Hello, Friends!
My name is Stanislav Chernyshev. I am one of the founders of the Radosvet settlement, founded in 2016 in the South of Russia - the Krasnodar Territory between the Black and Azov Seas, 30 km from each.
Are you curious to know how it occurred to us to begin creating a Kin's Settlement?
It all started back in 1997 with my paternal grandmother. It was she who brought the fateful gift to my dad - the first book of Vladimir Megre "Anastasia".
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At that time, my father was already a successful entrepreneur, co-owner of wineries in the Krasnodar Territory and the Republic of Adygea. He was occupied by regular business meetings, trips, and negotiations – he was working 24/7. Frankly, business took my father away from me, and I almost never saw him in my childhood.
I still wonder how, in such a crazy period of his life, he even managed to find time to read a book, and even more so - to begin re-evaluating his own values?
At that time, he began to lay a solid foundation for the revival of our Kin.
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| My father Alexander Chernyshev |
He also bought a huge number of all the books published at that time by Mr. Megre and distributed them to his entourage and entrepreneurs for free. "Where are you going? Why do you need all this? What do you lack in life?" - such was the reaction of his companions to the information contained in the books. Some businessmen even said: "You are a fool! Earn money, expand your business and enjoy the life of a rich person."
That period of life, according to my father, was the most difficult for him ... it was the period 1998 - 2003.
His friends – entrepreneurs - did not accept the gift and were not inspired by ideas. My father was not very saddened and preferred to proceed further. Gradually, he got out of the wine business, and began to look for a land to create a settlement. By the way, exactly at that time my father came up with the name for the settlement - "Radosvet."
The year 2004 came, and my father chose 600 hectares of fertile land in the Krasnodar Territory, near the village of Varenikovskaya, within the boundaries of the former “Kuban” collective farm. Why there? It’s simple: my father’s father was an engineer in this collective farm. The collective farm “Kuban” at that time amounted to about 10,000 hectares of land. My father spent all his childhood on these lands and knew them very well. The choice was obvious. Of the 10,000 hectares my father chose the best 600 and he was faced with the next crucial step - the purchase of this land.
In order to form 600 hectares of land, it was necessary to negotiate with many land shareholders from the former collective farm. In the process of registering the land, my father signed more than two hundred share purchase agreements.
Since 2005, A. Chernyshev directly engaged in the search for like-minded people for the future settlement of the Kin’s Domains.
He went to the valley of the Zhane River, where dolmens are located. The annual festivals for the readers of Vladimir Megre books were already taking place there. My father formed a small group of people who in 2010 visited our land.
Many of these people desired to move to the land right away and delevop it.
However, when my father asked: “Guys, you are great, but what are you going to live on? How will you earn money, how will you feed your families? ”, he did not hear a clear answer from them. And this bothered him very much, since it is impossible to create a settlement with people who do not have a specific life strategy, or have financial literacy, but only have a beautiful dream.
My father thought about it and decided to wait for better times when there will appear more financially prepared people who stand firm on their feet, have a solid foundation, are aware of their values, goals, priorities, and who have a clear consciousness and financial adequacy.
According to my father, the Kin’s Settlement should be self-sufficient! That is, people should produce their own food - every family should have food independence. The local economy should operate within the settlement. In the settlement there should be almost all goods and services to ensure the livelihoods of its residents.
There must also be an education for children - a school - so that people can live in the settlement all year round.
The year of 2013. My dad recommended me to read 10 books of Vladimir Megre of the series “The Ringing Cedars of Russia”. I was 20 years old and a university student.
I read the books. The result was a complete reassessment of my values and worldview. It was very difficult to admit to myself that:
- I wasted my life in bars and nightclubs in vain.
- I was irresponsibly investing my time into university education to become a prosperous city dweller.
- I blindly strove for material values without even thinking about my own destiny.
Megre's books plunged me into a stupor. I could no longer live as before. And after that the dream of a strong happy family was born.
I visited the land for the settlement. Immediately upon arrival in the settlement, before I even had time to look around, I felt a very strong incomparable sensation of grace. It enveloped me from head to foot, my heart seemed to beat faster, the speed of thought increased, and my energy literally went off scale! I wanted to create a Kin’s Domain – my Space of Love!
But how??? At that time I did not have companions. My friends even laughed at the idea of creating a Kin’s Domain and living outside of city.
Summer 2015. I presented my father with a plan to launch the “Radosvet” project. My father listened to me carefully, then analysed the contents of the project several times, and an incredible event happened at that time: for the first time in my life, my actions aroused my father's satisfaction. In his eyes I saw happiness and genuine enthusiasm! Then I realized that our project was launched!
In August 2015, we developed and submitted for registration the brand “Native Lands”. Then I took up the task of dividing land into parcels by 1 hectaire legally. I got stuck in a legal routine ...
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Autumn 2015. The leaves from the trees already started to fall, and the legal issues of the project were still not resolved, moreover, my pockets were still empty. I constantly questioned mylsef: "What to do? Should I get a job? If I work, will there be enough time to implement "Radosvet" project?"
In the end, I came up with, as it seemed at that time, a really good solution. I went for an internship and began to learn the profession of a lawyer. I reasoned something like this: “It is not known what will happen to the project, but life goes on. I need to earn money now. I’ll get a lawyer’s licence, start earning money and run “Radosvet” project in parallel. If the project goes well, I’ll leave lawyer practice; otherwise, I will stay in the legal bureau.”
Wrong! It was a mistake to remove focus from the main target! It was not enough time for both: building a lawyer career and the project, and I did not achieve success anywhere.
I met the new 2016 year with a depressed spirit. I did not know how to live on.
February 2016. A new hope for salvation appeared on my life horizon: my best friend Alexander Bortnikov, who we have been friends with since childhood, suggested that we take business courses and try ourselves in the business world. Without hesitation, I accepted my friend’s offer and enrolled into business course.
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| Me and my friend Alexander Bortnikov |
Alexander Bortnikov has been our like-minded fellow in the idea of creating Kin’s Settlement since May 30, 2015.
Alexander and I sincerely sought to start creating our Kin’s Domains as soon as possible and to organize the largest and most successful settlement in Russia.
But we lacked self-confidence, experience, and money.
Our strategy, with which we enrolled into business courses, was to launch a joint business project that would bring us the necessary amount of money for a stable life and the development of the “Radosvet” project. We began to search the niche to do business. We tried to resell Chinese goods, then we were selling caviar of the Black Sea mullet, then we even thought about building houses.
After a month of wandering around different business niches, we get very lucky – our business ideas were analysed by the curator of the business course - Oleg Dymkovets. Oleg patiently listened to our business ideas, and then asked us few simple questions: "What business do you really want to do? Is this the business of selling goods from China? What is your base, men?"
Oleg’s questions immediately “revealed” us. We realized that we had a dream: our business was the “Radosvet” project, but we were simply afraid of its scale. And our base was the land.
It dawned on us: only by overcoming our fears we would come to our dream, and this was possible only in the process of project implementation.
May 2016. We negotiated with my father the details of settlement implementation. My father decided to give us, as young entrepreneurs, a chance to launch a large-scale project.
We firmly decided to succeed and were ready to overcome any difficulties on our way!
June 2016. We built a business plan, created a web-site for our project on the Internet and launched advertising.
The first families began to come to the land for excursions. Then only my father met people. For 4-5 hours, he drove guests around the territory of the future settlement and nearby natural attractions, shared his vision of the settlement, talked about the development plans of the project. People came, but did not trust the project. I suppose that the majority perceived the project as a beautiful fairy tale, due to the grandeous scale of the organizers' intentions.
July - August 2016. The number of excursions increased at times. We have been already conducting 7-10 excursions per week. Guests liked our ideas and project development plan. And finally the first family has shown confidence in us and made a downpayment for the land.
September 2016. My father sold 2 cars. The project received the first tangible financial injections. We dug a pond in the guest area of the settlement.
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November - December 2016. We made a cascade of ponds in the guest area, and began to build the first roads; 5 families purchased their plots.
Winter 2017. New families continued to join us. The project began to gain momentum.
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Spring 2017. We began to build a guest house, acquired an excavator and a road roller, and formed a work team out of existing settlers. We also ordered the production of topographic surveys of 250 hectares of land and continued to build roads. 20 families chose "Radosvet".
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| Guest House |
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| Guest House |
Summer - Fall 2017. The first joint working Saturdays , meetings, and mass tree planting events were held; the construction of a new settlment entrance road was lauched; a tractor was purchased.
Winter - Spring 2018. We made 2 more large ponds. The permission to build a new road exit from the regional highway to the settlement was received. The first guest house was completed. 50 families joined our settlement.
On November 16, 2019, we set a new record for the “Radosvet” settlement in terms of tree planting speed - 2100 trees in 7 hours! Through the efforts of the settlers, we planted a three-tier forest belt of ash, mulberry and acacia for more than 2 kilometers long. After 5 years, the trees will grow up to 2 meters and will easily protect the settlement from the wind.
Currently, there are more than 100 families in our settlement. Only 3 free plots are left. These are not just numbers, this is already a huge community of like-minded people and good neighbors.
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Over 4 years, we have seen more than once that the most important are the people who surround you and the environment in which children grow and their future is laid.
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Almost all of our neighbors are former residents of large cities: self-sufficient, educated, entrepreneurial, interesting and fulfilled people who once realized that the lifestyle that the urban environment offers us was a dead end.
We do not have an ideal settlement, nor are our people ideal. But absolutely all of them are real, and sincere.
I hope our experience will be useful to other people who want to, but are afraid to start such a large-scale project as the creation of a Kin's Settlement. It was once said: "А journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Simply believe in yourselves!
by Stanislav Chernyshev
Kin's Settlement "Radosvet"
MORE PICTURES:
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| Community House |
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