The White and the Black Nights

MARIA POPOVA

December 2003

“I would often walk in the city during the night with another girl. If you think it is safer on the streets when everybody sleeps, you are wrong... In the night you always have a feeling that you can be attacked any moment. Every rustle makes you scared and you look around. If there are boys with you, it is not that scary, but in a bad situation they hardly would help you, they would probably run away...”

“Once I was walking by myself in a foggy night, and a man began to follow me. I was terribly frightened. I ran along the wall, turned behind the corner, it was a horrible feeling. My only thought was: he must not catch me! But it was impossible, he was running faster than I. In the last moment a police car happened to pass by and the man escaped. That saved me, I don’t know if I would otherwise be alive today. After that incident I have continuously had the feeling that somebody is following me...”

These were scary memories of Masha, a girl who used to live in underground pipe chambers until we were able to draw her off the street. I often hear similar stories of fear when talking with children during street patrol outings. Children’s descriptions of their horror experiences always grasp my heart.

Many tourists come to St. Petersburg, especially during the midsummer ”white nights” to admire the city. But street children in the night don’t look at the beautiful sceneries.
“Night is the worst time”, I was told by a boy named Sasha. “In the night the big boys may come to beat us up. Or to rape the girls who stay with us.”

Sometimes the people living in the building chase the children out of the stairway. “Some time ago the people came to beat us and hurt one boy on the head and yelled we’ll kill you if you again come to our basement”, Sasha added.

In our Day Center we try to give to the children feelings of safety and hope. We show them love and attention, play, take to picnics, excursions, exhibitions, movies. A part of these children have a home, though full of problems, but the rest don’t have any place where to spend evenings and to stay overnight. They would like to change their lives but don’t know how.

Exactly for these children we want to open a night shelter. After a nice day in the day center the child or teenager is ready to go to the night shelter without fearing that he or she will be closed to some scary establishment. In this way the children will be under our supervision practically for the entire day – and whole time of their free will, which is very important in returning a street child into normal life.

I asked the boys on the street if they would like us to open a night shelter. Their answer wasn’t ”yes”. Instead, they said: ”Where is it exactly? How can we come there? Give us the address!”