Vitalik

One of the few Kyiv hospitals where people are not thrown into the street like trash is a hospital near the University metro station.

Volunteers come there as often as they want, having the opportunity to help those in need…

“-Hi. Tell a little about yourself. Maybe we can help somehow…

-My name is Vitalii.

I was born in 1971. I lived like everyone else – kindergarten, school, vocational school. Then friends began to drink, behave outrageously, well, I was with them.

I got to prison, was released four years later.

After my release, I got a job, got involved with a woman, and we had a daughter.

But I could not live as everyone else, the prison was sitting right here (points to the head). I started drinking again.

Then we separated and I began to drink even harder, and in 2008 I got to prison again for 4.5 years.

-How did you loose your leg?

-Uttt… got frost-bitten (sometimes Vitalik can hardly say a few words – except that he lost his leg, he had a stroke half a year ago).

I come from Vyshneve. While I was serving my sentence, the relatives took my house away, and I was released right on the street. I became a vagrant.

In winter, in order not to freeze, I got very drunk. Had a blackout, lying on the bench, and froze my leg off.

– Have you got any documents left?

– I lost them a long time ago, and I don’t remember how it happened…

– Have you got any relatives?

– Everyone has long been there (points to the floor). Mother, sister, father.

-I see. What are you going to do next?

– (long pause, you can see that he thinks hard). Zero, (shows with fingers), I do not know…

-Do you want to get out of this dead end?

-How is it possible?

-Good question. You need to go to rehab. To a special centre where you will be taught to look at things properly.

You will be told how the world is actually being built. Afterwards, when you recover, you will be able to be useful to society, to help other people…

Will you go?

-I will…

-But there you can not drink, smoke or swear.

-I don’t care. Just to get away from here. I’ve been here for eight months now. Worse than in prison.

-And what’s worse?

-There was at least some movement in prison… Adrenaline. And here – the white walls, I go crazy. Can’t even go outside.

I have no crutches…

-OK then. Next week we will begin the process of recovering your documents.”

(the day before yesterday, we filed a statement to the police about the loss of Vitalik’s passport, there are still a lot of work with him ahead, but everything will depend on his resolute desire to get out of the pit his life has driven him)

photo credit: Александр Чекменев (Alexander Chekmenev)