The authorities conducted an experiment on a kindergarten teacher in the Irkutsk region: ten years without heating

The granddaughter of 72-year-old Albina Smirnova from the village of Koblyakovo, Bratsk district, contacted the governor of the Irkutsk region.

“My grandmother has been waiting since 2015 to be relocated from dilapidated housing, which was planned to be demolished a long time ago. But he only receives replies from the authorities. She has worked as a kindergarten teacher all her life and is forced to live in an apartment with collapsed ceilings and no radiators, while in winter the temperature outside reaches minus 50. We went to court. We won the case. Local authorities do not react to the court decision, which has entered into legal force.”

We contacted the author of the appeal. And they listened to the story of the kindergarten teacher.

Albina Smirnova was brought up in an orphanage. In 1987, she was sent on assignment to the village of Koblyakovo, Irkutsk region, where she worked as a kindergarten teacher for 40 years.

– Grandma is incredible. She has never raised her voice to anyone in her life, she has so much kindness and love. Her former kindergarten students, who are now over 30, still say hello and send her flowers. “I’m just going crazy because I can’t help her,” began the pensioner’s granddaughter Alla.

At the end of the 80s, the state provided Albina Mikhailovna with an apartment in a wooden house built in 1962.

“The house has never been renovated,” Alla continues. – Since the 90s, the authorities promised to renovate the building, but in the end, the house practically fell apart, it was declared unsafe and subject to demolition. Grandma was promised that as soon as a “good apartment” became available, she would be moved. But it didn’t work out. The state farm that entered into an agreement with my grandmother collapsed, the office itself and all the documents burned.

Most of Albina Mikhailovna’s neighbors left this house long ago and abandoned their apartments. There were no buyers for such real estate. Housing and communal services and the local administration gradually turned off the heating and turned off the water. By mistake, they cut off the water and disrupted the central heating in Smirnova’s apartment. They couldn’t restore it.

Since 2014, the woman has been living without heating.

“Everywhere they turned, from the local administration to the president,” says Alla, “The head of the administration then said: “Oh, what do you want, if even the president didn’t help you.” When my grandmother came to personal receptions at the administration, they laughed at her: “Aren’t you tired of coming here? Don’t you have any relatives? Let them help you, that you are running around, humiliating yourself.”

Alla works as a teacher at school. She admits that she really does not have the opportunity to buy an apartment. But my granddaughter now has the opportunity to hire a lawyer. True, I had to give up my entire salary.

“The lawyer was horrified when he saw the grandmother’s house,” Alla recalls. “That’s when we went to court.” A deputy from their village immediately visited the grandmother. She asked to withdraw the claim: “Firstly, you will definitely lose, and secondly, then you will definitely not get anything.” Then she called me, saying, cancel the trials as soon as possible, you’ll only make things worse for your grandmother.

Albina Smirnova won the case. But still no one implements the court’s decision.

“When it’s cold, I take my grandmother to live with me, but she refuses to live with us permanently. He’s shy and doesn’t want to be a burden. Her husband offered to rent her an apartment, but she was against it: “Allochka, how can I leave my house? If I leave for three days, everything here will be stolen and I’ll be left with nothing.” There may be nothing special to steal there, but when a person is elderly, every thing is important to him, you can’t buy another one…

Some time ago, Smirnova’s lawyer sent a complaint to the governor about the non-execution of the court decision. The local administration immediately offered the pensioner an alternative.

“I went to see what apartment she was offered and was shocked. It has no heating, no toilet, no water, while my grandmother at least has a toilet and cold water,” the interlocutor describes. “Moreover, a family has been living in that apartment for 16 years, but they could have been evicted to the street if the grandmother had given her consent.

Alla sent us photographs of an “alternative” apartment. The toilet is a nook with rusty pipes and a bucket where the owners relieve themselves. The corridor is a narrow pencil case with peeling wallpaper. A room with a cracked ceiling and creaky floors.

– My grandmother is a person with an incredibly difficult fate and an infinitely kind heart. Her mother died before her eyes when she was still a girl. She buried her little son. Her husband died when she was young. She lived alone all her life, constantly telling me about her love for her late husband.

When I ask why local journalists do not publicize the situation, Alla shrugs: “We have a small city, there are only two television companies. On the eve of the elections, I turned to them, they told me straight out: we can’t film this, it’s a pre-election, it will have a bad effect on someone’s reputation…”

“The neighbor won’t come down from the second floor, she’s afraid she’ll fall through.”

At our request, Alla went to her grandmother and filmed the very house where the pensioner lives. We spoke via video link with Albina Mikhailovna herself.

The wooden apartment building of a former kindergarten teacher rests on dilapidated structures. “The ceiling is hanging down, the windows are jammed,” the pensioner comments on the condition of the apartment. In the video there is a ceiling that is about to fall on your head, and a cracked pipe in the toilet. The entrance door to the entrance does not close; it is propped up with bricks. There is no light in the front door, but there are rotten pipes, walls with fungus, and a staircase that miraculously did not collapse.

“It’s scary to go up to the second floor, everything is rotten,” Albina Mikhailovna continues. “An elderly woman lives there, her legs are bad, she doesn’t leave the house, she’s afraid she’ll fall through.”

We use the room on the first floor as a cellar. We boarded up the windows in that room because drug addicts started climbing in there.

I keep an eye on empty apartments abandoned by neighbors. I locked them and periodically clean them. So I can’t leave even for a couple of days. When I return, there will be no glass or doors left. Since 2003 I have been trying to reach out to officials. Over the years, how many heads of administrations, mayors, governors have changed… By a court decision, I should have been resettled back in September 2021.

– Do heaters help in winter?

“Which one is it,” the pensioner waves her hand. – The wiring is old and can’t cope, so the heaters don’t work at full power. I can only turn it on at the lowest power; it doesn’t work at “two” anymore. When it’s very cold, I cover the windows and doors in the hall and hallway with blankets, it becomes a little warmer. I go out into the kitchen in a winter jacket and boots, there is snow in the corners, the floors and walls are covered with ice, there are icicles hanging in the toilet. I sent a lot of “winter” photographs to heads of administrations. They could have covered the entire building with my pictures.

I have no heating because the communications have become unusable. They wanted to fix the problem, but they couldn’t; the batteries and pipes fell apart. While they were trying to fix it, they ruined all my furniture, and then the basement was flooded with hot water, so it can’t be used.

– Haven’t you gotten used to such conditions after so many years?

– It’s not true that a person can get used to anything. Neither get dressed, nor undress, nor wash, nor sleep properly. In the summer I heat the water to rinse. In winter I go to my granddaughter for a wash. Recently they called repairmen to replace the old boards in the toilet. They lifted it up, and there was earth.

– Who do you think is to blame for the fact that you live in such conditions?

“Probably irresponsible heads of administrations and mayors,” the woman answers after a pause.

– Do you believe that someday you will be given new housing?

– It’s hard to believe. But I hope so. It’s impossible to live…