Behind the line

She lives behind the poverty line in an old hut in an abandoned village. He knows several languages, more likely in the world likes to read his dogs. Her story destroyed any of my theories about how people lose everything that they had

The road of life

In felt boots, wrapped in a scarf, with a backpack behind her, she made her way through the snowdrifts and repeated as a mantra: “Rittka, girl, just do not fall asleep. Settling - death. " After heavy snowfall, she was going home for many hours. The road is covered. There were no guidelines left. Only with dawn, seeing the skeleton of the bell tower of the old temple, did she realize where she lost on the way. At home I flooded the stove and collapsed. There was no strength to shake the snow from the felt boots. My legs burned and hurt so that Ritta howled quietly. On the second day, their fingers began to blacken. She got through to the hunting farm. On the third day, the huntsman on the snowmobile took it to the highway and handed it over to the ambulance. From the village to the highway where buses pass and you can catch a passage, only six kilometers. But these six kilometers for ritte as a road of life. And we yourself know which roads.

Her name is Ritta

I read about ritte on Facebook. In the tape, they asked to help find books for a homeless former teacher, who has disappeared a bag with rare library publications in foreign languages. For the loss, she was excommunicated from the library, and for her this trouble was worse than all the others that had already collapsed on her head. Good people undertook to help repay the debt to the library. Wow the interests of a homeless man, I thought.

With a fragile, almost transparent ritte with a wrinkled face and radiant living eyes, we met at the train in Sergiev Posad. She returned from another trip to Moscow and said that she finally accumulated on large headphones and could listen to audiobooks in different languages ​​in libraries. Despite the heat, there were a knitted woolen hat and a warm jacket on the ritte. And in the hands-a heavy bag-tel.

Ritta gets home through the gap between the walls of the photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

For 12 years, ritte lives in a tiny abandoned village in the Yaroslavl region. There, according to official documents, no one has been living for a long time, and the rittic house simply does not exist. Summer residents come to a couple of houses for the summer. Seventy kilometers from the train to the turn to the village of Ritta gets by bus or on the way. The path from the road to the village on a dry summer day with heavy knapserships takes her about four hours. On the crossover, we go for half an hour, literally crawl, now and then touching the bottom rut and potholes. I glance at the frowning sky and I think that if Lebanon, we will not get back on the wet mud. Ritta says that the locals are traveling on Niva and high SUVs, but they cannot even go to a risk without a tractor.

Ritte photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

Rittin the house is on the outskirts. Once the hosts conceived him as a distant cottage-to take a steam in the bathhouse and relax in solitude in nature. Ritta switches to a whisper and says that the owner drove his mistresses to the house. But the house was never brought to mind, they threw it. The second floor was not completed, apple trees behind the house are visible through the cracks in the hallway. One wall went away, and the thin ritte cleverly climbs inside through the formed opening. If the wall collapses, it will pull half a house behind him. And Ritte will have nowhere to live at all. To Moscow, from this God's forgotten angle, only 160 kilometers. How did she bring her here?

The beginning and end of the novel

Ritta was born in the mid -fifties. In the city of Terek in Kabardino-Balkaria. She does not call the exact age, laughs when someone calls her a grandmother on the street, and then objects that she is just starting to live.

Everything now and then call her Margarita. According to the documents, her name is precisely ritte, with a double “T”. Either they were mistaken in the recording, or they werehaw of, shrugs his shoulders of ritte. But with the name there were constantly confusion.

Ritte at the Yaroslavl station. On the train, she rides a hare, running from controllers. Sometimes it is planted, and then the road can take the whole day photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

Dad died of stomach cancer when the ritte was still small. Mom raised them with her brother. She worked as an OTC controller at a diamond tool factory. I bought many books and always tuned the ritte to study well. The girl did not have to persuade, she loved to read and sat all the time behind the books. Grandmother spoke several languages, and ritte easily grabbed new phrases and expressions. After school, she entered the philological faculty of the university in Nalchik, at the Romano-German branch, received a diploma of English teacher. By distribution, I got to work in a good school. Mom persuaded to get married as soon as possible. Say, you want - then you will divorce.

The boy from the Eastfacing called Ritta, they were in love. He went to study in graduate school in Moscow and offered to play a wedding before leaving. But the girl did not want to rush and decided to wait for his return. He wrote long letters about feelings, came on vacation. Ironically, the sister of the girl, with whom he walked in Moscow, worked with rita. She just talked about her sister and showed her photos. On one of them, Ritta saw her fiancé. The groom returned after graduate school and called again, assured that everything that was in Moscow, nonsense, was not serious. But Ritta only shook her head: "No." She never got married.

Ritte photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

I did not have time to recover from one loss, I found out that my mother was deadly sick. Ritta returned home to care for her mother. It is quite difficult to figure out what happened more than thirty years ago. After the death of his mother, Ritta, apparently, had a nervous breakdown. She says that she spent several months in the hospital, then in the sanatorium, she was tormented by nightmares and panic attacks. And when she returned, strangers lived in the house. New tenants threatened her with a gun, his brother tried to strangle her. And she just ran away. She worked in Georgia for several years, received a production injury and lost part of the thumb on her hand. And in the nineties I went to Moscow, I wanted to go to graduate school. The university visited the free listener, taught Arabic. And in order to earn a living, she took up commerce traditional for that time: at the production, at the wholesale price, large plastic bags with pictures came into fashion and sold them in retail. The simple business collapsed into the 1998 default.

Through acquaintances, Ritta left for Turkey. She learned the language, taught English and worked in the Circassian public organization, in Turkey there is still a large diaspora. The Circassian language learned with his grandmother was useful. Everyone loved open, sociable, emotional ritte. And when she was going to Russia to reissue documents for a new five -year working visa, they raised her money on the road as a gift. Ritta dreamed of buying housing so that there was where to return. She had $ 2500. At the prices of the middle of zero money, there was enough for a small strong house in the far Moscow. She already imagined how she would drink tea on the terrace of her house. Ritta flew to Moscow ...

Ritta in the Foreign Literature Department Library Photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

In this place I put an ellipsis, because Ritta has never returned to that former life. The head ended, the page turned over, and then some completely different story began. As if in the printing house, a drunken layman to one novel glued the chapters of a completely different.

Saving dogs

Rittina bag with money and all documents disappeared without a trace at the airport. In theory, the documents could be restored and returned to work in Turkey, dig to the new house. It's a shame, sorry, but not deadly. Ritta even went to the Turkish Embassy, ​​and there they confirmed that everything is in order, restore documents and come. But with a collapsed dream of a house in her, something broke.

At first, Ritta lived in a friend from a friend, then they asked the cottage to be released. However, a neighbor in a summer village said that his friend has an empty village house, you can live in it. And he took the ritte to that very hut. An abandoned village, from which it is so difficult to get out, for a sociable, live ritta turned out to be a trap. The life of a hermit, thrown out onto the side of the road, was morally finished off. It was not possible to grow the garden. There was no money. Documents too. At times, Ritta literally died of hunger. Strange as it may seem, the dogs saved her.

Ritte with one of his six dogs photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

At first she had one tiny button. Then the button thoroughly, brought puppies and there were many dogs. They had to be fed. So, get out to people and do something. Ritta began to go to Moscow. I asked for a village to the station, hid in the train from the controllers and somehow got to the city.

Ritta speaks more about all his troubles with humor than with tears. It breaks up only when he says that while with frostbitten legs there was a week in the hospital, her house was opened and all her dogs were killed, and a braid and pitchfork were dragged from the canopy. Now the rittes have several small dogs again. In winter they are warming together. The stove in a holey house does not keep warm at all.

Photo of Ritta ten years ago Photo: From Personal Archive

Ritta restored the documents only a couple of years ago. The next trouble helped. In winter, in heavy snowfalls, the exit from the house was overwhelmed with a half -meter snowdrift. Ritta began to call friends and ask for help. Those called different authorities. An elderly woman learned about the distress in the district administration and the social protection department. They dug up the ritte, helped restore the passport, issued her a pension, a compulsory medical insurance policy. True, a hitch came out with the documents. Ritte flatly refused to be photographed. With such a face, I said, I will not take a passport - I am shy. And she brought her photo of a decade year old. In social protection, they tried to object that it is impossible to find out the ritte by this photo. “Whoever needs it will know,” she snapped.

“Eh, you would have seen me three years ago: not a single wrinkle,” ritte lays. - But there was a terrible cold winter, there was no strength to walk far for water, I drowned snow or took water in an old muddy spring. If it is filtered several times through gauze and boil, you can drink. But during the winter, all my teeth “flew” at once, and the face “sailed” with my teeth. I turned into a woman-yaga, ”Ritta says sadly.

It is now very shy about her appearance. Going to the doctors too. As he says, I will show them - under clothes, lingerie is all old, ashamed.

Turkish brother

- Do you have Moscow registration?

- If I had a registration, I would not be satisfied with the concierge, but by the minister.

Ritta in a cafe is waiting for the morning to go to his village photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

Somehow Ritta returned home late. There were no more buses. Many kilometers went on foot. And she asked to spend the night in a house in one of the villages along the road. Just sit in the hallway. She was allowed. A few hours later, the sleepy ritte was already inhibited by unfamiliar drunken men, demanded money for vodka, searched, did not find money, beaten tightly and dragged aside. Someone saw traces of blood. They called the police, an ambulance, ritte with injuries were taken to the hospital. The men sober up and came to apologize and ask that Ritta would not write a statement to them. Like, we will do everything for you. The naive Ritta agreed and asked her to make a Moscow residence permit. Those in a week brought her some kind of piece of paper.

Ritta has been dreaming of registration for many years. After all, with an empty passport, neither getting to work, nor to the Lenin library can not go. She is either looking for a concierge’s work, then heses in serious positions, dreams of writing scientific articles about linguistics and in a conversation easily jumps with that about survival on the features of the Turkic language group.

Somehow Ritta decided to look for a job at the Turkish embassy. Either there was a vacancy, or Ritte simply decided to experience fate, but she was refused work. The frustrated one came out. He wandered towards the station and thought about how old she was her nag and no one needed. Suddenly listened. Two men walked in front of her and spoke among themselves in Turkish. All the bitterness from her failure, Ritte brought down on the head of this random passers -by. She gave out a long emotional tirade in Turkish. She complained that he lived beyond the line for ten years, neither food nor clothes, completely disappeared, there was no work. They were taken aback. Not every day in the center of Moscow you will meet such a miracle. They began to ask how she knew the language. Ritta laid out her story to them. One hastily said goodbye and left, and the second called Ritte with him. He brought to a small cafe at the Yaroslavl station and suggested: choose what you want. Ritta was fastened. Then he scored her a full tray and a bag of food with him.

Hakkan is the owner of a cafe on Komsomolskaya Square. In addition to the ritte, it helps several other people who have been in a difficult situation photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

Later it turned out that Hakkan Gayyik was from Ankara. He has been living in Moscow for ten years. Here he and his partners have his own business - a network of small street snacks. And for the second year, Hakkan has been taking care of ritte. Allowed to come to his cafe at any time. He punished the ritt not to offend, feed and give any food with him. Ritta calls him "My Brother." Sometimes a hakkan gives her money, last winter I bought a heater into the house. That's because of the large heavy heater in the ritte and left the bag with books in the backbone of the cafe, and it seems that someone just threw it away from there.

Why it happened

Ritta - a kind open soul - periodically falls into different stories. That three months borrowed most of the pension to a girl who worked at the station. The girl said that money was needed for medicine, soon she will be paid a salary and she would return everything. But she disappeared without a trace with the money. It helps the police to explain with wrapped Japanese tourists. And does not stop dreaming and making plans.

For a month now, Ritta has been living in my head. I am twisting her story in different ways and I think why it happened. “Such things” write a lot about people who survived grief, destitute, lost relatives who have lost the path and who were at the bottom. Almost always, somewhere inside you, you find a convenient explanation of fate to the twin: alcohol, drugs, prison. And as if it becomes easier when you think that "this certainly will not happen to me."

Ritte on the way to his village photo: Stanislav Novgorodtsev for TD

But the story of a ritte, smart, educated, never abused a person who suddenly found himself behind a line without hopes and prospects, destroyed all my theories. I have no answer why her life was so. Ritta does not have it either. If the bag had not been stolen, if the police had not been rude, if the good -natured Turk Khakkan met immediately, and not after 10 years, if his teeth had not fallen and there was a damn registration ...

In the Old House, only 160 km from the capital lives a strong unbending ritte. She survives for many years in inhuman conditions. I didn’t embitter, did not lose confidence in people, she will share the remnants of a tiny pension, give the last piece and will read the anthology of English poetry in English in the company of her dogs and listen to the “Humor FM” radio on an old transistor. Because it is necessary to giggle over something when life is only captive.

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