Alexander became a girl again.

December 2000 - February 2003 by Lyuba Eponchincheva

Even Lyuba, the leader of the street children's help project in Krasnoyarsk, was not suspecting anything, until it occurred that Alexander, the new boy in the shelter home, was in fact a girl! It is not rare for the girls living on the street to sometimes pretend to be boys, in order to avoid being abused. Alexander's case was exceptional because of the continuance and consistency of her role.
	The director of the shelter home Lyuba together with Nastya after her living two years in the shelter home.

This fall six new boys living in basements moved to our shelter home. One of them was 17-year-old Alexander who looks much younger. It was only recently when we found out to our great astonishment that he was a girl! This may be hard to believe, but it really was so.

9-year old girl decides to protect herself by pretending to be a boy.

Alexander's real name is Nastya (Anastasya). He - or she - told that when she occurred on the street at the age of 9, she decided to pretend to be a boy, as the life on the street was too dangerous for a girl. She adopted this role so skillfully, that she was even able to bluff her closest friends during all of these years.

We saw the miracle of transformation

After the truth having been exposed, it wasn't less astonishing to see how quick was the process of Nastya's being released from her role of many years. It was peculiar to follow how her personality and behavior changed before our very eyes. A street boy turned into an attractive young girl in a mini skirt!

Nastya told that she had been dreaming about going to school. Now this dream has become true as she has begun her studies.

"Alexander" tells about herself

After coming to the shelter home, "Alexander" told about her troubled childhood, talking about herself in a masculine form. We pictured this story in our minds through the eyes of a little boy, but then had to rethink everything from a point of view of a girl.

"I was born in a regular family. My father worked as a welder in a factory, my mother, an invalid of second degree, was sick. I attended school.
My father drank a lot and used to beat my mother badly. I suffered from this situation terribly and tried to defend mom. I hated my father. When my mother was paralyzed, father began to drink severely. I quit school.
Soon a day of sorrow came to our family. My mother died, and it was a terrible shock for me. I was 9 years old. I first blamed my father, but then I began to think that this must be the fate."

" The relationship between myself and my father was broken for good. I left the home to live on the streets. I slept in basements and didn't go to school any longer."

" In the beginning it was difficult, but then I became used to the gathering of empty bottles, begging, steeling - and soon also to the smoking, drinking and sniffing glue and petrol..."