The life and troubles of the homeless people in Volgograd
There are long lines of the homeless people in front of the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Central district of Volgograd. The homeless people are not looking for justice there, they want to get the authorization to be settled in the local shelter, where they will be washed, cleaned, registered and then released in ten days. Some time after, the procedure repeats over again.
Alexander Rasstrygin as the prosecutor of the Central district of the city of Volgograd is already used to those daily visitors. Needless to mention, the homeless people beg everywhere in the streets, commit the crimes like stealing, even extortion sometimes. These are not really serious crimes, but the situation has worsened lately. Now the homeless can even kill. The local statistics says that the homeless people committed three murders out of five that were committed in January of the current year. However, those, who were killed, were homeless too.
Two dead bodies were found one day in the Central district of Volgograd. A woman’s body was lying in the sewerage. Then there was a man’s body found in the basement of the apartment building. The murderers were found quickly, the investigators interrogated a large number of beggars and came to conclusion that those murders were committed by one and the same people because of the money – the homeless failed to divide it.
As it turned out, the homeless people have divided the city of Volgograd into the spheres of “influence and control.” Each beggar has a certain territory, on which he or she can “work,” they do not allow the newcomers penetrate into their territories, and if such things happen, then the intruders will be beaten up brutally.
Those people, who were killed, belonged to the so-called church group. Begging near the churches can bring good income for the homeless. The donation of the parishioners allow the homeless spend a winter fairly well: stuffed during the day, drunk at night, there will be even some money left for a smoke. What else can a homeless dream about? However, there are lazy people amid the homeless too. Those, who do not wish to “work,” organized their own racket. One of the killed people was from that racketeering group.
The local government is doing its best to provide the security for the citizens. The locks on the basements and lofts do not help much, though. The saddest thing is that the people become homeless not because of their passion for alcohol drinks or laziness. Some of them lost their homes after divorce, others were trying to find a better place themselves. But life made it happen so that they only got the sewage systems or the jail bed.
Andrey Cherkasov PRAVDA.Ru Volgograd
Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
Kansas City Star : Homeless problem demands long-term solutions San Francisco Chronicle : One citys homeless problem San Francisco Chronicle : Homeless -- time to go? St. Petersburg Times (Russia) : Homeless Shelter Plan Panned St. Petersburg Times (Russia) : City Cannot Just Hide the Homeless
Read the original in Russian: http://pravda.ru/main/2002/02/06/36664.html
