"I did not know what I was sobbing from"

Lena had every chance to burn young and leave nothing after. By the age of forty, she approached with many years of drug addiction, several prison terms, HIV infection and work in a foreign country. This is a striking story of one rebirth

"You can live without it"

Until recently, Lena had only one entry in the work book: in the mid-90s, she worked for four months at a dairy in her native Belarusian town Orsha, not far from the border with Russia. A mother, who dedicated to the enterprise for several decades, attached her to the plant. By the time of employment, Lena had already tried drugs, graduated from nine school classes and abandoned the school. At the factory, she also did not linger.

“I know my life [which],” says Lena, as if brushing off the past, trying to drive him away, “at the age of 17 I tried prohibited substances. For the first time, in the not so long places, it hit at the age of 18. And, leaving there, again I used it. And this was repeated five times, probably. I really don’t want to remember this. ”

In this mode, Elena lived for two decades. During this time, she got married twice unsuccessfully, again went to prison. Having freed myself for the last time, I tried to somehow establish my life, to start earning. She could not find work in Orsha because of a bad reputation and several criminal records: "More than half of the city they knew me, and if they did not know, they asked where I was so many years."

She managed to get in the foundry in Vyazma, the city in the Smolensk region. Lena worked as a rotational basis: two weeks in Russia, two houses.

“Systematically, I did not use then only when there was a strong desire. I just wanted to, probably, relax, or something, but only upon arrival here, in Belarus, ”she recalls. -Then new acquaintances appeared, somehow I got into the work. New people, completely different. Others are in the sense that they are far from all this. I liked it so much, I realized that you can live without this [drugs]. ”

Elena photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD

In 2013, one of the return to Belarus almost ended in the tragedies for Elena. She went too far with drugs and went out onto the road, not noticing a passing car.

“After the accident, I was in a coma for seven days, then all the broken -down year was laid out. I was predicted by disability, I was already depressed that I wanted to get into the house of the elderly, to get some kind of disabled person so as not to burden anyone. But in the end she got up and ran. I ran where? To work! " - laughing, says Lena.

"My nerves will not stand me"

Having recovered after the accident, Elena decided that the best way out for her would continue to work in Russia. She found a new place for herself - permanent, not shift. I got a job in a vegetable base in Dolgoprudny - to sort out fruits. I settled in a hostel, refused drugs. In principle, she liked the work, and they paid well, but three years later conflicts began to arise with the neighbors.

“At that time I didn’t use, but I don’t like alcohol at all, I don’t like to drink, but we had it there,” says Lena. - And I quarreled very much there. And I understand that my nerves will not stand me. And that, God forbid, in Russia I do not want to go to jail, and I need to leave there. And so I collect the little things that I had, I’m walking along the street, asking where the rooms rented ... ”

She rented a small room in the private sector. Other workers from Russia and neighboring countries lived in a three -story wooden house. The elderly owner of the house had a son Igor.

Elena in the ward in the hospital, where she undergoes treatment photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD For almost ten years, Elena has been living with her legs. Against the background of thrombophlebitis and varicose veins, trophic ulcers developed. Elena is so used to living with pain in her legs that she does not even imagine her life without this pain photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD

Talking about Igor, Elena is shy like a young girl. She immediately liked him, and soon they began to live together. So he returns from a walk with his son Danik, and Lena introduces us to the video. The child immediately climbs to his mother's knees. Igor sits on a chair in the corner of the room. Smiles. How all three love each other, you can see without any words.

And then, four years ago, only Lena and Igor were in Dolgoprudny. Both lovers continued to work, even despite the returned addiction to prohibited substances. Everything changed a few months later, when they suddenly ended up on the street: in a bathhouse located between the houses, something happened to the wiring, and it caught fire. “The bathhouse flashed,” Lena recalls, “the fire instantly spread to the house and the garage.” Several fire engines stewed fire all night. None of the residents were injured, but the houses burned to the ground.

"People, help!"

After the fire that happened in the summer of 2016, Lena, Igor and his father moved to the “Summer House” - a small change house, which was heated by a gas stove. They crowded in a trailer without water and amenities, but no one had other housing, and together with the houses the family lost most of the income. After a couple of months - already in stress from what was happening - Lena decided to make a pregnancy test.

“Of course, I learned about my pregnancy only in four and a half months, because this is my first at forty years old. I didn’t even feel anything on my own, ”Lena shrugs his hands. - And when I bought this test and he showed me a positive result, I was in such a shock, in such a panic! I read some phone number on it and called. I don’t know what I said there, apparently, all nonsense ... But the meaning is: “People, help! Help! I don’t want to.” In a foreign country. Forgive me, Lord, for my thoughts, but probably just wanted to get rid of. ”

Elena and Igor photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD

Thanks to this call, Elena met her namesake - volunteer Lena, whom she recalls with a kind word. Elena and Igor then did not have funds at all to make an ultrasound, be registered in connection with pregnancy (for foreigners this is a paid service) or an abortion. But after the ultrasound, which was paid by the charity fund, the need for termination of pregnancy disappeared by itself.

“Lena took me an ultrasound, and the boy’s ultrasound shows me. Four and a half months. And I did not feel! Well, I did not know what I was sobbing from. Either from joy, or from hopelessness, because she did not know how and what would happen to me, ”Elena says in an interrupted voice and wipes her tears.

"Cremming history"

After the ultrasound, Elena firmly decided that she would give birth, no matter what. In this she was supported by Igor, who always remained nearby. But the couple still did not have normal housing, and childbirth was inevitably approaching. Lena says that she was then in very poor condition, cried daily and said that she wanted to get under the train. Even when at the beginning of December - three weeks before the appointed time - her stomach was very ill, she was afraid to call an ambulance, she was persuaded by a neighbor.

Daniel, three years. Son of Elena and Igor Photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD

Danik was born completely healthy, but with a slight lack of weight. Five days later, the doctors wrote it out and, as it turned out, at the same time contacted the guardianship authorities. In addition, in the hospital, Lena revealed HIV. Elena’s rights were violated there: she was not given a birth certificate, was forced to refuse the child and did not offer alternative assistance provided by law. They did not have time to stay at home with their son: on the third day, social workers came to the house, accompanied by police officers and seized Danika, and, as the psychologist of the Foundation “Volunteers to help orphans” Alexander Ivanov, with a large number of violations.

Elena met Alexandra and her colleagues just at this stage. The volunteer Lena advised to turn to them, and Elena did it as soon as her son was seized. Experts came to Dolgoprudny very quickly and began active actions to return the child. They planned to settle Elena with Danik in the “warm house”, which was created by the Fund specifically for the residence of mothers with children. But returning his son was completely difficult.

Elena plays with her son Daniel photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD

“When we arrived at the hospital to get documents that Lena did not initially issue, medical staff categorically refused to issue anything,” says Alexandra Ivanova. - The head of the department, to which we were sent, said in direct text that she would make every effort to deprive the Lena of parental rights. Here, of course, Lenin was played by a difficult story. ”

"How a person will appear"

Alexandra admits that the decision to help Lena was not simple: the specialists had the reason to worry about how she would cope with motherhood. But all doubts were dispelled by Elena herself. She did everything to save her gift. Everything that depended on her. She collaborated, performed agreements, received certificates, gave tests to confirm that she no longer used drugs, and constantly sought dates with her son, which did not give permission for a very long time. At first, she did not believe in the kindness of volunteers, she was looking for some kind of catch, but now she considers them his saviors.

It was at that moment, when Lena, along with the volunteers, fought for the return of her son, her fate made a steep turn and completely changed the vector. The importance of the family gained under such incredible circumstances outweighed everything else, and the support of specialists helped not to stumble and prove not only to others, but also to himself that life is not finished at all.

Daniil loves to play with dad in a pistol, ball and pull up on turnstiles photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD Igor and Daniil Photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD

“The story of Lena is rather unique, not typical in the sense of consequences,” says Alexander Ivanova. - Because from the point of view of personal characteristics and violations in the emotional, in the cognitive sphere, such experience as her, can very much destroy. Often, with such an anamnesis, it is difficult for parents to cope with their duties. But not a set of diagnoses and features of experience is important, but how a person manifests itself, how he copes with parenthood. And here is a great risk of getting into stigmatization. Because Lena, for example, despite the difficult experience, all this has been saved. This is amazing and very important as a precedent for the analysis of parenthood in general. And all social services analyzed her parenthood exactly the opposite. ”

Negotiations with guardianship authorities lasted about two months. They were not only planning to give Danica, but even the dates were opposed in every way. The fund’s proposals to take Lena and his son to the “warm house” were also perceived in hostility: social services, according to Alexandra, believed that Lena would run away from the shelter and would again become a problem for them. On the issue of Danika, they even held a meeting in the Ministry of Education of the Moscow Region, which is subordinate to the guardianship authorities.

Daniil with dad Igor photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD

“As a result, the unspoken agreement was such that the custody gives the child in the morning, and he and Elena go to Belarus on the same day, and the prerequisite that someone from the fund accompanies Lena, because for some reason they had such an idea that she really needed to stay in Russia, that she would definitely go at some stop in the Russian Federation and again would appear here, and we organized the whole story,” says Alexandra.

The conditions of social services Lena and the Fund were accepted implicitly, and to fulfill their implementation had to crank up a whole special operation. In the morning, Danika was taken from the orphanage and taken - only for a few hours - to the "warm house". There, the baby and his mother had a snack and rested, Danika changed, and in the evening they, along with the employee of the fund, sat on the train to wake up already in Belarus.

"For this here"

The return to Belarus did not automatically solve all problems: Lena did not have as such as such, and she practically did not communicate with her relatives for many years. Therefore, for the first few months, he and Danik lived in a shelter for mothers with children of the local charitable foundation, with whom the “volunteers to help orphans” agreed. Employees of the Fund not only helped Lena to deal with the wisdom of motherhood and get used to her first son, but also took up the restoration of her social ties.

Lena began to communicate with relatives again and was preparing to enter the room in her mother’s apartment in Orsha. Igor then continued to work in Russia, but constantly visited Lena and Danik, and made repairs in the room to their extract from the shelter and put it in order.

Elena photo: Tatyana Tkacheva for TD

Now in this room they live the three of them. Lena left maternity leave in December last year and almost immediately found a job - a nurse in a local hospital. Then the coronavirus epidemic seemed something distant, but no one spoke about it especially, and now, stepping up to work, Lena puts on a full protective suit and goes to help doctors who save patients with Covid-19.

- Are you afraid? - I ask her.

- Afraid. I'm afraid, - says after a big pause. - I look at Danika, and every day - like the last. Nerves pass, of course, but I hold on. I have become a panicier! And I understand that these bad thoughts cannot be catching up with these, but I’m looking closely at everything, I’m listening ... not for myself, of course, but for this.

Lena turns around and points to her son, who ran away from her knees, jumped on the sofa and buried his face in the pillow. He pretends to be sleeping, and he giggles himself, as if tickling him. He had a dream today - he and dad went to the dragon. Inflatable, in a trampoline park.

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