- We used to live in tents, I even had my own stove… They fed us, it was OK. They gave us Doshirak noodles, sometimes a patty…
Sasha, 54, now a disabled man, is so not used to living a normal life that he almost took for granted the inhuman conditions he lived in with the “beggar mafia”. He has trouble remembering his life before: in his own flat, with a higher technical education, with a normal job and some editorial work…. For many years - since Sasha has lost his passport - no one ever called him by his full name: Aleksandr Evgenievich Lepenichev.
Many years have passed since Sasha became a homeless person. In the 1990s he lost his job and then his house as well. His last hope of finding work vanished when Sasha lost his foot. One winter he fell into a hatch that was covered with a cardboard and snow, and his foot was all wet. No one let him inside to get dry. He was outside the whole frosty night with a drenched foot. When morning came Sasha no longer could walk.
His Gypsy owners kept him together with other beggars outside Moscow. They were not allowed to talk to anyone, even among themselves - the owners beat them for speaking to each other. Their working day began at dawn and ended only late at night. This has gone on for several years. But one day Sasha decided to put an end to his begging.
As always, his owners took him to “work” in the Moscow metro, on the “Prospekt mira” station. When they left, Sasha started speaking to people walking by. He was asking them to help him get out of slavery. He was all shaking and looked ill, but his words were coherent and sound. One could see that he is man that somehow by accident ended up so low in life and is now dreaming of starting it all over. Pavel Proshkin, a man from “The officers of Russian” decided to help Sasha.
Sasha says that it has been long since he wanted to give up the begging and find a decent job, but he only made the final decision now because his stump caught an infection. The gypsies didn’t provide him any medical help.
-They just put peroxide and then bandage on it. Naturally, it didn’t help. I understood that I can’t wait anymore, because if I do, I’ll die.
The journalists from Russian Public Television plan to send Sasha to get medical treatment, help him get his documents back and then find him a job - he really can work. Sasha had a mobile phone, but there was no money on it (a usual thing for people enslaved - their owners provide them with such a phone so that the the slave can be reached at any time, but has no possibility to call anyone). An “Alternative” activist gave him a new SIM card with money on it and wrote down our hotline number for Sasha. If something happens with him, “Alternative” will always stay in touch.