Invisible Man

A Muscovite invited a homeless woman to spend the night and wrote about her on Facebook. The President of Moldova promised to take up her case

On February 17, Natalya Chevalkova, a resident of Moscow, told on her Facebook page the story of Tatyana Novikova, a 56-year-old native of Tiraspol. For the first time, Natalya saw a woman a little more than a week ago - she was sitting on the parapet near Sberbank on Smolenskaya Street, opposite the Foreign Ministry building. A week later, Natalya saw Tatyana there again: she was shivering from the cold, her face was severely frostbitten, next to her were two bundles of things. They started talking, and Natalya invited the woman to have dinner and spend the night at her place, she agreed. The situation rather frightened both of them: no one had yet offered such help to Tatyana, Natalya also did not know what to expect.

It turned out that five years ago Tatiana Novikova came from Pridnestrovie to St. Petersburg to work. She worked, according to her, as a maid, a dishwasher, a saleswoman at a flower market. She left behind a married daughter and granddaughter. A year later, all the money, phone and documents were stolen from Tatyana: a birth certificate, an internal passport of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, as well as a foreign passport of the Russian Federation (to travel outside Moldova, citizens of the republic need a foreign passport of a recognized state; according to Tatyana, she is a citizen of Russia with 1996).

Since then, as Natalya Chevalkova told Meduza, Tatyana has been living on the street — without documents, she could not leave Russia and return to Tiraspol. The St. Petersburg police and the Federal Migration Service could not find her in the database for a long time, and only at the end of 2017 they issued a temporary identity card for a period of one month: from November 21 to December 21. Tatyana was advised to go to Moscow and apply to the Moldovan embassy to help her cross the border, but there the woman was sent back to the FMS. “A four-year-long bureaucratic circle closed for the first time,” Natalia wrote in her post. Since then, Tatyana on foot, without specific addresses, went around all kinds of instances where she was sent - from Sokolniki to Tsaritsyno: “I walk around Moscow all day long, I see flags with a sign, so I go there.”

With the help of Natalia, Tatyana was able to find her ex-husband's wife on social networks, get her daughter's phone number from her and contact her family. The next morning, Natalia called the Embassy of Moldova - and there she was confirmed that they could not help. “A representative of the embassy… said that he did not know such a passport and the country of the PMR, which means that the people of Transnistria do not exist,” Natalya wrote. By telephone, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic was told that she did not have a representative office in Moscow, but Tatyana should be helped in the Russian migration department: make a request to the Russian embassy in Chisinau, and then issue a temporary Russian passport. With him, she will be able to cross the border and return home.

After that, Natalya wrote a post on Facebook, where she asked to help Tatiana with warm clothes, temporary accommodation and, most importantly, the restoration of her documents. This post got over 7,000 likes and almost 6,000 shares. In the comments, Tatyana was offered various kinds of help: clothes, money, medicines, work. In the comments to Natalia's post, an unverified account of Moldovan President Igor Dodon was also noted, from which a message was left : “I took control. Let's try to help." After that, a short story about Tatyana Novikova was released on the First Pridnestrovian TV channel .

According to Natalia Chevalkova, Tatyana did not believe that the President of Moldova became interested in her fate. But for the first time in a long time, the woman spent the night in bed, read The Little Prince, learned about the launch of the car into space and heard the voice of her daughter and second grandson - who was born during her absence. It turned out that the family tried to find her, but all attempts came to nothing. “Miracles happen) Imagine being a completely invisible person for four years, and in one day so many people not only pay attention, but also try to help!” Natalia wrote on Facebook on February 18.

On the same day, Moldovan President Igor Dodon announced that he had instructed advisers to deal with the situation of Tatyana Novikova. According to him, if Novikova fails to help with the Transnistrian documents, then he can give her Moldovan citizenship by decree of the head of the republic. Dodon told journalists about this during the Pancake Week celebrations.

Natalya Chevalkova told Meduza that she continues to help Tatyana Novikova with housing and the restoration of documents, but it is still unknown what actions will be required and how long it will take. “The only conclusion from this story is that we need to help each other more in difficult situations,” she said and promised that she would talk about the progress of Tatyana Novikova’s case on Facebook.

Olga Strakhovskaya