Birthing Protest

Residents of Kolchugino, in Vladimir Oblast, have been speaking out against the closure of the town’s hospital maternity ward. They have protested on the streets, written an open letter to the president, and launched a flash mob with the hashtag “giving birth in a field.” The latter was how they responded to a local ruling-party deputy who compared medical care in Kolchugino to women giving birth in a field.

Veter spoke with town residents, who said that officials had for decades failed to allocate funds for the town’s maternity ward: even hot water was unreliable. Locals ended up repairing the hospital department at their own expense.

“At the very edge of our capacity”

Women clutching newborns while sitting in open fields, surrounded by cows and tractors. Such are the images that Kolchugino residents have been creating with AI and circulating under the hashtag “Giving birth in a field” (Рожаю в поле). In early February, the publication 7×7 and other media caught wind of the trending tag. Veter found that ironic AI-generated images about childbirth in Kolchugino began appearing in January, on both Telegram and VKontakte.

This social media activity was in response to remarks by United Russia regional legislator Sergei Telegin, who is also the chief physician of Maternity Hospital No. 2 in Vladimir, at a January 15 meeting with pregnant women from Kolchugino. At the meeting, Telegin compared current medical care in the town to childbirth in a field.

“Childbirth is a physiological process. And of course, women used to give birth in the field. No one ever provided assistance – whatever happened, happened. No one examined her, no one stitched her up or didn’t stitch her up; she crossed her legs and went on her way. And what maternal mortality there was! Those were distant, messy times. As far as today goes, the Kolchugino maternity ward is a place for physiological delivery of children, but where they are effectively unable to provide help in urgent situations. Women come, give birth, essentially without medical assistance,” the deputy said. At the same time, he said, the staff of the maternity department in Kolchugino Hospital were “at the very limits of their physical capacity.”

Social Media and a Presidential Petition

In late January, a letter appeared in Kolchugino’s VK social media group, Overheard in Kolchugino. It was signed by a 42-year-old woman identified only as “Ksenia S.,” who said she lived in a settlement 12 kilometers from the town. She said that closing the maternity ward at the local hospital would be “criminal and deadly dangerous.” The letter got a lot local attention.

“Ksenia” said she had given birth to her only daughter a year earlier in the local maternity ward and explained that Kolchugino residents were being deprived of accessible, qualified obstetric care.

“We are being advised to go and give birth in the town of Alexandrov or in the regional center in Vladimir. Alexandrov Hospital is 64 kilometers from Kolchugino, and even farther from the district villages. That’s an average of one hour and twenty minutes of fast driving in a private car. And the two maternity hospitals in Vladimir are almost 100 kilometers from our town and district. That’s at least an hour and a half on the road. For us, maternity hospitals will literally become inaccessible,” she wrote.

In late December, authorities in Vladimir Oblast announced the closure of not one but two rural maternity wards: the first at the hospital in Kolchugino, and the second at Gus-Khrustalny. Media outlet Chesnok reported that officials attributed the decision to “optimization.” Under the 2025–2030 “Maternal and Child Health” program, dozens of gynecological and obstetric beds throughout Russia are set to be cut. Instead of full-fledged maternity hospitals, the authorities promise to open “urgent care centers” meant for emergencies and urgent deliveries.

One of the reasons cited for closing the maternity ward in Gus-Khrustalny was a patient death in July 2025. In its investigation, health watchdog Roszdravnadzor found that medical workers were guilty of certain violations.

As for Kolchugino, officials claim its maternity ward does not meet Health Ministry standards: it lacks an anesthesiologist-resuscitator, a neonatologist, and other required specialists, meaning, according to Deputy Governor Vladimir Kuimov, it cannot function as a full maternity hospital.

Kolchugino residents immediately spoke out. On January 17, some 200 people rallied in a flashmob against the closure of the maternity ward despite the -20℃ temperatures. Representatives of the Communist Party, LDPR, A Just Russia, and Yabloko also attended the rally. And residents launched a petition against the closure, which has already gathered more than 7,500 signatures (about 25% of the town’s population).

“Transporting women in labor 70 kilometers to Vladimir, especially in emergency situations and on poor-quality roads, creates a direct risk,” the authors of the petition wrote. “The authorities ignore the question of how a woman with stitches after a C-section is supposed to get back home with a newborn. For many families, traveling to another city poses insurmountable organizational and financial difficulties – no one to leave children with, no money for housing and transport. This will force young families to move away from the district, worsening the demographic crisis.”

The petition authors also underscored the cynicism of officials who citeds outdated equipment as a reason for the closure, yet it was officials who for years failed to allocate adequate funds for repairs. Residents say they “tried to do the repairs themselves with donations.”

On February 3, residents took the issue a step further: a group published an open letter to Vladimir Putin, saying that local officials were “keeping silent and brushing us off.” The appeal asserted that Vladimir Region Governor Alexander Avdeyev and Kolchugino District Head Alexei Andrianov had “brought the district to the brink of humanitarian and infrastructural collapse.”

“The city has a wonderful maternity hospital, but the above-mentioned individuals, not thinking about raising the birth rate, are closing it, leaving only a few beds for pregnant women,” the letter says. “This, despite the fact that our city ranks second in the region for large families. Perhaps this is being done deliberately, in order to destroy the population and undermine the authority of the President of the Russian Federation, who is fighting to increase the birth rate. The leadership of the Vladimir Region is openly acting against the President’s directive to raise fertility.”

The authors pointed out that Vladimir Oblast as a whole ranks toward the bottom of Russian regions for its low birth rates and warned that closing the maternity ward would make the situation critical. They asked Putin to “intervene immediately” and take the matter under personal control.

Not a Hospital, a First Aid Post

Kolchugino, with a population of 38,000 (and a district population of about 50,000), lies about 80 kilometers from Vladimir. The town has a Central District Hospital, and residents say that, in recent years, its pulmonology, cardiology, and neurology departments were cut, and the infectious diseases ward is next in line. And now of course the maternity ward is under threat.

“The Central District Hospital will be reorganized down to the level of a feldsher-midwife post,” said local resident Poberezhnaya (who only gave her last name). “The city will rapidly shrink to the size of a settlement – at best.”

“The maternity ward serves not only Kolchugino but the entire district,” said resident Erik Tsaava. “Closing it will worsen medical care for tens of thousands of people. The decision was made without taking into account the opinion of thousands who signed the petition and took part in protests. Even the legislative assembly session was held without residents present, although we wrote to Olga Khokhlova (the chairperson of the local assembly).”

After the ward’s closure, women will have to travel to the regional center for planned births.

“There is a risk in long-distance transport,” Tsaava said. “If the ward closes, most women will have to travel 70-100 kilometers to Vladimir over poor roads, which is a direct health risk in emergencies. There are also problems with ambulances – there are very few for the entire district, and waiting times can reach four to six hours.”

“It’s snowing now,” said local resident Lyudmila (who withheld her last name). “Getting to Vladimir takes about two hours. According to the news, Vladimir is at a standstill – there are constant accidents and traffic jams. And the entire district has just one or two ambulances. A few days ago, acquaintances of mine called an ambulance for a child and waited about two hours. An ambulance for childbirth requires a midwife, a doctor, and a neonatologist, and the vehicle must be properly equipped. What if labor starts in the ambulance and a C-section is needed? Is that even possible in a car? And how are women supposed to get home with a newborn if they don’t have a car? A taxi costs at least R3,000, and buses run only two or three times a day. Many women can’t sit after giving birth – so she and her baby are supposed to stand on a bus for two hours?”

Lyudmila also said it was unclear how premature births would be handled – there might simply not be enough time to reach Vladimir.

“Take my personal experience as an example,” Lyudmila said. “My contractions started, I stayed home for a while, left for the maternity ward at 1 p.m., and by 3 p.m. I had already given birth – in our Kolchugino ward. I was alone in the delivery room, all the attention was on me. In Vladimir, it’s an assembly line.

“All women want to be closer to home,” Poberezhnaya said, “to give birth without going somewhere far away, so that family can easily bring you what you need, and so you don’t have to worry about how to get home afterward with a baby – and God forbid, with stitches – especially on our roads. Our region leads in traffic accidents. And one more important point: we live in troubled times. If roads or highways are damaged in an attack, we’ll be completely cut off from medical care.”

Paying for Repairs Themselves

Responding to criticism, Larisa Kuzenkova, head of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Kolchugino Central District Hospital for the past twenty years, said that the department currently employs forty medical workers.

“Yes, there is a staffing shortage,” Kuzenkova said. “We lack two doctors for the on-call team – a neonatologist and an anesthesiologist. But these doctors work in our Central District Hospital, literally in the neighboring building, and they are always present at births in our department. Our 24/7 on-call team always includes an obstetrician-gynecologist, a midwife, and a pediatric nurse. There is one anesthesiologist on duty for the entire hospital – he’s in the neighboring building and comes immediately if needed. A neonatologist is called for all anticipated complicated deliveries.”

According to Kuzenkova, 268 children were born in her department in 2025, and all deliveries were successful. At the same time, she said, virtually no state funds had been invested in the department in recent years.

“The same goes for repairs. We installed boilers everywhere by ourselves, repaired what we could. We weren’t given a single kopek – probably for a decade. And to say that everything is wonderful for you and everything is terrible for us is, at the very least, dishonest. Let’s be honest with each other. Everyone is satisfied with our maternity ward and our attitude,” Kuzenkova said at the January 15 meeting.

Repairs were carried out collectively by local activists, business representatives, and ordinary residents. The discharge room and shower were renovated, hot water was installed, and two water heaters were purchased.

“Hot water used to be intermittent here,” Lyudmila said. “It’s often shut off in the city – sometimes the hot, sometimes the cold. But in a maternity ward, it’s essential.”

Despite this, local authorities have refused to discuss the situation with residents. On January 28, at the first legislative assembly session of 2026, deputies declined to discuss the maternity ward’s closure.

“The decision to close it came like a bolt from the blue. No one asked the residents. There were no meetings, no surveys, not even information from the city administration. The city head responded to residents’ request for dialogue almost a month after the request, under public pressure – and even then it wasn’t a dialogue, just a post on his official page about forming a ‘working group,’” Poberezhnaya said.

“Our municipal head [Alexei] Andrianov doesn’t contact us at all,” Lyudmila added. “There are eight people in our initiative group. We left them all our contact details, but no one ever reached out. Andrianov just writes some ridiculous excuses, saying he plans to ask the governor to build a new maternity hospital. That’s nonsense. They don’t have money to equip the old one, but they’re going to build a new one?”

In the State Duma, Kolchugino residents are receiving more support. Nina Ostanina, head of the Duma Committee on Family Protection and a Communist Party deputy, called the residents’ actions “an example of genuine popular struggle.”

“The example of Kolchugino residents and our communists from the Vladimir Region, who went out in the bitter cold to defend their maternity ward, is an example of true grassroots struggle. The elimination of obstetric care is a blow to Russia’s future,” Ostanina said.

The ward was originally set to close on February 1, but after the public outcry, regional authorities extended its operation until May 15. District head Alexei Andrianov promised to retain the entire staff at their current salaries. He said that, if necessary, employees would be retrained, women’s consultation services strengthened, and the number of beds in the gynecology department increased. He also said he had suggested that the governor consider building a new modern maternity hospital in Kolchugino.

For now, residents say they plan to continue their fight – holding protests and trying to force a real dialogue with the authorities.

Originally published in Russian on Veter.