‘It’s back to the Middle Ages’ A Russian village thousands of miles from Ukraine’s battlefront lost half its men but has a shiny new monument to fallen soldiers
Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov has proposed bestowing on a small village in his region the honorary title of “village of military glory” for its population’s service in the invasion of Ukraine. If adopted, Solodov’s initiative would make Sedanka the first place in Russia to bear such a title. “I believe that the memory of these villagers’ heroism should be preserved forever,” the governor wrote on his Telegram channel after visiting Sedanka. He stated that 39 men in the village have “risen to defend the Motherland.”
Regional officials told the state news agency RIA Novosti that Sedanka has 457 registered residents, though its true population is only 258, including 67 adult men. In other words, more than half the men in the village have gone to fight in Ukraine. Studying data from the Tigil District administration and Mediazona’s open-source research on war casualties, journalists at 7×7 found that at least five men from Sedanka have been killed in the war, and one remains missing.
‘Back to the Middle Ages’
Sedanka is situated in the northwestern part of the Kamchatka Peninsula, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and 6,350 kilometers (almost 4,000 miles) east of Moscow. Journalist and Kamchatka regional assembly deputy Alexandra Novikova, who visited the village in 2024, reported that the journey from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Sedanka takes 18 hours and involves a flight on a local airline. The only ground route to Sedanka is a winter road that’s impassable in all other seasons.
Nearly everyone in Sedanka comes from Kamchatka’s Indigenous Koryak or Itelmen communities. In her report, Sedanka: Back to the Middle Ages, Novikova wrote:
We hoped to experience authentic national traditions, but what we encountered was the most depressed place we’d ever seen. People here have abandoned their traditional way of life and make no effort to preserve their culture. They are simply trying to survive. The reindeer have long disappeared, and most able-bodied fishermen left to fight in the “Special Military Operation” zone.
Novikova noted that all of Sedanka’s housing was erected during the Soviet era, and the buildings are now “riddled with mold.” “Even when the decay isn’t visible, the stench is unmistakable,” she said, pointing out that most residences have neither running water nor heated bathrooms — evidence, she argued, that daily life in the village has “ground to a halt.”
Who is Alexandra Novikova?
A former news anchor with Kamchatka’s state-run broadcasting company, Novikova gained notoriety online after a viral video in 2020. In that footage, she broke down laughing while taping a news segment about very modest increases in welfare benefits. The recorded rehearsal was leaked to YouTube. Novikova says she was forced to resign from the state television network the following year for attending a protest.
In 2021, Novikova was elected to the Kamchatka Territory Legislative Assembly. She ran as a candidate of the Communist Party but left the party in May, joining A Just Russia. She later became head of that party’s Kamchatka branch. A Just Russia planned to nominate Novikova as a candidate in regional elections scheduled for September, but the party’s Central Council ultimately withdrew its endorsement of her candidacy. According to Novikova, “Party leaders explained to me that this was the only way to protect me from serious trouble.”
Novikova runs the Telegram channel Kamchatka_life_ru and a YouTube channel of the same name, which features news and reports about Kamchatka. In September 2022, Novikova’s husband was mobilized and deployed to fight in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In January 2024, she was charged with “discrediting” the army for reposting a video message from the Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosti, which showed a Russian soldier criticizing Kamchatka’s authorities.
Put another log on the fire
The Irkutsk publication Baikal 24 reported in April 2024 that “the men in Sedanka vanished” after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Things have gotten so bad that there’s no one left to chop firewood,” Baikal 24 noted. In response, Governor Solodov convened a meeting and directed officials to develop a specialized support program for military families. Under the initiative, the government pledged to provide assistance with agricultural work, firewood procurement, and everyday household needs.
A few months after the governor unveiled his plan, officials erected a monument in Sedanka to the village’s “special military operation warriors,” according to iStories. When Alexandra Novikova visited in August 2024, she met soldiers’ family members who said they’d never received the promised support. Even basic firewood proved illusory, despite the fact that many in Sedanka rely on firewood to heat their homes in the winter.
After his recent visit to Sedanka, Governor Solodov announced that his administration had allocated resources last year to repair the homes and roofs of families of war participants. He stated that major renovations would begin on several apartments this year.