Theory of expectations

The St. Petersburg photographer Elena Kozlova publishes her project “Mom, I fell in love with a bandit” on the “Mediazone” - a story about women who are waiting for their lovers and husbands from places of imprisonment.

This is a project about love, which you, without hesitation, will call strange or abnormal. Give the girl a diagnosis - a fool, lonely, desperate. Many with their soulmate met through mobile chats and social networks.

Of course, women know everything that lies in wait for them in the world of forbidden affection. Stories about violence, theft, scandals and trouble -free drunkenness of the discovered roam on the network, every day they remind you of how dangerous it is to wait for the prisoner.

“Waits” - as they are called - a whole virtual culture, an invisible union of women. They cannot tell about their love to others, relatives and friends. They support each other in thematic groups, share experience. They are difficult to open to strangers; Many are ashamed of relationships with convicts, but continue to wait and love. Behind these prejudices - the same Russian woman, ready to endure and forgive everything, ready to sincerely love the most hopeless. Sometimes from emptiness and loneliness, but more often - from that inner traction, which cannot be explained even by itself.

Elena Kozlova

Natasha, St. Petersburg

“We met on the phone , through the SMS service“ Beeline ”. I was bored. I sent him my number, corresponded for two days, and on the third said that he was in prison under our Peter. Then he remained for a year to sit.

We talked a lot, sent pictures. I did not like each other right away. But the general topic was: he quarreled with the girl, I parted with the guy. That's how it grew into something more, I called on a date. I did not go, as I broke my leg. What surprised - I did not ask for money, like many, and my mother gave the number

In September, he went out at hiso and disappeared for three days, thought everything was over. And then he came to me - the address knew - with flowers and sweets. The swollen is strong, it is noticeable that I got well. Apparently, I felt freedom.

This was our first meeting, then we were sitting silently for thirty minutes. We look at each other, and then somehow it went, from the same day they began to live together.

My relatives, of course, were bad. After all, he sat three times in prison for theft. After the army, he was not free for more than a year. Everyone has stereotypes.

And his family was delighted to me - they say that he changed a lot. Previously, crowds of friends took to himself, drank everything, even a vacuum cleaner that his mother gave. And now for the first time in his life he got a job, he wants children, a normal life.

His acquaintances are completely different. They use drugs. No one wants to work, especially those sitting several times. Seryozha himself says: "So that I go after three sits to work - I don’t understand what happened to me!"

Even my parents softened when he began to provide me, and we do not live with me, but in his room. He allowed the animals to start, he gave the Scottish Visloux cat with all certificates.

Recently I made me an offer, we went to the registry office, submitted a statement. We have little money now, so everything will be simple. We ride around the city, sit with relatives. But I still bought a dress for myself.

The only thing I'm afraid of is his friends. I try not to let them communicate, otherwise it runs out and will get somewhere again. ”

Alena, Moscow

“We met through my girlfriend, who talked with his friend in“ Odnoklassniki ” - everything is trite. He was interested in my 13 tattoos. They discussed them, chatted, and this grew into something more.

Two months later, I had already gone to him on a date. Two glasses saw each other. They shouted through the bars, immediately love-carrots, from excitement, almost fainted did not fall.

The normal date was given only when we signed, after nine months. Because he was sitting for robbery with a threat to life. He and his friends were drunk, decided to pick up the old duty, took away the phone from the person and shot his leg. All three were planted, mine was most given, five and a half years old, since he is from Ukraine.

When we met, he had two and seven to sit, all this time I was waiting for him.

What hooked? The people who are in prison are able to talk with girls. You are the most beloved, affectionate and beautiful for them, even if you have never seen. They specially learn this, read books on psychology. I was not particularly embarrassed, I just immediately asked him to introduce me to my mother. She threatened that otherwise we will stop.

He introduced it. I lived with his mother and sisters for several days.

I went out, we have been together for a year. The child was brought up - two months already. It’s hard, of course, there is no work. Moreover, he is from Ukraine, and for another five years has no right to be in Russia. But I do not think that he will ever return to jail. I am surprised how this man was there. He wears a child for four hours in his arms so that he does not cry. He cooks, removes, his friends are adequate.

He said that people in the zone are different - both bad and good. He himself bred girls for money, but this is because his parents are ashamed to ask. It was not enough for the most necessary, and they fed them with a rampant with sand, crushed potatoes and a blue porridge.

We have a big story in Odnoklassniki, we discussed all your personal life. This person knows everything about me, just like me about him. Maybe".

Natasha, Yoshkar-Ola

“We met still at large. After a month or two he was imprisoned. Our communication has stopped. Two years later, he wrote to me, talked. After some time, he offered to come to a short date. Agreed.

Before that, only the habit of chatting was, and when I saw, I realized that I fell in love. I left the zone - everything is like in a dream. I did not know what to do. I put it on my own. We continued to talk. He made an offer. I asked my friend to buy a ring and flowers. They signed only six months later, since in the summer they do not paint, and my parents did not agree, but I would not go against their will.

Sister-psychologist helped. I talked with my mother for a long time, asked for a relationship not to spoil. So mother allowed, although she was afraid that she was all a deception and a divorce.

We signed in the colony. They gave us time for only five minutes. So little, because my husband is a malicious violator of the regime, and sits according to the 105th article, part one. For murder. For seven years they gave, I waited for two, three more remained.

At first I didn’t even think about these years, and time flies quickly. True, we both change. He became calmer. But still, because of his behavior, we now have no way to call or [communicate] via the Internet, only letters. Long meetings - once a year.

I tell him: I have the opportunity to start dating, you don’t have it - change.

There are many fears. At the cousin, my husband sat, as he went out - they lived a little and parted. And sometimes you read stories in VKontakte groups, the heart is turning over. I begin to cut his brain.

He answers me that this is our life, everything is in our hands, and only we decide.

When it comes out, I want to take him away from friends, somewhere south, to the sea.

At work or acquaintances, I always say that the husband is on a business trip. She told one colleague that she was married to a convict. He to me:

- If it comes out, he will leave.

So what if so? I will then be 25, I can find another. And this story will become an experience for me.

I started to relate, I stopped worried. ”

Natasha, Zarechny (Sverdlovsk region)

“It all started stupid. Then I only divorced my husband. In the "Odnoklassniki" we wrote off, he said that he was sitting, offering to meet. And I am a lonely girl, divorced. I say, let's pin the pitch.

A month later he went out, arrived without warning to my house. And there is only a nanny with a child from his first marriage. So he first met his son, the child immediately reached for him.

And it was strange for me to go home. At work, they laughed: "They bang you, tomorrow you won’t go out, we will begin to collect for a funeral."

I arrived at the house, he met me at the mail. I stand, shy. And he, as they knew for a hundred years, came up, kissed. I have a shock. But I invited me.

So from the first day we began to live together. The next day I was no longer needed. He began to bother with his child, cut, fed, played. Then he moved us to his mother. I didn’t even teach my son to eat from a spoon, he did all this.

We lived together for two years and he again got drunk. We got drunk with a friend, drove in a car, they did business. It was closed for two days. But then they let go, they did not touch the month. And suddenly they sharply put on the wanted list.

He says to me:

- I don’t want to go back, I won’t go, they will put me.

I persuaded that she would go, otherwise they would add for the escape, but he is not in any.

What is funny, my dad is the captain of the police. They somehow quarreled. And now dad began to help the cops in every way. I realized that I had to act through me, took it to another apartment with my child, closed on the fifth floor. I spent a month there, cried very much, I destroyed everything.

Somehow I hear, someone calls, and very close. I think not a fig I had a roof. I went out onto the balcony to check - there is no one. I raise my eyes - it hangs. It turns out that they were knocked out with a friend with a friend. A friend holds his legs, shouts: "Natasha, accept, otherwise it will break!" And I do not know what to do, but grabbed, dragged, apparently, out of fear. Of course, he gathered everything with his head, but still did not break.

We lived locked for a week. Dad arrived every day, brought products. For this time I hid my beloved in the closet.

And the child walks - shouts: "Where did dad go?" I twist my finger at the temple: "What dad, what are you talking about, completely abnormal?"

It was very scary. At night, the husband stood at the door, was afraid that his father would return, he would find us and would call the police. They wanted to flee, but there is a safe-door, not to open it, no matter how hard they tried. Then friends brought the rope, and he was able to go down.

I would have been on the run for a long time, but I got drunk on the city’s day, dared and let the cops send it to hell. He was seized. He escaped, ran, but how far to run away if the police at every step. I knew nothing for a long time. And then the agenda came to the court as a witness.

I came to court early, they did not let him go. We are not painted, although he calls me married all the time.

The term is small - a year for a crime and another gender for escape. But after the sentence, I fainted right in the courtroom.

When they removed from the camera, we were allowed to say goodbye. I am quickly to the lattice to kiss. He grabbed my lip with his teeth and does not let go. And the cop is already rushing. Then, as he was taken out, my hysteria began. I ran behind the car, screamed, roared, his mother barely reassured me.

He was determined in the colony near Kamensk-Uralsky. Signs every three months are for three days, plus additional behavior give additional behavior.

It is expensive to ride them: it takes some thousands of thousands of thousands of thousands, and also to rent a travel and room.

I go to him with my child. Previously, the son sincerely believed that we were going to work to dad. And now, he says: "You're lying, we are in the vague."

The last time the son did not want to leave. Shouting:

- Paaap, let's go home, mom will take us!

- Uncle Polychka will not let me go.

- Mom, kill Uncle Polychka, he does not let his dad go.

The cops laugh, they say that fate was written first to my husband, and then to my son to prison. ”

Yaroslav, St. Petersburg

“I was waiting for my husband. He died in a prison hospital.

We met still on a civilian. Here is not far, in the club. They lived together, walked, had fun, and then I became pregnant. The child was born, lived well.

In the morning we went out the whole family to take a walk, and the police at the entrance. The husband was taken, they began to search the house. So I found out that he contacted drugs, Botirate sold. He was released after a couple of days.

Later I realized that he not only sells, but also accepts, tried to help, but it did not work.

The second time they caught during the control purchase. And it was already serious.

They gave a deadline, sent to Farnosovo (in the Tosnensky district of the Leningrad region - MZ). There, the former lover Mom was sitting, he pulled Sasha. And then the article is not an ice - 228. They do not like drug addicts in the zone. Thank God they did not lower it, but he was considered a goat.

The first prolonged date was given in December, before the New Year. We met only for a day, and not for three - so they decided the authorities in the hut. The next was in April and also for a day.

In June, he called from the hospital: they put in an infectious department with pneumonia. They treated with ordinary mucaltin pneumonia, yes. They gave antibiotics, from which the fingers on the left hand were numb; Apparently, they pricked where it got. They made fluorography, but no tuberculosis was found. They treated for three weeks and sent back.

In the fall, he fell ill again. The high temperature rose, began to refuse food. I had a bad foreboding. And in the prison hospital they said: "Not sick - imitates to feed better."

They sent back to the bunks. He continued to work with a temperature of forty.

In November, they transferred to the gases (to the regional hospital named after F.P. Gaaz UFSIN in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region - MZ), it turned out - tuberculosis. From this hospital, who got with a tube, is unlikely to leave alive. A lot is dying there.

I was in shock from everything, I collected money for treatment. After a couple of weeks, all loaded with bags went by taxi to the hospital.

There the place is so strange: a fence, dogs around the perimeter, two wagons are standing. In one dates with relatives are held by video communication. In the second, the transfers are checked.

I went to the administrator, gave the application. And she could not find his documents for a long time:

- Are you sure that he, maybe, was sent back to Farnosovo?

- Yes, it cannot be that with tuberculosis to be taken back, look carefully.

She searched and said:

- Go out the street, smoke.

I went out, five minutes later the overseer came to me in uniform, said that he was dead, and until I fell into a stupor, she asked if I would take the body.

I was so twisted. After all, neither telegrams nor funerals - nothing came at all.

Three years passed after the funeral. This year I first led my son to his grave.

You know, children, they feel something, see something. When Sasha was sitting, his son did not remember him. Only when I showed a photo or gave the phone. He was small, babbled incoherently. And when dad died, the child began to say that he dreams of him. He walked, showed where dad was sitting and what he was doing. So it was six months.

No one expected that Sasha would contact drugs. He would now be 30, and died in 27. I think, unfairly. And the certificate is somehow unconvincing: who knows what he really died in a prison hospital. ”