, Friday's, and the weekends because it's nice to have something with a little extra salt or sugar."

"The south farm is a half potato half wheat farm. Filip, Borislav and I were able to scrounge up enough money to buy two hogs and now we have meat fresh meat on the first day of each month, and then some beef jerkey every Sunday."

"How big is your hog farm now?"

"About 50 or so hogs, we built a thick fence, more like a wall, so they won't be able to escape, unfortunately most of the meat gets eaten on the first round, so the rest of the month is where us "scouts" come in. In reality we are more of a hunter or army role, but the scout part helps people feel better. We generally go out in two cars and eight of us go and try to kill a few wild hogs or wolves, sometimes even a bear. If we get enough in the a day or two we are out we bring it all back and take it to that large building on main street."

"Whats the purpose of that building Yaromir?"

Yaromir continued "The building has been built with food storage in mind it has a downstairs area where we keep most of the meats after they get dried. But it's slightly damp so potatoes are stored in a storage room above ground with no windows. Then there is the smoking room where we take the meats we get, if a animal is suffering from radiation we try to avoid bringing them back. Since eating radioactive flesh is not the best idea, but even if the meat is slightly radioactive, we can dry it, salt it and try to make it edible. Most adults aren't picky on what they eat, but they refuse to feed children anything potentially radioactive."

"There are kids here! What do they do and how do you keep them from getting in trouble?"

Yaromir chuckled "Ha ha Bratan, you need to relax. We have two eight year olds, a nine year old, three ten year olds, and a eleven year old that we watch and take care of. Kids under the age of seven are sent and are taught by two nice ladies in their houses in exchange for help. The kids I mentioned earlier go to the house attached to the storage building and are taught by the boss in his home. After 12 we normally let them pick what they want to do, they have to learn how to properly speak, write and do math, we teach them some basice history, and then they get to pick if they want to learn about auto mechanics, arms mechanics, or gathering knowledge."

"That seems incredible, and you have set this all up and it's working well."

We had walked to the end of the street and Yaromir turned north and I followed him towards the house besides the storage building. I could see people peaking out of the house and staring at us. I could tell they hadn't seen a newcomer for a while as they pointed at my AK on my back.

"What about the teenagers you didn't say anything about them?"

Yaromir thought then said "The teenagers 13 through 18, we send all except the top one or two to shadow guards, mechanics, and us scouts. Filip had two, a 16-year-old and 17-year-old with him. We generally don't allow anyone below 16 to go on scout missions since they are dangerous. But it was Filip, and he was the best, and it is important to learn from the best."

I hit a sensitive topic and I knew it, kids with him and he's dead, even an idiot could see the writing on the wall. They were dead.

"Sorry Yaromir, I didn't know."

"No, no Bratan, there is no way you could have known, anyways we are getting sidetracked, lastly there is the hospital, it is across the way from the first farm and near the guard houses. We have a doctor that is shadowed by two or three kids. It's important to prepare them early so they have some sort of knowledge. Alright let's head in boss has been waiting long enough."

With that, we walked up to the door and knocked.