No housing provided

St. Petersburg resident Galina Golubeva did not believe until recently that this could happen. That she, a pensioner, could be kicked out of the apartment where she had lived for 17 years. Kicked out for a nine-year-old debt that she was ready to pay off - but no one wanted to take her money.

Galina Vasilyevna moved into the apartment at 122 Savushkina in 1990. I immediately paid a third of the share - 3 out of 9 thousand rubles. Then she paid extra little by little, so that by 1998 she had brought it up to half the amount. And then the default struck, and it turned out that now she could not repay the debt, although she specifically took out a bank loan for this purpose.
— It was not a question of paying any penalties, interest or recalculating the amount of the share. They simply told me that I was expelled from the members of the housing cooperative and now I can’t do anything about it.
And this is how Galina Golubeva lived in her apartment until 2007 - the trial in her case began only in 2006. The decision was made this summer: eviction without providing housing.
Galina Vasilyevna waited for several more months, not believing that she would still be thrown out of the house. But this Tuesday at 8 pm the bailiffs came knocking on her door. The pensioner first opened the door in front of them, then slammed it, but they broke it down. Things (a refrigerator, several bags of clothes) were taken to the first floor of the entrance, and she herself sat on her bales - and at the time of writing this article she is still sitting there. She has nowhere to go.
“It’s my own fault, I waited until the last minute,” the lonely woman, thrown out onto the street, reproaches herself. “I had to appeal the court’s decision, but I didn’t even pick it up from the office.” I just couldn't believe it...
Galina Golubeva, a former journalist, now works as a kiosk selling newspapers. That is, at 51 years old, she is still quite a useful member of society, which has certain obligations to her. For example, give her the opportunity to pay off her debts.
“The stupidest thing is that I just paid rent for several months,” Galina Vasilyevna laments. - This money would be very useful now...

Andrzej BELOWRANIN
Photo by Sergei ERMOKHIN