There will be no one in house-2

Yesterday, December 12, the Oktyabrsky Federal Court held a decisive hearing in the case “Admiralteysky District Administration v. Pasternak.” Three defendants, representatives of three generations of a St. Petersburg family, are evicted into the Kupchinskaya “kopeck piece” without their consent, calling it an improvement in living conditions.

We talked about this family in passing (see No. 73) - at that time the echo of the major cleansing of the building next door, the famous “house in Kolomna” on the corner of Anglisky Avenue and Soyuz Pechatnikov Street, had not yet subsided. And now three generations of Pasternak - 70-year-old Lyudmila Alekseevna, her daughter Elena and Elena’s son, Dmitry, are forcibly evicted from their home on Anglisky Avenue, 24.
Lena came here when she was seven. Ironically, Dima is the same age now. And the number “12.12” smacks of some kind of mysticism... The circle is closed.
It is impossible to stay (the building is undergoing reconstruction), and this issue is not subject to discussion, the question is where to leave. And here the vision of the situation by the plaintiffs-officials and the defendants is completely different.
To be fair, the lawsuit was not filed against the Pasternaks right away. At first they offered to move to different apartments - sometimes in one area, sometimes in another - voluntarily. All proposed housing, according to the administration, was well equipped and “meet the established requirements.”
“The housing is completely destroyed,” says Lyudmila Pasternak. - With rotten communications, broken plumbing, in ship-like houses built in the early 70s, unsanitary conditions, one option with no amenities at all - no bath, no hot water... How could we agree? Neither Elena nor I are able to renovate these apartments ourselves; we don’t have such colossal money...
Who to believe?
Moreover, according to the investment conditions under which Pärnu Veski LLC reconstructs the building on English Avenue, the company had to provide exclusively new housing (or after major repairs) for transfer to residents.
To be honest, Elena and Lyudmila Alekseevna do not look very much like paranoids.
“Either we were shown the wrong square meters, or the city, in violation of investment conditions, accepted inappropriate housing from Pärnu Veski,” the defendants believe, and, apparently, not without reason.
It would seem that nothing could be simpler: look at all the necessary documents - and the problem will be solved. Such and such an address, a certificate of technical condition... Only a week ago, Pasternak’s mother and daughter finally managed to find out which apartments the investor actually transferred to the city (although before that they had contacted both the Housing Inspectorate and the prosecutor’s office). We saw the list with our own eyes, but who and by what parameters assessed the quality of this housing is still unclear.
But now the Pasternaks have one last chance: a good 57-meter two-room apartment in Kupchino - they are being expelled there by court. There will be no other options.
Everything would be fine, but the catch is that women want two apartments, not one.
“We have normal family relationships, but we lived together only out of necessity,” explains the eldest Pasternak. “For many years, nothing could be done with this room: neither privatize it, nor exchange it. But we are two different families. Elena has her own life, her own budget; We have separate households, you see - even the refrigerators are different! The boy is growing up quickly...
Words are words, but these are facts. Lyudmila Pasternak has been standing in line for improved housing conditions for almost twenty years now as a survivor of the siege, a disabled person, and a labor veteran. And according to the law, she is entitled to a separate one-room apartment. And Elena Pasternak, 18 years old, has been on another waiting list, and she and her son are entitled to a two-room apartment.
Instead, there are two rooms, a total of 33 meters for three.
Forty years on one patch - and back to a communal apartment?
“It feels like the officials don’t hear us and don’t read our letters,” sighs the elderly woman. “I tell them that I will only get a corridor, and won’t even have my own corner, and I’m a native Leningrader... Or then will my grandson go to the kitchen?” And they told me: don’t be picky!
Where else can we pick and choose?
“I pay my rent and utilities regularly, I have no debts. My hot water was turned off on September 11, 2007; from 11.10 - heating; from 14.11 - cold water,” Lyudmila Pasternak points out in her first counterclaim (which was not accepted in court). — True, on November 23, the cold water was connected, but it barely flows, and there is still no hot water or heating. We are freezing, the child is freezing with us...”
It seems to the defendants that in this way they are simply being forced out of the house.
Dima held out until the last moment, but the other day he fell ill with follicular tonsillitis. My grandmother is also sick and can barely walk. Her repeated counterclaim was also considered yesterday - and also rejected.
Lena Pasternak still hopes that Themis will be fair: “We have not given up, we will definitely challenge this decision”...
“There will be no one in the house...”?

Valeria STRELNIKOVA
Photo by Mikhail MASLENNIKOV