Description

There about 1 million homeless children throughout Russia, St. Petersburg alone counts 16,000 street children.

Transcript

The Homeless Children of Russia Narrator … that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in untold numbers of personal tragedies. While the end of communist schools it has lead to many positive political and economic changes in people’s lives, it also lead to family break down, growing poverty and an increase in alcoholism. One of the saddest social indicators is the number of children now forced to live and work on Russian’s streets. It's a totally new phenomenon. Today estimate showed there are one million homeless children through out Russia. In Saint Petersburg alone, there are 16,000 street children. It's a situation that Russian President Vladimir Putin has summed up as the most threatening of this country’s economic and social indicators. Vera Smirnova: The whole system was destroyed and the system of learning’s was destroyed as well. And many people of faith don’t believe in their future. They don’t refer to any ideals because they don’t believe in the ideals which existed in the former Soviet Union and the new idea was or could be a little innovation for them. The relations of people are destroyed and parents don’t take care of their children. Narrator: Max is 13 and Yuri 11, they live in the eastern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. They sleep in the attic at the top of this eight storey- housing block. In the winter, they sleep in the basement. Max: This is our cushion, we sleep on it, and we use it instead of a pillow. When it is warm we use our jackets as a pillow while the cat sleeps on this one. This is our typical food for the day with macaroni, dry pasta. We don’t eat hot food because we have nowhere to cook it. This is our hiding place. We hide all the most important things here but they always go missing. This is our bed. We've only got it today because the previous blanket was--well someone privatized it. Well it was nicked. And these are our kittens. We took them away because the woman wanted to drown them. We felt sorry for them and took them to live with us. They live here, we feed them when we have food obviously. This cat is mine by the way, I have a female cat and he— Yuri: This is my cat. Narrator: Max and Yuri have been living here for the last eight months. They ran away from home for different reasons. Yuri was being beaten by his alcoholic stepfather. Max’s mother is dead and his father was never at home. They have abandoned school and neither of them wants to return home or to move to the government shelters which have been offered to them. They met on the streets when they were begging. Yuri: It's me who usually protect him Max: Yes, usually he protects me but it is all depends. Sometimes I feel sorry for him especially when his mom had tried to take him home the other day and he started crying and tried to run away then I felt sorry for him. He only just escaped. Yuri: It all starts with little things. My stepfather gets drunk and starts beating me up, for things like I haven’t thrown the rubbish away or done the dishes just for little things. Three months ago, my mom met me and I told her that I’m not coming back home. She tried to frighten me by saying she would tell the police. I told her either she live with me or the stepfather; but she didn’t care enough and walked away. Sometimes I cry when I think about my mom.