Winter came, but he didn't go anywhere

In St. Petersburg, a homeless person, refused to go to the heating point. Activist Yaroslav Kostrov - about whether it is necessary to save people against their will

On Suvorovsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, the homeless frozen to death. Since the beginning of winter, local residents demanded that city social services save him, offered their own help, called an ambulance, but the man refused to leave the street, and on January 8 he was found dead in the morning. Activist, creator of the Central District for a Comfortable House of Hills, Yaroslav Kostrov, was one of those who insisted on helping the homeless against his will, and now he accuses city officials of his death. Kostrov’s post provoked a discussion of whether it is necessary to help those who refuse to help, and whether the decision to die is a free choice of a person. Kostrov believes that it is necessary and not, is not. At the request of the Cold, he explains his position.

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For the first time I saw him in the fall. I don’t know how old he was, and how can you determine: it is wrapped in rags, covered with a layer of dirt. He huddled on the 2nd Sovetskaya Street next to the alcohol store. Then I took him for an ordinary drunkard, which we have a lot in our area, for one of the marginals collecting bottles and tin banks, and then drinking this money with friends. I thought that such a life was his choice, that he has an apartment, and maybe a pension or a benefit. Usually such people leave the street with the onset of cold weather.

But winter came, but he did not go anywhere. I met him again on Suvorovsky Prospekt, spoke with him. It turned out that his name was Vladimir, that he has been spending the night on the street for several years-earlier on the Griboedov channel, then he moved to the Central District-the 2nd Sovetskaya, Suvorovsky, 8th Sovetskaya. He told me about his apartment nearby, which the housing complex restores after the fire-about to finish the repair and he will live there. I am sure that he invented this apartment. He really had nowhere to go: Vladimir was sitting on the street in the rain and in the cold. He was completely unprotected.

In December, the temperature dropped below zero. On the 19th, I wrote a post on VKontakte, in which I turned to social services with a request to help this man in trouble. At the same time, I sent a request to the Governor of Beglov through the regional management center - the answer has not yet come. But social networks played their role: local residents began to endure hot tea, buns to Vladimir, a social district police officer came to him, persuaded him to go to the heating station, but Vladimir refused.

The unfortunate man, sitting in mud and in the cold, said that he was all right, asked not to worry, pointed to the food that passers -by fed him, hot tea smoked nearby. He told me the same thing - a very polite, pleasant person in communication. He did not swear, did not swear, only everything repeated about this mythical repair in his mythical apartment, where he supposedly would return soon.

Real cold in St. Petersburg hit in January. My family and I spent the holidays in Vyritsa, when one of the subscribers, a neighbor in the district, wrote to me that right on Christmas "a man with the 8th Soviet", he died that he "was lying naked on the street, and a cop was standing nearby." This news was a blow for me. I hoped that in the days of the most severe frosts, Vladimir would still hide somewhere. But he had nowhere to hide.

Later, eyewitnesses wrote that in recent days, an ambulance and police came to him three times. I can’t understand this in any way: you are an ambulance, you are police officers, when you come to a person who is going to commit suicide, on self -piles, what are you doing? Of course, you take this person, whether he wants it or not. But here is the same situation. You arrive several times, you see that a person, perhaps insane, invents some kind of apartment, and you do not do it. More precisely, do: you just leave him to die at −18 ° C. This does not fit in my head.

We all watched films about brave policemen who save suicides: first they speak their teeth, by hook or by crook persuades not to take the last step, and when a person trying to make suicide loses vigilance - they save his life by force. So why could not Vladimir save?

My neighbors and I could not take him home against his will, this could be classified as a man’s abduction, but the police have such powers for the supervision organs. In the end, let's not idealize this homeless: it smelled badly, he produced garbage, he defecated right on the street - all these actions fall under the article on petty hooliganism - the Code of Administrative Offenses, article 20.1 - arrest for up to 15 days. We have people plant people in 16 days, but here there is even an occasion. He would be washed in IVS, he would have access to the doctor, but most importantly, he would not have freezed to death. It was just necessary to make a strong -willed decision that this person must be placed on the most terrible cold - yes, let the temporary detention center - but for him this isolation ward will become a hospital ward and the salvation of life. No one dared to make such a decision.

On January 9, I wrote a second post about Vladimir, in which I stated that the responsibility for his death was completely and completely lies with the government of St. Petersburg and its social bloc. I wrote that death from the cold in the 21st century is a tragedy of humanity, it is shame and shame on the head of the officials of the Committee on Social Policy. That in this crazy cold it was necessary to take him from the street with “silak”, and not persuade him.

This post has caused a great resonance, now there are almost three hundred comments under it. Usually, when I write, for example, about urban protection or use of reagents on the roads, I enter into a discussion with subscribers, but here I consciously answered anyone, but carefully studied the reaction of people.

They wrote to me: if we legally allow “causing good” - this is such a strange phrase - then they will be able to come to any person and put in a fool “on good foundations”. They wrote to me that the death of Vladimir is a "free choice of a free person."

Well, I don't like living in such a "free" world. I do not think that new laws were needed here, I know that existing laws are enough to save a freezing person.

By the way, about the laws. In Russia, even euthanasia is prohibited. I know what hospice are: my wife works in one of them - sometimes tormenting, deadly ill person really every day like torture. But Vladimir was not mortally ill. He lived, walked, talked. He could live on. He just needed help. Even if he did not accept this help.

Yes, I accuse the city authorities of his death. I also blame the state.

Every day, taking place, depreciate human life. Every day we see messages about deaths, horrors and tragedies. What against this background is one homeless?

After my post about Vladimir’s death, many media wrote about this story. The discussion flared up whether it is possible to help a person against his will or not. I am very disappointed that it was the second post, about death, and not the first, that a person needs help, attracted such attention. It was after the second post that the “cold” turned to me with the offer to write a column. Nobody needs a boring text about the ordinary homeless, which freezes on the street - you never know such homeless.

As they say there in our police: "When they kill, then come." Welcome to the media of the 21st century.

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office.