Library Helps the Homeless in Moscow

By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad

It is more than just a library where you can simply read books. The Nekrasovka Library can provide free on-line courses for children of migrants who need to learn Russian, free lectures and even free excursions through the project “Sensing the City.” In fact, the library helped me and my colleague to promote and organise an excursion around the old German Graveyard about two and a half years ago. The Nekrasovka library, located on 52 Baumansky Street, organises countless educational and cultural projects to improve the quality of life among so many Russians. In a sense, the library can be a catalyst for all kinds of creative projects which bring like-minded people together. I have found staff here to be very polite, helpful and encouraging. Libraries can be exciting places where people are invited to take part in fulfilling a new vision of an improved and more caring community. It might serve to encourage volunteers to perform storytelling events, organise free English and Russian lessons, and empower people by giving them a voice.

I recall how one homeless person called Vladimir told me how he spent much time in a library and one librarian tried to help him in many ways. Vladimir felt grateful because in many other places he was not made to feel welcome, driven out and being harassed: one charity providing meals complained of how he smelt when he turned up for their 'free meals' at an indoor cafe.

But a library also serves to act as a beacon of hope which can console a youth or homeless person who is overpersuaded that 'Nobody cares about me.' For a library might be the only place a young schoolchild from an overcrowded family feels a place of peace and quiet. A bullied student can find their place of safety and security when left alone. It might be the only place where a student can prepare for exams or a refuge where he or she attains a reprieve from being suffocated in a stifling atmosphere. In this sense it's important to avoid noise. The director of the library states, “A person must feel himself comfortable to sit and work on the stools which don't make a noise when you move them.”

I asked a young secretary at the reception of the library “To what extent does your library helps homeless people?” The secretary explained, “Well we don't offer a service to directly help them but rather give them useful information which would direct them to organisations which can provide help.” She then went to the drawer and handed me out a little guidebook titled 'Help for the Homeless in Moscow: Organisations, Contacts and Addresses.' We can give a homeless person this if he wants.” The handbook is published by the library. The handbook emphasizes that “All the help is free and independent of personal documents and your place of registration.”

I perused this notebook. Indeed, it might help some homeless. For example, on the first page, you hear about the charity group “Angar Spaseniya,” where they inform you “Here you can eat ,wash, get a haircut, obtain clothes, find medical assistance, and locate warmth in heated tents. Social workers can restore your documents and unite you with relatives or help you return home. {The last sentence seems odd as may be they don't have a 'home' to return to and it's presumptuous. But still, they provide useful assistance all the same.} The charity works every day from 10 to 6 p.m. and have a telephone number listed – 8 {926} 158-07-58. An address of where to find the service is provided: 55 Nikoloyamskaya Street. They also outline the route from the Metro Rimckaya or Ploshad Ilicha. They even go to the trouble of explaining it will take you an estimated 40 minutes to get there by foot from the library. In another page, a homeless person can phone or go to the Center for Social Adaption E.P Glinski. They can spend a night at a shelter, take a shower, warm themselves, have a rest, and attain legal and psychological help. The guidebook provides a homeless person with at least 12 organisations to approach which includes Nochlezhka, and Sprabedlivaya Pomosh {just assistance}. Of course, this does not exhaust the number of charity organisations which offer aid in Moscow--which by the way have mushroomed in the city over the past 30 years.

But many of those homeless people will have undoubtedly heard about those charities via word of mouth from other homeless people!

I found that there were no longer any handbooks left on display for helping the homeless. I thought they had run out of them until the receptionist kindly gave me one. But there are other free handbooks available for other vulnerable groups. Other handbook titles are:

— Help for Refugees and People with Experience as Migrants;

— Psychological Aid for Children and Youth;

— Help for Women in a Crisis; and

— Help for Those who Suffer from Violence and Exploitation.'

It is important to note that many of those people in terrible predicaments are often unaware of the aid that is available to them. That is why it is important that any homeless or woman fleeing from violence should drop into a library or search hard. You never know what your quest might turn up.

For example, it is of paramount importance that women exposed to domestic violence can contact charities that provide emergency aid. An organization named ‘Sister’ provides support for people who suffer from sexual violence and from their close ones and one named ‘No Violence’ can provide an emergency S.O.S. refuge in extreme cases where their lives are threatened {with stays of up to 3 weeks in refuge}. This aid can save lives. As many as an estimated 2284 women in Russia died from violence from 2022 to 2023 according to 'The Algoith of Light Study.' A staggering 93% were killed by their partners. Charities such as 'No Violence' provide individual psychological consultation for victims of domestic violence, plus legal aid, help with searching for work, drawing up a work resume, and providing information on support groups for helping victims of violence.

All such help remains urgent and invaluable in a society which offers women practically no legal or practical protection from violence, offers no special protection orders, and even pardons and sets free abusers without regard to the victims of such violence. In fact, the issue of abuse is not taken seriously enough. While in a playground last week I overheard two 11-year-old girls hitting each other and accusing each other of being abusers and laughing. Striking each other was treated as a joke for some reason. For them, it was a game. But it is when they tease younger and naive children in the playground, problems can arise. Evidently the English words abuse and abuser have found their way into the Russian language.

The Organisation Kitezh can provide a place of safety and shelter for women and their children fleeing from violence for up to 6 months. This is a wondeful and longer-term resource so important for helping. With that long stay possible, women have some stability in their lives and can get legal and medical help, apply for jobs, and even begin a new life.

Advocates should take copies of those booklets out among the homeless and those migrants who are in hiding. They can hand them out to anyone who needs the resources detailed in the handbooks. Such great help is available—but only if those in need know about it!

The Nekrasovka Library initiative in publishing and distributing such useful booklets to the distressed is more than welcome. Let's hope other libraries also follow suit.