The Collapse of the USSR and the Emergence of Mass Child Neglect

The Collapse of the USSR and the Emergence of Mass Child Neglect By Karsten Solheim Master Thesis in History Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History University of Oslo Autumn 2009 ii The Collapse of the USSR and the Emergence of Mass Child Neglect By Karsten Solheim Master Thesis in History Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History University of Oslo Autumn 2009 iii The photo on the front page was taken late autumn 1993 in the basement on Goncharnaia street 8 in St.Petersburg. It was the night patrol of the German organisation “Psalm – 23” who established contact with Sergei Shelaiev (12 years) and Sergei Voronin (16 years). The younger Sergei, who had an alcoholic mother and no father, died only 4 months later after a fall from the 7 th floor in a building (near Vitebskii railroad station) where he used to stay overnight in the attic. The fate of the older Sergei was equally sad. Half a year later, when searching for a place to sleep in a cellar, he was shot with a gas pistol by junkies and lost 80 percent of his sight. In 1997 he was sentenced for robbery and sent to a colony (prison). There all traces of Sergei end. (Source: Dr Sereda’s personal archives) iv PREFACE This thesis is born out of a desire to learn more about the causal circumstances associated with the deep and protracted humanitarian crisis that so detrimentally has affected the life of tens of millions of people in the post-Soviet countries. This thesis also represents a lifetime interest and engagement in Russian affairs starting with a youthful curiosity and determination to understand Russia on its own terms, so to speak. From this grew studies in History, Musicology and Russian, which, in turn, were rewarded with a scholarship to Brezhnev’s and Andropov’s Leningrad. A Cand. Phil. thesis in Russian music history was one tangible result of this stay. Later, the prospects of thriving contacts between the Soviet Union and the West inspired me to study business management. But instead of progress, the modernisation drive that Gorbachev had initiated soon ended in chaos and prolonged economic decline, turning Russia into a second-rate nation. Personally, I actually “earned my bread” from commercial work with Russians during this period and had a few rather interesting experiences. From the mid-nineties, however, humanitarian work has been my profession, and the post-Soviet countries my main area of responsibility. My current job has therefore provided abundant opportunities for “specialisation” in social and organisational effects of the collapse of the USSR. Included in this have been numerous visits to the many run-down apartments in Russia which typically are inhabited by alcoholics, as well as conversations with children who have experienced various degrees of suffering due to parental and societal neglect. If this thesis is to be dedicated to someone, it must be to those children who are at the end of the chain of destitution, those who have escaped intolerable conditions at home or in institutions only to end up on the street, in a living hell of intoxicants, alcohol, drugs, bitter cold and hunger, sickness, abuse, and crime. The above is an attempt to explain why I “had to” adopt such a broad approach to my Master thesis in History. The work has indeed been challenging and I am therefore obliged to those who have helped me. First of all I owe great thanks to Professor Vasilii M. Sereda for his advice and assistance. As an “outreach” paediatrician and organiser of various shelters for street children in St.Petersburg, Dr Sereda has, since the late 1980s, followed the plight of v Russian street children at closer range and with more competent and compassionate eyes than perhaps anyone else. Furthermore, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Åsmund Egge, who has been very useful as a discussion partner. Thanks also to the researchers Victoria Telina and Aileen Espíritu at the Barents Institute in Kirkenes for the assistance I have received. Furthermore, I am grateful to my employer for understanding and many colleagues for support. Finally, my wife should be thanked for indulgence. All primary sources and much of the literature in this study are in Russian. Original language fragments are only included in the text when necessary as a supplement to my translations of the original citations. Whereas Russian titles of the secondary sources are indicated in the footnotes, the normative documents referred to are translated into English. In the bibliography, however, all Russian titles are with English translations. I have used the British Standard System of transliteration from Russian, but kept the Latin letter “y” for the Cyrillic “й” in cases of established names and expressions. Karsten Solheim Oslo, November 2009 vi Table of Contents Preface …………………………….……………………………………………………….v Table of Contents ………………………..……………………………………………….vii Chapter 1: Introduction…..…………………………………………………….………………….....1 The rationale and the research objectives of the thesis………..…………………………1 The conceptual framework and the methodology of the thesis…………………………..3 The structure of the thesis………………………………………………………………..4 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………...5 Chapter 2: Mass Child Neglect in Soviet Russian History until 1985 ………………...11 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………. .11 The First and the Second Waves of Child Homelessness (Street Children)…………….11 The period of controlled child neglect…………………………………………………..16 Concluding comments……………………………………………………………….…..21 Chapter 3: The Overall Child Neglect Environment ……………………………………23 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...23 Sub-period 1: 1987 – 1991………………………………………………………………23 Additional comments to Organisational and Economic Aspects (Gorbachev)………28 Sub-period 2: 1992 – 1996………………………………………………………………32 Additional comments on Economic Aspects (Yeltsyn)……………………………....37 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………...40 Chapter 4: Determinants of Child Neglect at Macro and Micro Levels ……………… 43 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………43 Leading Economic Variables/Determinants of Child Neglect at Macro Level………….43 Risk Factors at Family, or Micro, Level…………………………………………………51 Summary and Framing of Hypotheses…………………………………………………...65 Chapter 5: Manifested Child Neglect– Legislative and Secondary Sources …………..67 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………67 The subperiod 1987 to 1991……………………………………………………………...67 The decree 1987 on children left without parental care………………………………68 Commissions for the Affairs of Minors………………………..……………………...72 The 1990 decrees on Income Security………………………………………………...75 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child– the child neglect status of 90/91…...77 The subperiod 1991 to 1996………………………………………………………………82 Child poverty…………………………………………………………………………..83 vii Deviant behaviour among minors……………………………………………………...87 Commissions for the Affairs of the Minors……………………………………………90 Conclusions as to the indirect and direct secondary sources……………………………...95 Chapter 6: Manifested Child Neglect– Sources linked to KDN’s Work ………………..96 Introduction and methodology for the chapter …………………………….……………..96 Analysis of KDN material from five municipalities……………………………………....98 Additional comments and conclusion………………………………………………...….108 Chapter 7: Conclusion……... …………………………………………………………….111 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...111 Soviet Legacy and child vulnerability…………………………………………………...111 Aspect 1 of the hypotheses: analysis of the starting point of the research topics……......112 Aspect 2 of the hypotheses: analysis of the research topics from 1987-1991…………...113 Aspect 3 of the hypotheses: analysis of the research topics from 1992-1996…………...116 Final remarks………………………………………………………………………….....118 Annexes: Annex I: Research Model – Child-Neglect Flow Chart……………………...……….121 Annex II: Indicator Matrix, Child-Neglect Research Model………… ……...……...122 Annex III: Estimates of total alcohol consumption per capita…………………...……..125 Annex IV: Alcohol- and Drug-related figures and Treatment Capacity…………...…...126 Annex V: Single-Headed Families………………………………………………...…...130 Annex VI: Alternative Placement Capacity………………………………………….....131 Annex VII: Indicator survey, Kalininskii raion (1995-1991; 1996-1998)………………132 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………….134 Literature………………………………………………………………………………...134 Legislational sources…………………………………………………………………….145 Archives Consulted……………………………………………………………………...149 viii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION The rationale and the research objectives of the thesis One of the less studied and acknowledged consequences of the disintegration of the USSR and the establishment of post-Soviet Russia is the emergence of the “third wave” of vagrant and homeless children in Russian history. 1 Although the manifestation of large cohorts of street children must be one of the most alarming and noticeable symptoms of crisis in any modern society, 2 the specific circumstances around the significant growth, presumably from around 1990, in the number of seriously neglected children in Russia seems to have attracted little if any historical research, both internationally and in Russia.3 Thus, the overall research objective of the thesis is to analyse the causal relationship between, on the one hand, the late Soviet and early post-Soviet societal development, and, on the other, the evolving street-children problem. In terms of timeframe, the thesis mainly explores developments in Russia from 1985 (when Gorbachev came to power) until 1996 (when the post-Soviet framework conditions for child

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