Behind closed doors

A recent retirement home abuse scandal has laid bare the crisis in Russia’s eldercare sector

It began with a video of an elderly man, wrapped in a makeshift straightjacket fashioned using bedsheets bound tightly with string lying helpless on the floor. The footage, which was shared by Russian Telegram channel Shot on 18 July, was reportedly filmed inside Pechki-Lavochki, a private eldercare facility in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan in Russia’s Volga region.

The images sparked national outrage, prompting police and investigators to descend on the facility the same evening. Russia’s Investigative Committee launched a criminal case, while the region’s minister of social protection announced an inquiry into eldercare in Bashkortostan.

However, for many Russians, the incident was hardly a surprise. In a country where the private eldercare industry operates largely unchecked, these exposés tend to play out in much the same way — shocking images, followed by official visits and promises of reform — and then no action until the next incident of abuse comes to light.

Ufa: a familiar horror

Pechki-Lavochki had enjoyed a solid reputation since opening in 2020, with the care facility being subjected to little public scrutiny until a regional Telegram channel, Chestny Reportazh, published a series of images from inside the home, on 18 July. Among them: the now-infamous footage of the bound man, and a woman named Valentina F., whom staff had reportedly deemed “mentally unfit” and transferred to a psychiatric facility, where she died the next day.

“I’m convinced it was the stress that killed her,” an anonymous source told the channel.

The images quickly went viral, forcing the facility’s management to issue a public statement in which not only did they deny that any abusive behaviour had taken place, but they accused their competitors of releasing the video in an attempt to smear Pechki-Lavochki.

Some families of former residents echoed that view. Yulia V., whose uncle lived there until his death in 2024, told Novaya Gazeta Europe that she’d visited him frequently in the facility.

“Everything was clean, people well looked after, clothes washed, hair trimmed,” she said. Her uncle later died, but she insists his death was unrelated. “It’s clear to me — other homes just can’t compete.”

This is not the first time a case of elder abuse has shocked Ufa. Five years ago, similar allegations surfaced concerning conditions at one of the city’s other private facilities, Moya Semya. A former employee, Darya Rozhina, described to a local news outlet how residents with dementia were beaten, were frequently denied food and bedding, and subjected to verbal abuse by staff.

Her claims were substantiated by video footage showing elderly people lying on bare, filthy beds.

“I got the impression they weren’t being fed. The elderly slept on bare beds, with no pillows or blankets. Some didn’t even have a mattress. They were treated horribly. Staff screamed abuse, they hit them. Some of the residents had dementia and couldn’t understand what was being asked of them. It was awful. I couldn’t take it anymore and quit, but before that I took pictures,” Rozhina said.

Her claims were substantiated by video footage showing elderly people lying on bare, filthy beds. The regional authorities opened an investigation, but no arrests were made.

After a visit to the facility shortly afterwards, Bashkortostan’s representative in the State Duma, Zarif Baiguskarov, confirmed that residents of the home had been malnourished and visibly bruised, though for some reason he drew the unexpected conclusion that the residents’ families were somehow to blame.

“What upset me most,” he wrote on social media, “was that the children who put their parents in this home don’t check on them. The elderly have no phones or clothes, and are never taken out for a walk.”

At the time, Bashkortostan’s social protection minister, Lenara Ivanova, described the lack of regulation in the eldercare industry bluntly: “We have no idea how many elderly people are hidden away in cottages behind high fences, under the care of so-called ‘businessmen’. It’s an unregulated and illegal industry.”

Regional lawmakers subsequently proposed licensing all private care homes — a move that would bring much-needed oversight to a sector that currently has almost none.

Indeed, the operators of Moya Semya also flat out denied any abuse in the facility, blaming their rivals for the negative press. Despite the criminal investigation into the facility, it continued to operate until later that same year when an 81-year-old resident died while attempting to escape from a first-floor window using bedsheets that he had tied together.

A court ordered the facility to close in October 2020, and its remaining residents were transferred to state care. However, within a month, Moya Semya had relocated to a nearby village, rented new premises and resumed its operations. It was shut down a second time a month later, but none of its management has been held to account.

Regional lawmakers subsequently proposed licensing all private care homes — a move that would bring much-needed oversight to a sector that currently has almost none, but federal officials deemed such industry regulation “unnecessary” and warned that it could be “burdensome” for entrepreneurs.

Dizzy with success

Russia’s eldercare crisis is not confined to Bashkortostan. In 2023, another shocking case came to light in southern Siberia’s Altai region, after a regional lawmaker shared the details of a visit they made to a remote care facility with investigative project Prodolzhenie Sleduet.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the lawmaker described visiting a care home in the village of Trud following an incident in which one of its residents was admitted to hospital with a leg wound infested with maggots that ultimately had to be amputated.

Housed in a crumbling former school building, the Ravnovesie social assistance centre was home to 76 residents, many of whom were bedridden, under the care of just one man — the home’s director, Roman Shiyan — who was assisted by the few residents who remained physically capable of doing so.

In exchange for board, lodging and “rehabilitation”, the home’s residents were required to hand over their pensions, often in full.

The deputy described the facility’s foul stench, how he had found its residents forced to sleep on soiled mattresses and starving, as lunch resembled pig slop. Most alarmingly, he revealed that in exchange for board, lodging and “rehabilitation”, the home’s residents were required to hand over their pensions, often in full. “They just lie there in their own filth,” the deputy said. “That’s the only ‘rehabilitation’ they get.”

The deputy passed his findings to the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, who promised to oversee the matter personally. However, no charges were ever filed and the centre remains open today.

As Novaya Gazeta Europe discovered, Ravnovesie was established in 2020 by Dmitry Yagofarov, a self-described evangelical pastor. He and his wife Larisa, also a pastor, run a religious organisation called New City Church based in the Altai region’s capital Barnaul and which is registered at the same address as the care facility.

It’s not the first time their name has appeared in eldercare scandals. In 2019, journalists uncovered another home, Uspekh, Russian for success, also linked to Larisa Yagofarova, where over 20 emaciated pensioners lived in dire conditions. Residents’ pensions were siphoned off using the same contract model seen in Ravnovesie.

Despite being convicted and sentenced to four years in prison, Yagofarova was able to avoid a custodial sentence as she had young children in her care. The home was officially shut down — with Roman Shiyan, the current director of Ravnovesie, appointed to oversee its liquidation.

It stinks so badly you can’t even walk in.

Soon after, Shiyan began replicating the Uspekh model under the Yagofarovs’ oversight. In 2021, he was convicted of theft and fraud after stealing money from at least four residents. He was able to get off with a three-year suspended sentence, and has not even stepped down.

Today, the business is expanding. A new facility, Pokrovsky, was recently opened by Galina Guseva — a woman publicly affiliated with the same evangelical church. Reviews on Russian social media have already begun to appear.

“Terrifying! Disgusting place! If you care even a little about your loved ones, do not send them there,” one post reads. “Starving people, no care, no medical help. It stinks so badly you can’t even walk in.”