HOMELESS WITH PH.Ds.
Russia has the highest educated homeless population in the world. Ten thousands of Soviet engineers, doctors, officers, intelligence agents and other highly educated people ended up on the streets during the chaotic 90s.
The radio engineer Ronan in St Petersberg is one of them. One Thursday night in 2002, he was walking straight out of his secure, well paid middle class life and onto the train on his way to Moscow. He lost his left leg in the accident. Then his job, then his apartment. Now he is using crutches, and is among the few lucky homeless people who stay in the Salvation Army’s centre for the homeless in Liteni prospekt in the centre of St Petersburg. There, Ronan is praying that God and donators can get him the 500 dollars he needs for his hip operation.
Estate mafia
Homelessness in Russia is worse than in any other European country. It is more widespread and the preventive social system is less developed, compared to the West. Besides, the homeless have no rights. In Russia, social rights are connected to place of living, and without an abode, no help is offered. And so homelessness becomes chronic for many of those who end up on the street. Even though the step from a safe middle class job was a short one. The breakdown of communism, estate mafia, reductions in the public sector, wages too low to pay the rent or too much vodka are all reasons why so many highly educated middle-class Russians suddenly ended up on the streets since 1991.
Chased away
Now, the 4.5 million poor Russians live in metro stations, in cold basements and in stairwells, and they freeze to death when the winter gets too cold.
They fear attacks from youth gangs, police and people chasing them away. So does even the electro engineer Aleksej, who for several years made a living as a professional hit man. He was a good shooter in the army. When the Soviet state no longer needed his engineering skills, he made a living from his shooting talent instead.
He will not reveal how many people he killed, but he put down his gun after his last victim had seen him in the eyes as he fired the shot.
Aristocrats in rags
The generally high level of education all over the Soviet Union is the main reason why almost all homeless people have high school education, and as many as 10-30% have higher education. Médicins sans Frontieres say that 7% of their clients in Moscow have university degrees.
- Like hobos in Sunday clothing, or aristocrats in rags, describes assisting professor in anthropology Melissa Caldwell at University of California. – They can discuss Tolstoy and play chess, but they live on the street, says Caldwell, who has been doing research at soup kitchens in Moscow and St Petersburg. – Many of them are victims of structural unemployment or illness. Some could not afford the rent, lost their certificate of abode after a sentence, or moved to a large city without finding a place to live.
Do not inherit poverty
- They do not belong to the traditional lower class who "inherited" their lack of education from their parents, but they become poor in their own lifetime, says Svetlana Stephenson, a British Russia expert at London Metropolitan University. She has written the book Crossing the Line about the homeless of Russia. She points out that even though many have fallen from middle class to poverty, most Russian homeless are still “traditional homeless": poor working class background and a criminal record.
Street kids
Like the homeless "Misha" (21) in St Petersberg. He has no education or job. He will rather snatch purses, steal cars and rob houses than take “homeless jobs" for a dollar per hour. His generation does not have the educational heritage after Soviet. Out of one million street kids in Russia, most are school drop-outs. Therefore, the high level of education among Russian homeless will sink with time. Caldwell still does not completely accept the myth of highly educated Russian and uneducated western homeless people. She thinks homelessness both in Russia and in the west have a relatively similar educational level, the same reasons and structures.
Corruption
Anyhow, the fall of the Soviet Union has given Russia a different homelessness. One reason is the estate mafias which arose when state flats were privatised. Through swindle or force they took people’s apartments, and only one out of ten manages to get them back in court.
Corruption on all levels hampers justice.
- Even employees in the social sector swindles flats from people in other to give them to their own acquaintances, says Maria Nergaard in the Danish Church Aid in Moscow.
Crucial papers
The Russian homelessness becomes chronic because social rights follow the certificate of abode. If lost, it is very difficult to have it replaced, and one can almost be counted as an outlaw. One loses the right to vote, the right to receive a pension, work and social support. The importance of the certificate of abode was consolidated under Stalin, but has roots in the ancient Russian class society where the farmer was not allowed to leave his “mir" (village, directly translated “world"). The rules were: If you have no home, you are excluded from the law and the society.
The article is translated from a story published in Norway, 2005, and Sweden 2006.
