The Herald Magazine

BRITISH SUPPLEMENT OF THE YEAR 10 December 2005

It’s dark. It smells. It’s rat-infested. And it’s home.

What hope for the underground children of Ukraine?
 COVER STORY

CHILDREN
OF THE
REVOLUTION
A year ago, Ukraine was promised a new
future. As the democratic dream fades,
The Herald Magazine returns to discover
some of the nation’s youngest citizens
living like rats in a dark underworld
Words by Susan Swarbrick Photographs by David Gillanders
COVER STORY
T
he lid of the rusty manhole
cover slides to one side and
two small hands emerge,
followed by a wary set of eyes
that peer out into the gloom. A
lone figure pulls himself out of
the hole and cautiously looks
around the litter-strewn,
graffiti-covered waste ground. It’s early
morning in Kharkiv, the second largest city in
Ukraine, and 12-year-old Igor is about to go in
search of breakfast for himself and the six
other children who have spent the night in a
tunnel deep beneath the city streets.
Igor stretches, then wanders off. Beneath,
the other children are starting to stir. This
small underground chamber, which acts as a
maintenance access point to the city’s heating
system, is where they call home. Two manhole
covers, around eight feet apart, mark the spot.
Pull them aside and the rancid stench of dirt,
rubbish and, most potently, glue, assaults the
nostrils. Inside, among the heating pipes, the
children huddle together for warmth.
Soon, at the nearby Universitet metro
station, Igor is begging for money. He’s small for
his age, looking closer to eight or nine than 12.
His face is dirty and scratched; his mousy
brown hair curls over the collar of his battered
baseball jacket. When he looks up, his eyes defy
his youth. Ask him about his situation and he
shrugs. “Kharkiv is a homeless town,” he says.
Originally from Belgorod, Russia, Igor came
to Kharkiv when he was four to live with his
grandmother. He is not sure exactly how long
he has lived on the streets. “A lot of years,” he
says simply. Later he asks the others if they can
remember. It prompts a round of shrugs. “A
long time” is the unanimous reply. Igor’s
grandmother, he says, doesn’t live too far from
here. He sees her sometimes but she won’t
allow him to live with her. She has a new
husband who, explains Igor, is an alcoholic
who would beat him. “Grandma says it is
better that I live on the streets,” he says. “That
way I am safe.”
It’s winter in Kharkiv and the ground is hard
underfoot. Even in the middle of the day the
frost never seems to lift, bringing a relentless
chill that penetrates the bones. Less than 20
miles from the Russian border, this vast
industrial centre was once the heart of the Red
Army’s tank-making operation. Amid the stern
and regimented Soviet-style architecture, there
is a frenetic energy. Tram lines criss-cross
roads filled with ancient-looking gas-powered
buses and battered Ladas. Among the urban
sprawl, home to a population of two million,
stand row after row of imposing and bleak
grey apartment blocks, where grubby, ragged
curtains hang limply at the windows, and
clothes slowly drip-dry on makeshift washing
lines strung across balconies.
In the city’s central district, the children’s
underground “home” is hidden away, beyond
a set of heavy iron gates, on a patch of waste-
land behind the department of anatomy of a
medical school. The area is strewn with
rubbish including old beer bottles, food
packaging and discarded clothing. Scattered
among it are tubes of glue, every last bit of
their contents squeezed from them. Around
the corner, in an alleyway between the build-
ings, sits an old sofa. The fabric is worn and
badly torn in places, the stuffing spilling out,
but it is here the children sleep when the
underground chamber is too crowded.
Theirs is a chaotic existence. This impromptu
community, whose ages range from 12 to 21,
survive on their wits. For Igor a typical day
starts when he rises and wanders to a nearby
McDonald’s to see what food he can beg or
steal. Afterwards he roams the streets,
8 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 10.12.05
somehow managing to appropriate tubes of
glue, despite his lack of money, which he uses
to “buzz” in order to get high. As he walks, one
arm of his jacket swings freely, giving him the
appearance of an amputee, and he tucks the
lower part of his face into the depths of the
fabric. Inside, neatly concealed, is a bag of glue
from which he periodically inhales.
Igor is not alone in his plight. Although
nobody knows exactly how many children are
living on the streets of Ukraine, estimates
range from 50,000 to three million. The
scenario is replicated in cities and towns
across the country. Many street children are
regular drug users; many smoke and drink
alcohol. For those who regularly abuse
solvents, the side-effects include respiratory
problems and agitation. A significant number
have progressed to intravenous drug use.
Levels of HIV and Aids have reached
epidemic proportions in Ukraine. The World
Health Organisation and the UN estimate that
1.4 per cent of the population of 48 million is
infected. Last year 2,025 new cases of HIV-
positive children were registered, compared
with 1,843 in 2003. Around 60 per cent of all
cases are the result of intravenous drug use.
Come nightfall, a raucous blend of Russian
pop and American rap belts out from a ghetto-
blaster perched on a wall beside one of the
manholes. Six youngsters huddle together in
temperatures dropping below freezing – but
despite the cold, it’s a social gathering filled
with laughter and animated conversation.
Then, as a lone figure approaches through the
gloom, the group falls silent. It is clear the new
arrival is not happy. He gesticulates angrily
towards the chil-
‘Themilitia dren’s underground
home. One of them,
go to the he shouts, has stolen
his mobile phone. He
places marches over to
the dark chamber,
bellowing as he goes.
where the “That’s Roman,”
says Stas, one of the
children group’s older chil-
dren. Stas does not
liveand try elaborate – he just
signals for the others
todestroy to follow him onto the
nearby street. When
Roman returns from
everything’ the manhole, he
watches them go but
doesn’t follow. Instead he sits on a concrete
block and lights a cigarette. He appears to
be waiting.
Around ten minutes later the group returns,
and 14-year-old Valeriy runs out to meet them.
“Come quickly,” he shouts. “He’s set our home
on fire.” Behind Valeriy, thick black smoke and
vivid orange sparks are emerging from both
manholes. The boys run towards Roman, who
stands there with a smirk on his face. “The
little ones, they stole my phone,” he says. “I
would have set it alight with them in it.”
Inside the fire is spreading fast, torching
everything in its path. Some of the group jump
in to rescue whatever they can, but within
seconds they are back out, coughing violently.
For a while they stand silently, watching the
flames and the smoke rise, but then, accepting
there is little they can do, they stoop to gather
the few items untouched by the blaze. “Now
we are homeless,” says one of the children.
The irony resonates sharply.
Deep below ground in Odessa, a city on the
Black Sea coast, 13-year-old Sasha sits quietly
weeping. One of an estimated 3,000 homeless
children in the city, he has lived on the streets
since he was five. His story is harrowing. Eight
years ago Sasha’s father murdered his wife,
Sasha’s mother, and was sent to prison. As
s
 Above: some of the
street children of
Odessa, who sleep in
filthy underground
tunnels. Far left:
Dennis, 13, who ran
away from his
alcoholic mother two
years ago. Centre:
Eugene, 14, is one of
the many children
who sniff glue to get
them through the day.
Left: Yura, 11, was
badly burned when
the derelict building
he lived in caught fire.
Previous page: Sasha,
aged 13

10.12.05 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 9

COVER STORY
part of his punishment, he lost the legal
s

rights to his son. Motherless and effectively

fatherless, Sasha was sent to a state orphanage.
Unable to adapt to the home’s strict regime,
Sasha ran away. He has been in and out of
orphanages since, always ending up on the
streets. For now he lives in a forgotten corner
of the city’s Pioneer Park, one of a community
of around 15 children. The group have set up
home in two adjacent underground chambers
which, like in Kharkiv, are maintenance access
points for heating pipes. The first – and larger
– of the two areas is home to older teenagers,
aged 15 and upwards. The second is where
Sasha stays with his friends Dennis and Vitalec,
both 13, Vova, 14, and Roma, 12.
Sasha, Vitalec and Roma have been best
friends since they were five, when they hatched
their first plan to escape from the state-run
orphanage. Beneath the ground the warm air
from the heating system brings welcome
respite from the biting cold, but the surround-
ings are far from idyllic. It is claustrophobic and
dark, the only light coming from the manhole
above. One of the heating pipes has burst,
bringing a constant stream of running water.
The floor is rat-infested, covered in discarded
rubbish and human excrement. The stench is
overwhelming. It is estimated that there are up
to 120 of these communities across Odessa.

The situation has worsened since The Herald

Magazine visited 11 months ago. Besides
making homes in bunkers and derelict houses,
children are now living in subterranean
dwellings such as maintenance tunnels and
sewers. In Ukraine children can find them-
selves on the streets for several reasons, but
few are truly homeless. They fall instead into
the category of “social orphans” – their parents
might be alcoholics or drug addicts, serving
time in prison, or living below the poverty line
and unable to care for their offspring.
For such children, there are few viable
options, particularly since there is no social
pressure for other family members – grand-
parents, older siblings, aunts or uncles – to
take them in. For those who end up in the
state-run orphanages – which will only accom-
modate children with no living parents – life is
equally tough. Overcrowded and still in the
mindset of the old Soviet approach to child-
care – strict and regimented – many young-
sters find it an inhospitable environment and
run away, inevitably ending up sleeping rough.
In recent months many of the street children
in Odessa have spoken of an active campaign
by the militia – Ukraine’s police force – to drive
them from the streets. There have been reports
of manhole covers being welded down, and
entrances to tunnels and basements being
bricked up to stop the children from gaining
access. Such claims have also been backed
up by charitable and non-governmental
organisations working in Odessa.
“The militia have been known to go to these
basements and other underground places
where the children live and try to destroy
everything,” says Sergey Kostin, project
director for The Way Home, a small charity
that operates a shelter and outreach services
for street children in the city. “It is not a
constant action – it happens from time to time
– but children can be badly beaten or hurt in
these raids. They are afraid.”
In a bare ward in one of the city’s hospitals,
Yura sits quietly in his wheelchair. Vivid scars
cover the 11-year-old’s face and upper body,
his head is swathed in thick bandaging, and his
eyebrows and hair are missing. Terrible
s

Igor, left, spends his day wandering the streets

of Kharkiv, begging or stealing food for Vadim,
right, and other children who live underground

10 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 10.12.05

 burns cover 60 to 70 per cent of his tiny, frail
s
body. Yura was living in the basement of a
derelict building with nine other children
when it caught fire one night. The cause of the
blaze is still unknown. The children had been
using candles, but one charity worker
suggested the fire could have been started
deliberately by an outsider.
Yura, who has undergone nine operations in
just two months, has no memory of the events
of that evening. He has only one more week in
hospital, after which he has no idea what he
will do. His parents divorced several years ago
and, it seems, neither wanted to keep him. His
grandmother took him in temporarily, but one
day, while drunk, she took him to a shelter in
the city and left him there. He ran away and
began life on the streets. After being released
from hospital, Yura will probably be sent to a
state orphanage, but it is unlikely the staff
there will have adequate training to dealing
with his injuries.
Across the city, in another orphanage, Vladic
stares out of the window of the dormitory he
12 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 10.12.05
shares with four other boys. Both his parents Above: 12-year-old
are dead, victims of the Aids epidemic, and the Igor’s grandmother
ten-year-old is also infected with the HIV will not allow him to
virus. Although he is sitting calmly on a chair stay with her. She
today, he is prone to violent outbursts. Aware says he is safer on the
of his condition – and the way in which the HIV streets. Top right:
infection can be spread – he frequently cuts his Vladic, ten, is infected
arms and legs, splattering his blood over with the HIV virus, but
nearby doors and walls. staff at the orphanage
He is one of several children living at the where he stays are
orphanage who has tested positive for HIV. not trained to deal
Ludmila Shityova, the orphanage director, says with his condition.
the staff are not afraid of Vladic’s condition – Above right: Sasha
but nor are they trained to deal with it. and Dennis, both 13,
Out on the nearby streets, Eugene, 14, in their squalid
wanders around aimlessly. In one hand he underground home
clutches some glue which he is buzzing in Odessa. There are
straight from the tube, lighting the bottom to thought to be 120
release the fumes. A former intravenous drug similar communities
user, he is also HIV positive. His mother died across the city
when he was 11 – he never knew his father –
and since then the streets have been his home.
Having stopped injecting drugs soon after his
HIV diagnosis a little over a year ago, he now
buzzes two to three tubes of glue each day.
Afterwards he returns to sleep in the same
empty doorway every night.
Yura, Vladic and Eugene. Three boys. Three
stories with an equally bleak prognosis.
Welcome to the new Ukraine. It is a year since
the Orange Revolution, when tens of thou-
sands of citizens took to the streets in protest
at corruption during the country’s elections.
The charismatic Viktor Yushchenko addressed
the crowds in emotional scenes that resonated
across the world. After defeating the Kremlin-
favoured Viktor Yanukovich in a bitter
campaign, the new president promised to
restore trust in the former Soviet republic’s
government – but despite seemingly good
intentions, he is yet to deliver on his vision of
a better future.
In September Yushchenko sacked his entire
cabinet amid allegations of widespread corrup-
tion and in-fighting. Among those to go was the
prime minister, Julia Tymoshenko, nicknamed
the Orange Princess and Ukraine’s Joan of
s
 000V12V :Material:1125897-0.default
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It has been a quiet revolution, but one that has
touched the lives of thousands of children since
it began three years ago – and it is still growing.
Mary’s Meals started when the Argyll-based
non-denominational charity Scottish International
Relief (SIR) began providing daily meals for 200
orphans in Malawi. The idea was to encourage
g
g
pictures of street children by photographer
g
David Gillanders in The Herald Magazine earlier
this year. “We’ve done work with street children
before in Colombia, Peru and Liberia,” he says.
“But the article in The Herald Magazine made us
aware of the sheer scale of the problem in
Ukraine, and that prompted us to get involved.”

Christmas
children into the classroom by offering them a free Since the article was published, Yana, the girl on
meal, prepared by local people, every day. But the cover below, has died.

Offer up to
stemming hunger was just the beginning. Mary’s SIR, together
Meals also gives children the chance of an with The Way

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education, freeing them from the streets, fields Home in Odessa
and factories where they are often forced to work. and the Depaul
Since then, Mary’s Meals has captured the Trust in Kharkiv,
imagination of supporters in Scotland and is funding meals
around the world. By Christmas the project will for street children
be funding meals for 50,000 children every day, and those from
mainly in Malawi but also in towns and cities in deprived EDINBURGH - 20 Multrees Walk, St Andrew’s Square.
Uganda, Liberia, Kenya, India, the Philippines, backgrounds.
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10.12.05 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 13

COVER STORY
Arc. She had stood shoulder to shoulder
s

with Yushchenko on the freezing streets of the

capital, Kiev, last December.
Most people’s hope in Yushchenko’s admin-
istration is fading. The country’s homeless
children have almost no hope left at all. While
the government has shown willing in address-
ing the issue of street children, their pledges
have yet to be followed up with firm policies
or financial commitments.
“Yushchenko wants to help, but there are
many factors that prevent him,” says Sergey
Kostin of The Way Home. “There are a lot of
other problems that must also be addressed in
Ukraine. Street children are an issue that
requires a special approach and professional
involvement. Changes are very slow. It
requires a lot of effort to make it happen.
Ukraine is short of money these days, but
children are our future, so it is important to
invest in helping them.”
Kostin says the people of Ukraine have
mixed feelings about street children. “Some
feel guilty, but many feel irritated by the
children. Others are frightened because they
know that in a few years the children will grow
into adults, and they are afraid they will
become aggressive and dangerous.
“The situation is one which is difficult to
stabilise. You can’t divide the groups very
easily because they have formed new, large
families where they have a hierarchy in which
they share food, drugs and sex. To help street
children you have to work with the whole
commune. Many are also chronically ill, and
that also makes things difficult. This is a gener-
ation of children who have no future at all.”
Sasha is already trying to make a better life
for himself and the four boys he lives with. He
is rigging up an electrical supply for their
underground chamber. Taking an old pair of
scissors he found in a rubbish heap, he cuts
into a cable which runs from a neighbouring
garage. Brow furrowed in concentration, he
carefully splices together the cable and
another piece of wire – taking time to create an
earth connection too – before using it to power
a light bulb and a toaster.
It’s a small comfort – the children don’t have
any bread to toast – but it makes the dingy,
dungeon-like conditions feel more like a home.
They rip pages from an old calendar and hang
them on the bare stone walls, and an assort-
ment of blankets are used to cover the floor. In
one corner, a grubby sheet is hung up to create
a makeshift toilet area. Above their subter-
ranean cavern, the world goes on oblivious.
This group of lost souls are forgotten. p

THE HERALD CHRISTMAS APPEAL Direct-debit instruction to your

FOR SCOTTISH INTERNATIONAL RELIEF bank or building society
Personal details Name of account-holder(s)
Name
Address Bank/building society account number

Postcode Branch sort code

Telephone
E-mail Now give the name and full address of your bank/building society
To the manager (name of your bank)
I want to support Mary’s Meals:
q I enclose a one-off donation of £ Your bank address
(Please make cheques payable to Scottish International Relief)

q I would like to donate on a regular basis Postcode

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Gift Aid and reclaim the tax. I am a UK taxpayer Please pay Scottish International Relief direct debits from the
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Signed Dated assured by the Direct Debit Guarantee. I understand that this
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14 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 10.12.05

 000UEQX :Material:1104441-0.default
32.5 cm x 2 col C

Above: many people

in Ukraine are scared
that children such as
Igor will become
dangerous adults, but
little is being done to
help them. Far left: a
group of HIV-positive
drug users in their
twenties have found
shelter on the top
floor of an abandoned
building. Left: street
children are not a
political priority,
given the problems
faced by president
Viktor Yushchenko

10.12.05 THE HERALD MAGAZINE 15