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After a long exile, the "Gulag children" struggle to return home to Russia
Their families were exiled to labor camps during the Stalinist days and after the fall of the Soviet Union they were promised housing arrangements in the cities from which they came.
30 years have passed, and most of them still live in remote huts.
Now, the residents of the Gulag have entered into a legal battle for eligibility for the apartment
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Russia
Siberia
Work camps
Joseph Stalin
Reuters
Friday, 15 January 2021, 10:50
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Living in a wooden hut 300 kilometers from Moscow, Elizabeth Mikhailova feels trapped just like in the same forced exile her family was sent to during the "Great Purge" in the Soviet Union under Stalin, during which her father was sent to one of the infamous labor camps - the Gulag.
Mikhailova, 72, is one of a growing group of about 1,500 retirees, known as the "Gulag children."
With the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian government promised them housing arrangements in the cities where their families originally lived.
But the promise has not been fulfilled to this day, 30 years later.
Mikhailova was born in exile in Moldova, after her father was deported from Moscow and labeled an "enemy of the people."
It was held there for years, as part of the movement restrictions of the communist regime, but years later Russia returned, after selling the family apartment.
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Tagged as enemy of the people, picture of Mikhailova's father (Photo: Reuters)
The money was enough to buy a small cabin near a train station leading to Moscow, where she lives to this day with her two older daughters, and lives on a pension of $ 220 a month.
They harvest trees to keep warm, and live without cellular reception in most places, and without hot water.
Her older sister, Nina, lived there until she died in 2019, in the midst of the struggle to return to Moscow.
"I'm so sorry she did not survive to experience this, she may have died due to the poor conditions she lived in here," said Mikhailova, who first met her father at the age of eight when he returned from a second exile in the labor camps.
Lives in a cabin with a pension of $ 220 a month, Mikhailova (Photo: Reuters)
As their numbers diminished over the years, the plight of the Gulag children increased over the years, and their struggle seemed lost.
At the end of 2019, however, Mikhailova and two other women won petitions in the Russian Constitutional Court, which ruled that they were eligible for state-subsidized housing in Moscow.
The court ruled that in Mikhailova's case, it was her father who was exiled, while her mother could have given birth to her at that time without him.
As of today, her fate and that of many like her remains unclear.
Internet petitions signed by 80,000 citizens, including more than a hundred well-known public figures in the country, have prompted the government to intervene in the issue.
Critics argue that a bill passed by the government to implement the ruling of the Constitutional Court leaves bureaucratic obstacles that could cause plaintiffs to wait another 30 years for housing.
Legislators and NGOs have drafted another proposal that they say will speed up the processing of applications, and parliament is expected to convene and discuss them.
According to Mikhailova, she will follow the discussions closely.
"We are not where we want or need to be," she said, "we are in exile."
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