A homeless Jewish grandmother, a relative of actor Mark Prudkin, was helped by a Muslim

She has an incurable diagnosis: disabled from childhood. Mentally retarded. Oligophrenia. Shortly before giving birth, my mother fell on the street. The girl was also born with a clubfoot and underwent several operations. My father was mentally ill for a long time. Then he died. And she stayed…

She remembers little about the famous uncle Mark Isaakovich (he and her father have the same mother and different fathers – author): as a child, they came to visit some beautiful apartment, where theater and movie posters hung on the walls.

The role of the father from The Brothers Karamazov made Mark Prudkin famous. Another, fairy-tale world. Allochka was five years old then.

Now Alla Viktorovna Prudkina is already over seventy. And not only does she not have a beautiful apartment, she doesn’t have any at all. She’s homeless.

As a child, Allochka kept a diary. Mom did the impossible so that the poor sick girl received a general education, so that she would not disappear in this life. But then my mother passed away.

From Alla Prudkina’s diary: “Since 1954, I was registered at a psychoneurological dispensary with a diagnosis of “mentally retarded.” My parents and I had a communal apartment on 4th Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, 24, apt. 21. The house was built in 1905. Thanks to my mother, I graduated from 8th grade in a regular high school. She entered the school of artistic crafts. She worked at an art haberdashery factory where they employed disabled people.”

In 1994, the neighbors decided to exchange their shared communal apartment for separate apartments. The Prudkins did not want to change, since they had lived in this house since 1929, but they were persuaded. The new housing was on Mantulinskaya. But Rebekah Zakharovna did not have to rejoice for long. In December 1998, she accidentally poured a pan of oatmeal porridge on herself, her clothes caught fire on the stove, and without regaining consciousness, the woman died from burns in the hospital, leaving her troubled daughter completely alone.

From the diary: “We buried my mother at the Vagankovskoye cemetery at the 55th station on December 25, 1998. At that moment I didn’t remember myself at all from grief.”

To come to her senses after the death of her only loved one, the already disabled Alla Viktorovna was prescribed strong sedatives and antidepressants. The notary advised her to re-register the apartment in her name. And then everything went according to the well-worn “black” scheme of the 90s.

Some person started calling, convincing the helpless Prudkina that supposedly her mother really wanted to exchange their apartment. He called himself Oleg. “I didn’t believe him for a long time. But he called more and more often. Called almost every day. My head was foggy from the drugs, in the end I agreed to his proposal,” continues Alla Viktorovna.

“Oleg” and several other men, supposedly realtors, took the lonely woman to an apartment on Lesnaya, which she apparently was owed after the exchange. They showed me a bag full of dollars. Then they took her to a notary, where she, without really realizing anything, signed the documents. But that was not all – in order to cover up the traces of apartment fraud, the swindlers sent Alla Viktorovna to the village, where the same unfortunate disabled people lived, just like herself. Alcoholics, mental retardation, schizophrenics, former Muscovites, completely unprotected by the state and the law.

Kaluga region, Sosensky village. Prudkina was given $1,600 with her – the cost of her mother’s apartment.

Alla Viktorovna returned home to Moscow for eight long years…

From Prudkina’s diary: “The whole village consisted of people like me. They assigned two men to me – “Boris” and “Vasily”, the cousin of the realtor “Oleg”. Many apartments in Sosensky were empty, and I was placed in one of them.”

During the years of her imprisonment, Prudkina remembered every neighbor, every comrade in misfortune. She also writes about them in her notebook.

They brought a drunkard, a woman with two children. The mother soon drank to the point of delirium tremens and died. The children were left orphans.

A man, 40 years old, lived with someone else here. After her death, he went to a monastery, since there was nowhere else to live – a one-story house, a frail shack, burned down.

Died, died, drank himself… In recent years, Sosensky has turned into a cemetery of lost souls – it turns out that only the useless sick Alla Prudkina survived.

She survived and made it to Moscow. She wanted to get an appointment with the main investigator, tell him about this gang, so that they would be sent to prison, and she would return home.

“I understood that if my kidnappers found out that I wanted to escape, they could deal with me, they would break down my door, take me by force, take me somewhere where no one would find me. But I also knew that everything would be fine. Because Muscovites will help me, they can’t help but help me. I’ll tell you everything. I will re-register the apartment back in my name and show all the documents in court. I will ask that I be taken alive and unharmed to my former home, with my things, with furniture, and guarded until the day it’s all over.”

She arrived in Moscow on July 3, 2008 to initiate a high-profile criminal case against a gang of “black realtors.”

She called our editorial office and said into the phone in a trusting child’s voice: “My name is Alla Viktorovna Prudkina. I am a relative of People’s Artist Mark Prudkin, a mentally retarded woman. I ask for your help, I believe that you will help me.”

She did something that probably most healthy people couldn’t do.

She went around the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Public Chamber, human rights organizations, the Presidential Administration, the mayor’s office, the Department of Housing Policy – at best, they listened to her. Once, then they stopped picking up the phone. Still, smart people understand that it is useless to fight gangs of “black realtors”.

And she, so naive, keeps walking and asking, and waiting for something.

Where did she live during the past years of new, now Moscow wanderings…

One day she invited me to visit her in her basement in Kitai-Gorod, where Jewish social activists temporarily settled her out of the kindness of their souls. So that I wouldn’t get lost, I specifically waited in a nearby cell phone store. The guard chased her out of there with a nasty broom. And Prudkina loudly repeated: “How can you? I’m a poor, sick, mentally retarded woman, this can’t happen to me.”

In the basement there was a huge mountain of things that Prudkina could not arrange in a pile due to her condition. She poured me a glass of expired juice from a bag: “You know, sometimes such good products are thrown into a landfill!” — cleared a place among the garbage. “I’m afraid that not today or tomorrow they will kick me out of here. The owner will return… Where to go next?

Every weekend Alla Viktorovna went to the theater with free charity invitations. It turns out that there are some from charitable organizations… “Without the theater, I’ll just die!” – she exclaimed. Genes!

Surprisingly, she somehow tried to get out, to survive in this huge city. She couldn’t stand only one thing: when she was told that the statute of limitations for the crime that was committed against her had already passed, and no one would give her back her apartment, she should have contacted the Department of Social Protection, they would help her find a decent PNI, issue her a pension, they will take care of their own… There will be a warm room, three meals a day, a TV and everything.

Then she started screaming, loudly and inconsolably, that we were from the same gang of black realtors and she would still find justice for all of us.

Then he will fall silent and throw up his hands: “You understand that if I move to a nursing home, I will never be able to punish these bandits and return home?”

It’s a waste of time to convince the mentally ill. TV crews were fussing with her, also setting her up somewhere, making stories… But then she argued with them too. In her heart she remained a poor, sick five-year-old girl, Allochka, whom her mother pitied and forgave her for everything.

It’s amazing that she somehow survived all these 15 years in Moscow.

And one more absolutely incredible miracle: when Alla Viktorovna was kicked out of yet another hostel, because it was completely impossible to be with her for a long time, and she again found herself alone on the street – with all her bags, someone, a kind angel, always passed by who was ready to help her. They paid for a new hostel for her, she moved in, ruined her relationship with everyone, and then scattered around Moscow.

The last time she called me was from another shelter at the end of September. She said that some kind person walked down the street when she was sitting in the sandbox, became emotional, paid for her month’s accommodation and also bought her a large refrigerator, because she had a lot of food that she had nowhere to put. But she is again expelled from there by evil people.

It’s good that there are many hostels in Moscow, and even more kind people, I thought. And there will always be someone who will correct their karma at the expense of Alla Viktorovna Prudkina.

“God, Alla Viktorovna, where are you going now with the refrigerator?!” – she said out loud.

I had absolutely no time to understand the intricacies of her life. Moreover, she still did not listen to advice. I was going on vacation. I promised that when I get back, I’ll definitely call her.

And I decided that I would no longer answer the phone when she called. The number ends with “13”, easy to remember.

But then our mutual friend called again. One of those whom Alla Viktorovna also does not leave alone, and said that Prudkina is being kicked out.

Right into the night. The owner of the hostel named Akhmed Ilyasovich (name changed). She says that if we want, we can buy all 8 beds in her room, because no one agrees to live next to her. The Jewish grandmother is too conflicted. “You understand why he’s like that…” the friend added meaningfully. The Arab-Israeli conflict, I understand.

She sighed and started dialing Akhmed Ilyasovich.

“Poor grandmother alone at night.. Especially in the current political situation… I understand it’s impossible with her. Well, where is she now?

“Yes, I understand everything too. “I’ve already tried to settle her in,” the man said unexpectedly in a human voice. – I called other hostels. But she doesn’t want to go anywhere. She always sets conditions on where and how she wants to live. You see, I’m not to blame for her problems either, but it turns out that I’m to blame for everything.”

We agreed that Alla Prudkina would spend her last night in this hostel. And then somehow… Somewhere. But in the morning Alla Viktorovna got lost again. Not a single phone was answered, and even an old friend apparently decided that she had had enough.

Prudkina was found on National Unity Day. In the evening. She called me from the famous Moscow psychiatric hospital.

“It’s me, Katya, Alla Viktorovna Prudkina, I was forcibly admitted to a psychiatric hospital. I didn’t want to, but Ahmed called an ambulance, and here I am.”

Well, thank God, at least one guessed and took responsibility. Warm, clean bed, with three meals a day. It is unlikely that they took her there with a refrigerator, so, most likely, they can forget about the refrigerator. What kind people decided that she needed him?

I promised to visit her after the holidays. Of course, this is not the Holy Land, but Alla Viktorovna doesn’t want to go there.

She should go to Mantulinskaya…