Translated material
“They filled my face with pepper and threw bricks at me.” Homeless people talk about slavery, teenage attacks and their own alcoholism
Vladimir, a homeless man from Krasnodar, was beaten after asking for a cigarette. Oleg, who lived in a cemetery in Sochi on a piece of insulation, lay there for days after the attack by teenagers. Roman from Armavir worked all winter for free on someone else’s farm - but he’s not offended by the owner, because he promised payment every two years, but Roman couldn’t stand it and left early. All these people live or previously lived on the streets of the Krasnodar region, which, according to a study by the charitable organization Nochlezhka together with the project To Be Precise, turned out to be the most unfavorable for the life of the homeless. Journalist Maria Semenova found out why.
The text contains profanity
Bread in the trash
Feeding the homeless in Armavir park
“My son bought an apartment in a ten-story building on Azovskaya Street, a very good apartment, on the first floor, really. I bought it there specifically so that I could live nearby, so that it would be close. My son comes to see me often,” says an elderly, completely gray-haired woman who introduces herself as Tanya.
She eats soup from a plastic plate that sits on top of a trash can. There is bread on the urn nearby and a glass of compote. Besides Tatiana, there are two more women standing at the makeshift table. They eat what the volunteers of the Armavir “House of Mercy” gave out - for almost 10 years on Saturdays they have been feeding the homeless in the park.
Tatyana is 82 years old. She has a worn, dirty jacket, but a string of beads flashes in the collar. There is a spot of unknown origin on the face. Half of the middle finger on my left hand is missing: “Two or three years ago it was a little rotten, I went to the clinic, they told me to cut it.” Tatyana bandages her finger in a blue handkerchief.
Before finishing, Tatyana pours the soup into a plastic jar and simultaneously says that she has worked as a chief accountant all her life, and even recently she was asked to help at her old job, in a bank. She puts the can of soup in a bag and slowly walks along the park alley home - wherever this house is.
Food for the homeless in Armavir park
People come to the park for free food and you can’t tell they are homeless. They place bread on the curbs and sit there themselves, while others occupy the surrounding benches.
An elderly man without a leg, an “Afghan,” sits on one of the benches. And the second one, younger, twitchy, speaks with anguish, as if he is about to cry, and sometimes he actually cries. Calls himself Uncle Slava. He is about 50, he says that he ended up as a conscript in the First Chechen Army.
“You are still small. Do you hear what? I'm telling you as it is, what happened there. The boys I ran with as a child were brought in boxes. What do you want to know? What is our ass, fucked up, in short? The helmet is on the head, but the head is torn off - and no one gives a fuck! I'm telling you, fuck it like it is, little one. And then it was like that - and no one gives a fuck. I'm answering you. These zinc boxes stink, fucked up, the carriage has been standing for a week, loaded, fucking, to Chechen, fucking mouth, no one takes it, such a stench stands for two kilometers!” - Uncle Slava sits on a bench and sobs. The speech jumps around, and it is impossible to understand whether he is still talking about the Second Chechen War or already about the war with Ukraine.
Feeding the homeless in Armavir park
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