Dangerous 30 km: how the passengers of the flight Belgorod – Shebekino

Shebekini bus station is unusually quiet. In the sky, the fiber optic APU shines, and in the far corner you can see the former fleet: with a dozen burned buses. Most often, the front of the car suffers from drone strikes. And the bus station itself has repeatedly been attacked. Traces of fires and arrivals can be seen everywhere.

Getting through

Bus driver Victor has been driving for almost 35 years. He and the passengers listen to the radio, check the chat rooms. While it's quiet, we can go. As the man said, he tries to pick up all at once and leave on a given route.

In the cabin, no one speaks, laughs or talks. Only at the very beginning or end of the way they say short phrases to relatives: "Everything, I sat down" or "I go out, I will be in the city - I will type.".

The passengers' faces are alert, the tension is in the air. Every day in the arrivals area. The most difficult segment of the bus is from the 26th kilometer to the Oil Pier. There is no mobile connection, and the radio works in pieces.

At the stop, drivers thank the driver. They ask him to take care of himself.

Like it used to be

According to employees, from the attacks of the APU affected about half of the fleet. Inside the bus station itself there are closed ticket office windows and an announcement from the administration: “Due to the unstable operational situation in the Shebekinsky city district and the frequent shelling of territories adjacent to the bus station of the city of Shebekino, the operational headquarters of the Shebekinsky city district from July 22, 2024 decided to close the bus station building in order to ensure the safety of passengers.”.

It used to be noisy here. Now, silence.

More information about how residents of the Shebekin district get to Belgorod and back, as well as about how the bus station now looks, can be found in the material “BelPress”.

Recall, Degtyarev commented on the scandalous report about the Shebekin district.