Date
Author
Галина Артеменко
Preserved copy
Translated material
Noev ark goes to the bottom
How to survive a shelter for homeless disabled people in the middle of sanctions.
40 people live in the insulated army tent. Many have no documents, someone has a passport of a non-existent USSR.
For more than 30 years, German philanthropists from the Bavarian cities of Würzburg and Bamberg supported the Maltese assistance service in St. Petersburg. The Germans donated about 60 thousand euros to the shelter for homeless disabled people on Kolomyazhsky Prospekt, a charitable dining room on Tchaikovsky Street and helping low -income mothers and children. Money came by tranches. The latter, unfortunately, is unlikely to reach. Not because philanthropists refuse to help, but because Russia was cut off from all financial transfers.
There will be enough funds to maintain projects for a month - until mid -April.
The manager of the Almighty Assistance Service Service Mikhail Kalashnikov appealed to the city authorities with a request for support. He is negotiating with potential Russian philanthropists and officials of the Smolninsky Committee on Social Policy, but there is no clarity yet.
Residents of the shelter for the homeless watch TV. Photo: Artem Leshko / for "New"
... Victor Goncharuk was born in the Zhytomyr region. He says that everything was fine before the collapse of the USSR, "he served as a proportor in the sapper battalion from 1974 to 1991." And then everything became bad - the service was over, the wife changed, one daughter died. The other lives near St. Petersburg, but does not call for himself.
With Peter, his own brother, who has both the economy and the family - his wife and two adult sons, Victor talked on the phone until recently, but never told him that he became homeless and huddled in a charity tent.
“We called back until this *** (barking), but now I don’t know what is happening there,” says Goncharuk. “Everything will disappear with Peter - a tractor, horses, a cow.”
Victor Putano tells how blind and lived in the dark for many years: “I thought, from a booze, but it turned out - a glaucoma.”
And when he had already lived in a tent, he had surgery - he saw his surge. Kalashnikov clarifies that Viktor Aleksandrovich lived for about seven years, and he was done in the Vision clinic in January 2021.
Goncharuk in the tent is indispensable - he monitors the order, helps the household, is grateful that they did not give the abyss: “Thanks to this establishment ( the Maltese Assistance Service. - G.A. ), otherwise I don’t really want to see any of my relatives - they live and let them live, and here it’s good for me.”
Victor Goncharuk. Photo: Artem Leshko / for "New"
Goncharuk's bed on the upper tier. Below is opposite - a bunk of no one Zhenya Podkadchev. He has multiple sclerosis, hands and incoherent speech poorly obey. Young Zhenya - born in 1986. He says that he has an apartment on Leninsky Prospekt, but there his brother-in-law started a stash. But Zhenya - no, does not use drugs, he is just an alcoholic, but he tied.
With a shaking hand, Zhenya finds a photo of a girl with a chubby girl in a nightstand, says that this is his daughter, he even calls back with her. He dreams of making a passport, returning to his apartment, expel her brother and rewrite her to her daughter: “And where will she get the boys? The matter is everyday. ” Zhenya smiles, he has practically no teeth.
Evgeny Poddadchev. Photo: Artem Leshko / for "New"
Vitaly Galkin born in 1973 lives on the lower tier - his bed at the exit of the tent. He talks about his homeland - the Ferghana Valley, the city of Kokand, how beautiful it is there all year round, what flowers are there and how the snow white on the slopes of the mountains.
An orphan from childhood, he ended up in an orphanage with the sisters - his twin Julia and the younger Anya. From the orphanage went to an ordinary, city school. On weekends I was visiting my grandmother, who loved grandchildren, but could not take it to her - there were a lot of other relatives in the house. After the 8th grade, Vitalik went to Leningrad to study in vocational schools for a welder-for full state support. By the time the school was graduated, the USSR collapsed - neither work nor housing Vitalik in Leningrad did not shine, he was advised to return to Kokand. But he remained - with a passport of a non -existent union. He worked and lived, where he had to, in the end he lost. He had a civilian wife and even a daughter was born, but his wife is now in Israel and a daughter there.
Vitaly Galkin. Photo: Artem Leshko / for "New"
In the homeless and restless life of Vitalik, a bright episode occurred a few years ago: Galkin ran past the Zvezdny metro station when some man with a child called him. It turned out - a cousin! He helped to find the sisters Julia and Anya, they were found in Yegoryevsk in the Moscow region. Brother and sisters at least began to call back.
And last February there was a disaster - he spent the night in the park on the bench, there was nowhere to go, frozen terribly, his legs fell ill.
He barely reached some random acquaintance, lay down with him, and then saw that his legs had become blackened.
The ambulance took him to the hospital, where Galkin made a high amputation of both legs - above the knee. And now he is sitting on the bed of the lower tier in the Maltese tent: “Thanks to the head of the hospital that he sent me here, and not to the street.” When asked if the sisters would not want to take him with him to Yegoryevsk, Vitalik sadly replies that they are already not easy for them, and he still needs to make a passport.
Miron Petrev cleanses the smoking pipe. Photo: Artem Leshko / for "New"
Miron Ivanovich Petrev-a native of the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine. Urgent served in Karelia, then he learned the Russian language, before that he spoke only in Ukrainian. Miron Ivanovich is 68 years old, his labor biography is worthy of pen Jack London: “I washed a gold, Yakutia traveled, they say to me - write a book, but ink is not enough.”
A few years ago, Miron Ivanovich drank bad wine and woke up without a Ukrainian passport. He was in poverty until he got into the Maltese tent. Social workers contacted the Ukrainian authorities, then it was possible, it turned out that in the homeland Petrev was listed ... dead. The wife, children and grandchildren were not very happy to be happy with the “resurrection” of Miron Ivanovich, but they were ready to accept him into the house. However, now, for obvious reasons, everything has been stalled - no documents to Petrev cannot do now and not go to Ukraine.
A tent of the shelter of the Maltese assistance service. Photo: Artem Leshko / for "New"
The female half of the Maltese service is placed in the room of the brick building near the tent. The conditions are also Spartan - bunk beds, bedside tables, several chairs, TV. After March 8, two tulips bouquets live in a bucket.
A few years ago, Maria Buwil arrived in Moscow from Odessa, thought that people who called her would offer to trade in greens in the market, but those, having taken away the passport, forced them to be chosen. Maria escaped, wandering brought her to Petersburg.
Maria is a very thin short -haired woman. She had no one left in Odessa - grandmother, mother, daughter died a long time ago. Maria worked all her life - either a seamstress in the factory, then at the weeding of beets.
Maria Buffer. Photo: Artem Leshko / for "New"
“I came to Russia to make money, but left without legs,” Maria says quietly, but clearly.
In St. Petersburg, she asked for alms at the walls of Lavra. Frozen her legs. She has the highest possible amputation.
In the Maltese shelter, Maria is already a month now.
Next to Maria, Elena Sidorova sits, relying on the walkers, the indigenous Leningradka, the ex -wife of the military, who traveled with her husband all the republics of the USSR. In Kyrgyzstan, Elena worked as a stoker in a border station, in Alma-Ata-in the personnel department in Rono, in general, where she could and where she were-she worked there, did not choose. A quarter of a century ago, she was robbed in St. Petersburg. What happened to her husband, the woman does not speak. Now she is without a passport, without a home. And without the right leg, which was frozen on the street. In the Maltese shelter, Elena helps restore documents.
“Grandfather for Leningrad at the front died, father survived the blockade with a child, and I cannot prove that I am Leningrad,” says Elena Sidorova. “For four years I have been without a leg, I need a passport and compulsory medical insurance policy.”
Elena knits non -wounded things, sells them in the summer, dreams of her own wheelchair.
Elena Sidorova. Photo: Artem Leshko / for "New"
***
A TV is constantly buzzing in the tent - here it is an ordinary background and the only entertainment. The presenters shout so loudly about bacteriological weapons in a neighboring country that the interlocutors are almost inaudible. They do not really pay attention to the news - after they themselves had to endure, you can’t scare them with news. They try not to talk about the fact that they can lose their only roof over their heads - if officials and kind people in Russia will not help. Today, the Maltese shelter is a real noev ark. Regardless of which citizens' citizens or stateless people are saved here, everyone needs help.