“I AM A VETERAN; I STRUGGLE, I FIGHT”
Interview with Vera Yegorovna, a World War II veteran By Anastasiya Dmitrieva, translated by Stephen Wilson
How an old war veteran and blockader who survived the Siege of Leningrad is being denied by a court the proper legal rights to her own home.
StreetSense has encountered many harrowing stories about how the homeless have been harassed, humiliated, beaten, and insulted, but this must be one of the saddest ones. It is of how a 79 year older blockader and invalid who lost both her parents during the Great Patriotic War has been denied in court the right to her apartment in Saint Petersburg because she can't produce “suitable documents” to prove she was a resident at the address of her apartment, and lacks “recorded registration.” This is despite the fact that the police issued her with a document confirming this was her address. The court also claims that because her apartment has ceased to exist by being combined with another via renovation that she no longer has a case.
The judge hearing the plea rudely screams, scolds, and repeats an idiotic question at a sick invalid who is not only destitute but clearly finds the ordeal physically and mentally trying. This starkly indicates the low professionalism, rudeness, and low level of culture of so many judges in Russia. This case undermines the official state claim repeated by the media that all the blockaders and war veterans have been granted homes by the state. We constantly hear this claim from the news every 9th of May Victory Day Celebration.
Well what about Vera Yevgorovna? Numerous untold stories about homeless war veterans are never mentioned—let alone covered by the press.
The story of Vera Yegorovna can only be understood against the background of the long siege of Leningrad for 900 days. The Germans surrounded this city and attempted to ruthlessly bomb, shoot and starve the city into submission. Surrender was not an option. Hitler had declared in late September 1941 that “In this war of existence we have no interest in keeping even part of this great city's population.”
The siege was a nightmare where local people were so weak from hunger they lacked the strength to even bury their own dead relatives. People were literary dropping dead on the streets and left lying there. Many were dependents forced to live on death rations of 125 grams of bread a day. People were living on rations which supplied 300 calories a day when the human body requires 2000 to 2500 calories a day. Although nobody knows the exact number of people who died during the siege it may well come to nearly one million. The immense psychological devastation still haunts survivors to this day. In the case of Vera Yegorovna, one wonders if the siege has ever ended! She seems to be 'besieged within a siege.’
Here she tells her story: “I am 79. My name is Vera Yegorovna but call me simply Vera. I love when everything is so simple. I also like very much when everything is clean and tidy. I had a father that served in the navy for 25 years. I very much like order and cleanliness. My mother died at the beginning of the siege of Leningrad. I was four years old when she died. I remember how a horse drawn sleigh pulled her to the Okhtinskoi Cemetery. My father worked at the Putilovski plant and my brother went to live with my grandparents. I remember that everywhere people lay forgotten on stairways. Everywhere someone lay dead on the streets. When the cordon of the siege was broken I and my brother along with other children were evacuated. I and my grandmother moved to the Arkhangelski region. She wanted to give me to a children's home but it was too difficult for her. She needed to go and work and leave me on my own but I wept so bitterly that my grandmother took me back from the children's home. She had begun to feel sorry for me.”
“My father was a kind and cheerful man. He told me that after the war ‘I'll take you all to Leningrad and we'll all live there.’ But father died at the end of the war. He came from the hospital towards home but fell on the porch and died. He did not even manage to reach his own home. For a long time I wept for my father and mother—until I was 17. I grew up with my grandmother. We did everything. I rowed, sawed and gathered potatoes. I have a scar on my finger from using a sickle. I went to school before the 4th class was closed and then up to the 7th. It was necessary to cross 2 or 3 fields. I went alone and nobody took me. I left, went down into the field, went through it, got up. The field was so big that again I would go down, climb up, and then come to central street Cherepova and Serevnary Dvina. And there was our school.
There was a Kolkhoz {i.e. collective farm} with nothing to do. We went to Komsomolski Putevke.”
“They sent me to Georgia with the strength of a God. I worked in an Aviation plant. I got to know a Georgian man and lived with him under a civil marriage. I did not want to change my original surname. If I had my surname would have become Moshiteli but my mother's name is Solntseva. I was afraid of losing my mother's surname.”
“After 18 years I met my brother. I found him by writing to him. I was very glad about this.I thought we could live together. But when I was visiting him he told me ‘Leave now. We will see each other again.’ I felt offended by him and left him and did not write to him again.”
“My husband died when my son was 30 years old. I wore black. Afterwards came Perestroika and Russians were being pushed out of Georgia and had to leave. My window got smashed and it was a terrible time. I returned to Leningrad. I needed to work. When the Soviet Union collapsed I traded on the streets from 6 a.m. until 7 in the evening every day. Then I would buy cheese or sour cream. Afterwards I grew tired and had to use a walking step or frame. I was already an invalid of the second group. I never got a pension. I thought I could get by doing work every day.”
“I had old Soviet documents and was registered in Georgia. I went with those documents like a refugee because I had no “propeeska” {the permit of residence indicated by a stamp in your passport which you need to provide to employers in order to be accepted for a job.} I was not accepted for work. With difficulty I arranged to obtain work in a canteen. Now many people were surprised to discover that for a long time I lived without citizenship. They gave me citizenship when I heard about Nochlezhka (the Moscow charity agency that helps people in need). They helped me fill in those essential documents. If I had gone alone without their help I would never have got citizenship. The pension fund stated that I had a pension from Georgia. I told them I am no con artist and I had never committed such a thing as fraud. I had papers which showed that I am a war veteran and blockader. But they refused to give me a pension. I asked them to obtain confirmation from Georgia that I did not get a pension from there. I later went to court where they scolded and shouted at me. During earlier times people spoke respectfully but now they are all rude.”
“I met one woman who felt sorry for me and she invited me to live with her. I rented a small room but she did not register me for this space I paid for. I lived with her until she died. After her death her daughter came from America and decided to sell her flat.”
“Before the war we lived in a building at Sapernom Lane on the 3rd floor. There was a bedroom, a hall and a kitchen. That is all I can recall. They joined apartment numbers 21 and 23 together so our apartment disappeared. Now there is only an iron door. In 1994 the militia gave me a document confirming that I have lived there since 1994. But witnesses were not allowed in court. Not my daughter, not a woman I knew and not workmates were allowed into court. All this is soulless and heartless.”
“The court is refusing to allow me the right to live in this lane on the grounds this apartment no longer exists. The name of the judge is Smirnova. She screams like an eagle. She asks questions such as ‘Who did you present your apartment to?’ and 'Why have you no records?’ I feel bad but I have had to answer these questions. She would ask me the same question 20 times and say that I lie. I 'm afraid to go there. I feel very lost when they scream and scold me and I can't answer at all. I feel right away like I am losing all my confidence.”
“I think they expect that with time, I will die and the problem will be solved. They won't have to give any account of this case after I die. I am a veteran and I struggle and fight. According to the television all the blockaders have been given apartments. Now I live at Kremechugski, but I can't live there where 3 or 4 people live. I don't want to go to a children's home and I have cried over it. I don't want to go to a retirement home. Instead, I want to become the master of my own home.”