Sergey Pchelintsev (born 9 September 1980) is a Nizhny Novgorod civic activist and human rights defender. His specialisation is natural disasters and juvenile justice.
He stands out from the main body of Nizhny Novgorod human rights defenders in that he travels a great deal as a disaster relief worker.
He heads the regional public organisation "Movement in Defence of Childhood" and lives in Dzerzhinsk.
2010. Left-wing activist Sergey Pchelintsev, whose children are being taken away, urges the public not to believe the authorities
Source: Institute for Collective Action
We are publishing an appeal by the left-wing activist Sergey Pchelintsev (pictured with his wife and children). To recall, the guardianship authorities of the city of Dzerzhinsk in Nizhny Novgorod Region are trying to take away 3 small children, including an infant, from him and his wife Lidia Buzanova. "I am compelled to write this letter, because a great deal of dirt has lately been poured on my family. We have been portrayed as some sort of degenerate lowlifes. A number of regional media outlets have carried information about my family in a negative light. I declare that what some media show and what officials say does not correspond to reality.
I am an activist with an active civic stance and, accordingly, as an "inconvenient" person I am subjected to pressure. Recently I was dealt a "blow" in connection with the provocation by Centre "E" over the medals. Now the authorities have struck at my family.
It is officially claimed that I am in difficult financial circumstances, that the children are neglected, that I beat my wife, that I drink and so on. That the children are downtrodden and dirty. This does not correspond to reality. Under the threat of being deprived of parental rights, I was forced to write a statement about placing the children in a children's home. Naturally, given such "persuasion" and in a state of shock at the possibility of losing the children altogether, I had to write these statements "voluntarily-compulsorily". I decided that resisting a removal by force was inadvisable, that it would make the situation even worse. I am sending photographs of our children, and let them show where they are downtrodden or dirty. I ask you not to believe the words of the authorities and to get in touch with me on all questions."
And here is what Sergey Pchelintsev writes in his LiveJournal:
12 February 2010. The time was around 5 p.m. Without warning, people in uniform, about 7 of them, entered our room. Dzerzhinsk television was with them. Without presenting any identifying documents, without presenting a court decision, the removal of the children began. To my repeated demand that they produce some kind of documents, I was refused, while they went on forcibly taking the children away, heedless of their cries, pleas and tears. The police officers informed me that if I did not hand the children over to them voluntarily right now, they would begin the procedure of depriving me of parental rights.
Accordingly, under such pressure and faced with such a choice, we were forced to agree. All the more so as we were in a state of shock.
Having gathered the children together, I was forced to take them to city children's hospital No. 8, where the police officers handed my children over to the doctors. No papers, reports or other documents were signed at that moment. At the hospital we were told that with the consent of the head of the department we could visit our children. But, as it turned out later, this was impossible.
When we came to the juvenile affairs department on Monday, we were asked to write an explanation of our situation. We gave such an explanation. The ODN officers took from us the birth certificates of all the children and issued copies. We, of course, consider this unlawful. Since we need the originals in order to arrange social benefits. After that my common-law wife Lidia Buzanova went to the police reference point for an interview. And I, the father, Sergey Alexandrovich Pchelintsev, went to the children's hospital to see my children. When I arrived at the hospital, the head of the department flatly refused to let me see the children.
When asked for the reason for this, she replied that she needed permission from the guardianship authorities. I myself am legally illiterate and therefore could not judge the lawfulness of her demands.
I went to the guardianship authorities to see Olga Lazarevna Tsibina. When I came to her and got into conversation with her, it turned out that the guardianship authorities were supposedly not even aware of the outrage taking place (the unlawful removal of the children). Tsibina claims that none of their staff was present at this incident. When I demanded that she clarify the situation regarding visiting the children in the hospital, Tsibina replied that this was not within the competence of the guardianship authorities, and that the matter had to be settled directly with the head of the department. So it turns out to be a stalemate.
She then began to talk about the difficult situation that had developed in our family, about the difficulties with finances and with work. And at the end she suggested that I write a statement about placing our youngest daughter in a shelter. Naturally, I refused to write such a statement, and gave the example that we had had a similar situation with our middle daughter, Anna Pchelintseva (born 2007), when in February 2009 she ended up in a children's home, and we have still not been able to get her back from there. Nevertheless, Tsibina presented me with a fait accompli: either I write a statement myself about handing the child over to the "infants' home", or they immediately begin the procedure of depriving me of parental rights.
Faced with such a "choice", I was of course forced to write a statement on the temporary placement of one child (Darya Pchelintseva) in the infants' home. After that Tsibina took from me the medical insurance certificates for Darya Pchelintseva (born 2009) and Maksim Pchelintsev (born 2006) and even the pension certificate for Maksim Pchelintsev. After I turned to my comrades for help, they posted a corresponding message on the internet.
I believe that in this situation my parental duty obliges me to defend my children by any lawful means. Over the course of several days the mass media came to us from many city, regional and federal television channels, various print publications came and radio stations, the prosecutor's office, human rights organisations and foreign representatives called. Some television channels broadcast entirely negative information about me and my family, which does not correspond to reality.
On 18 February several social workers, the guardianship authorities and ODN inspectors came to our home uninvited, without any decision. Without presenting any papers, citing some law, they entered the room. When I asked them to give their names, produce documents, give telephone numbers and addresses, the so-called commission refused to do so.
Nevertheless, they began drawing up some sort of report on the inspection of the premises and writing down something supposedly from my words. I did not read or sign this report. Nevertheless, the commission discovered certain shortcomings that were, in their opinion, substantial; even so I, as a father, considered them insubstantial as grounds for taking my children away.
Again they suggested that I write a statement about placing my eldest son in a shelter, and again the conversation turned to deprivation of parental rights. Again, under such pressure I did not agree, having resolved to defend the children's rights by lawful means.
Then the representative of the guardianship authorities, Olga Lazarevna Tsibina, told me to write that I was aware that no representatives of the guardianship authorities or the social services had been present at the unlawful removal of the children. I signed such a statement, having believed their assurances.
Then the chairwoman of the commission (she refused to give her name) said that they were placing the children in social institutions temporarily, and were giving us a month to resolve our material and everyday problems.
The claims they made I consider unfounded; the children are mentally healthy, active, cheerful and clean. But temporary difficulties have arisen, although I, as a father, believe that I am able to cope by my own efforts. Of course, the children have the minimum necessary range of clothing, as well as toys and places to sleep. Things are not entirely good with food, of course, but we try to keep up the necessary set of provisions.
I want to mention that the commission, while inspecting the room, drew attention to the fact that the room has not been renovated. I gave an explanation on this point: this room was allotted to us by the administration at the request of the guardianship authorities and of Sergey Alexandrovich Leskov, a deputy of the city Duma of Dzerzhinsk. Social tenancy agreement No. 888 of 11.01.2010. The agreement is made out in the name of my common-law wife Lidia Viktorovna Buzanova. On 21 January I, Sergey Alexandrovich Pchelintsev, my middle daughter Anna Sergeyevna Pchelintseva and my youngest daughter Darya Sergeyevna Pchelintseva were registered in this room. We moved into this room at approximately that time.
The room was provided to us in a truly appalling state: there are no windows, no door, the linoleum on the floor is in poor condition, the old wallpaper is torn, there is no heating radiator. The water supply and sewage systems are in poor condition. Although under the social tenancy agreement we are supposed to be provided with living premises in proper condition.
We moved into the room around 20 January, and on 12 February an inspection already came to us, without giving any advance notice and with no clue where they had learned about us at all. And they made claims against us about the living condition of the premises. But in the short time that we had been in the room, we simply cannot afford, materially, to do what they ask. On the grounds that we are short of a certain list of children's items, our children were taken away from us.
We also cannot arrange social benefits or even maternity payments, because arranging them requires certain certificates (for example, on the composition of the family) which we cannot obtain. Because they are issued by the housing and utilities departments, which demand that we first pay off the utility debts on the flat where my wife's father lived, who died in December 2009.
We believe that the state, which promised to care for families with many children, instead of helping simply takes the children away.
At the moment, thanks to many appeals to various organisations and the media, we have managed to get permission for me and my wife to see the children. Officially, of course, the authorities gave us a month to repair the premises, which they themselves had handed over in poor condition. And if it were not for the situation with our children, my wife and I would have gradually done the repairs on our own. We would have placed the children in kindergartens and carried on living.
But because of these provocations by the authorities, real discord has indeed arisen in our family. Problems piled up from beginning to end. And those who are now shouting on the internet that I should have been working rather than holding rallies should calm down. In recent months my political activity has fallen off. Work, on the other hand, has increased. And those who believed that we are a family of alcoholics, idlers and so on are mistaken. We are a perfectly ordinary family. With our own joys and quarrels. Yes, my relations with my wife are not great right now. But things are getting better. This misfortune has brought us even closer together. And the support of the people has given us an iron confidence in victory.
Although we strongly suspect that even if we do a top-quality renovation and stuff half the room with food, that is no guarantee the children will be returned to us. Here in Dzerzhinsk several more families with similar stories have now come to me. For example, Svetlana Kamaeva — her housing is in order. She met all the requirements of the guardianship authorities. The repairs, the job, the food. She did everything, and still they will not give her child back. For anyone interested, here is her number — 8 950 6026211.
She has nothing to do with politics at all and suffers in silence. I, however, will not keep quiet. Whatever provocations with medals and children the authorities may stage. I said it: I will not become an informer, as they demand. This story is only just beginning, and where is the guarantee that next time they will not find drugs on me? After all, that is exactly what was said in the one-on-one conversations. I am perfectly aware that, as an activist, I am under surveillance, and I will not get involved in any crime.
I also want to comment on all the statements by idiots that I sacrificed my children for the sake of nationwide publicity or the money that people send me. So here it is. Let them show me even one appeal in which I asked for money for myself. I may, of course, have complained about how hard it is, but I did not ask. And comrades, seeing this attitude of mine, help me as best they can.
I do not need fame or money. I will manage. What we need is for the state to help people rather than take away their children. For them to be returned to us. We deliberately keep all the receipts for what we buy with the funds sent to us, so that no one can say we are pocketing the money. And at the end we will publish photographs of the repaired room, the children's things, and the receipts. There is no point in our deceiving anyone, the children are what matter here. And we want incidents like this to be eliminated from anyone's life altogether.
Sorry, there is no time to write more. I can reply in private correspondence. And even then only sometimes.
I believe that all the events that have been unfolding around me and my family recently have a political motive. Because of my active civic position, expressed in defending the interests of ordinary people.
I was forced to seek help from the hotline against the removal of children from families at the Nizhny Novgorod Regional United Public Committee for the Defence of the Family, Childhood and Morality, and from the all-Russian community of large and foster families of Russia «Mnogo detok – khorosho», as well as from other public and state organisations.
Sergey Alexandrovich Pchelintsev, Lidiya Viktorovna Buzanova, 22 February 2010".
"It is too POOR at your place". Left-wing public activist Sergey Pchelintsev deprived of three children for poverty
On 12 February, officials from several bodies of the city executive authority at once came to the room where the family of Sergey Pchelintsev, a resident of the city of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, was living: the guardianship and trusteeship department of the Dzerzhinsk administration, the commission on juvenile affairs of the local police department, and the Department of Social Protection of the Population. And they even brought along employees of the local television station. The zealous child protectors staged a demonstrative removal of three small children from Pchelintsev and his wife Lidiya Buzanova: Maksim, born in 2006, Anna, born in 2007, and tiny Dasha, born in the autumn of 2009. Contrary to the requirements of Article 77 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, the representatives of the authorities carried out the removal of the children without presenting their parents with the corresponding act of the city administration.
If you think that the officials, as family law requires in that same Article 77, were rescuing children who had found themselves in an extreme situation — in a den of alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill, or simply parents indifferent to the fate of their children — you are deeply mistaken. Sergey and Lidiya lead an absolutely normal, sober and healthy way of life. They love their children and care for them. Their only fault turned out to be that they became a family with many children in our Fatherland. While taking the children away, the officials cynically threw these words at Sergey: "It is clean here, but too POOR".
Indeed, Sergey does everything possible to feed his large family. It goes without saying that they live in the Russian provinces, where low income even with a job is the situation of the majority of the population. Pchelintsev's average monthly income is 10-11 thousand roubles, which is barely enough for five people. His wife is forced to stay with the children — the eldest child is only three years old, not to mention the need to care for the newborn daughter. According to Sergey, his pensioner mother sometimes comes and helps his wife. Sergey and Lidiya have no other close relatives.
However, in their pursuit of observing the rights and interests of children, the authorities did not trouble themselves to find out the causes of the very poverty that they held against Pchelintsev and Buzanova, staging an act of lawless arbitrariness. Had they turned to the tax inspectorate, to which Sergey duly submits his income declaration, it would have become clear to them that exactly the above sum is what the head of the family can earn by honest labour. The officials did not offer Pchelintsev a well-paid job, and of course they will not. One would think that this family ought to enjoy all the measures of state social support.
That, at any rate, is what the principles of the Russian constitution proclaim. Article 19 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation enshrines the principle of the equality of human and civil rights and freedoms regardless of property status; discrimination on the basis of social affiliation is prohibited. Part 1 of Article 39 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees everyone social security for the raising of children and in other cases established by law. The essence of this right of a citizen lies in the state's guarantee of providing assistance in connection with the birth and upbringing of children.
But, characteristically, this low-income family with many children receives NOT A SINGLE benefit due under the regulations, including the federal entitlements that arise upon having many children. According to Sergey, they are refused even the issue of free baby food for the infant. This position of the Dzerzhinsk department of social protection of the population is explained to Pchelintsev by its staff with all sorts of absurd reasons. Possibly Sergey was not insistent enough in demanding the payments due. But the prospect of wearing down officials' and courts' doorsteps does not look brilliant when every day you have to earn at least something for food. Yet at the demonstration of "protecting" the little ones that took place on 12 February, the social worker was right there on the spot.
All that the state has done to help this family is to allocate them a separate room. One for all of them, and, as Sergey put it, "second-hand". That is to say, far from being in a freshly renovated state. This momentous event happened literally a month ago. Today, having gone in turn round the guardianship authority, the prosecutor's office and a host of other agencies, Sergey heard a great deal of interesting things, including explanations from officials that Pchelintsev ought to have carried out cosmetic repairs in the room he had received. Because small children should not live in the kind of room the state allocated to him.
It is clear that in the course of the campaigns proclaimed "from above" — now the Year of the Family, now yet another programme for the protection of motherhood and childhood — officials need to report on the work they have done. Where the budget funds allocated to these very programmes go, we shall leave that question "off camera" — and it is apparently there, "off camera", that the budget funds themselves reside. It is far simpler to top up a children's home with new charges, and a baby home with yet another infant, who will be torn away from the love and affection of mum and dad, for it is clear that hired nannies cannot replace parents. Then again, the gentlemen officials will never try the fates they have prepared for three-year-old Maksim, two-year-old Anya and newborn Dasha on their own children. Their mentality is not of that sort.
Of course, a natural question arises — why was the Pchelintsev family in particular chosen for this very "reporting"? Indeed, it was not by chance. Sergey Pchelintsev is a political activist, holds left-wing convictions, but belongs to no party. In November and December 2009 he spoke several times at pickets held in Dzerzhinsk. He talked about what he himself had to face every day: unemployment, poverty, and also the unlawful dismissals of workers at the Nizhny Novgorod GAZ plant and the predatory pension reforms. After these speeches, in December of last year, Pchelintsev was invited to Centre "E" (the department for combating extremism) for the Nizhny Novgorod region. As Sergey recounted, during the conversation the officers threatened him with reprisals, offered him "work" as a freelance informer, and demanded that he stop speaking at any civic events. Among other threats, there was a promise to create problems for his family. After that conversation, Pchelintsev wrote a complaint in his own hand and took it to the leadership of the regional police department. The reaction to the complaint, as we can see, was not long in coming.
At present, the children of Pchelintsev and Buzanova are in the city children's hospital. And although the law contains no prohibition on parents meeting the children taken from them before the moment of restriction or deprivation of parental rights, Sergey and Lidiya are not allowed to see the children. Within 7 days of the children being removed from the family, the guardianship authorities are obliged to file a claim in court for the restriction or deprivation of parental rights over the removed children. Orally, Pchelintsev was told today to prepare for such court proceedings. Moreover, from the officials' words he understood that the outcome of the trial is already known: Pchelintsev and Buzanova will be restricted in their parental rights over all the children. And then they will be deprived of parental rights if within 1 month they do not repair the room, do not buy additional toys, books, a cot and food. It should be noted that for such "remedying of deficiencies" family law establishes a term of six months.
It is also likely that, in view of the "telephone justice" that the law enforcement officers "offended" by Sergey's complaint may resort to, Pchelintsev and Buzanova will not be allowed to make use of even this last opportunity to get their children back. It should be noted that every child has the right to live and be brought up in a family, the right to know their parents, the right to their care, the right to live together with them. A child has the right to be brought up by their parents, to have their interests safeguarded, to all-round development, to respect for their human dignity (Article 54 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation).
In accordance with Part 3 of Article 27 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the States Parties (including Russia), in accordance with national conditions and within their means, take the necessary measures to assist parents and others responsible for the child to implement this right and, in case of need, provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing.
Guardianship authorities: child protectors or legalised child traffickers?
2010-04-15
On 6 April, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, the trial ended in the precedent-setting case of the removal of three children from the normal, young, but poor Pchelintsev family from the small town of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The guardianship authorities, which had filed the claim for deprivation of parental rights, lost the case. After several nightmarish months full of struggle with the officials of the guardianship authorities and the local authorities covering for them, the family was reunited.
And the Pchelintsevs' children were taken away and placed in children's homes solely because the couple earn little and supposedly could not create normal conditions for upbringing in that same half-ruined room in a dormitory which the state, obliged to help families with many children, had «graciously» provided to them.
It is simply impossible to earn a decent living in a country where a handful of brigands has seized the power and property of the USSR, has stripped millions of previously secure Soviet people of everything, has created unemployment reaching two and a half million people, and pays those who work — especially those engaged in productive labour, and in a provincial town at that — a pittance that is not even enough to buy bread and potatoes. To say nothing of repairing the tumbledown room allocated by the state.
What is more, the state, hostile to the people and parasitic on the export of raw materials, tightens the noose on the neck of the working people every year, significantly raising rent and other housing and utility charges, and also allowing prices to rise. Let us recall that in the USA there is an institution, the «Renewal Housing Department», which does not permit homeowners (housing there is mostly private) to raise the rent by more than 5% a year.
It is therefore not surprising that millions of citizens of the Russian Federation live below the so-called "standard of living", that is, in poverty, even while holding a job.
In the USA there has not been a single case of a child being taken away from good parents or from a single mother merely because they are poor, although for mistreating children (which is taken to include even a light smack or leaving them at home unsupervised) parents are dragged before a judge in handcuffs and the children may be taken away.
However, honest but poor parents there are helped by the state, which pays them, sometimes for years, the "wellfair" benefit, which is paid to all poor people in general under 18 and over 65 years of age, as well as to those unable to work. Many of our working people might envy the size of the wellfair payment. Nor were children taken away for poverty in the USSR.
Why then has the so-called "juvenile justice" system in Russia set about taking children away from non-drinking, decent, hard-working but destitute parents? Will the children really be better off in orphanages?
No, orphanages in the Russian Federation are simply transit points, where a special firm dealing in the adoption of children abroad sells every attractive-looking child overseas, mainly to the USA.
About two days ago this question was discussed on TV in the programme "Pust Govoryat", where Pavel Astakhov, who handles matters of child protection under the President, also gave his opinion from the monitor screen. Some gentlemen and ladies spoke in favour of handing over parentless children "not needed" by Russia to American adopters, others were against.
We shall not relay the substance of their argument, in which they interrupted one another, having borrowed such a "cultured" style of debate from the participants of American shows, where the winner is the one with the strongest throat; we shall cite only the information announced by one of the participants: in the recent past adopters paid Russian "child slave traders" 30 thousand dollars for a child, and now from 40 to 60 thousand dollars.
It is clear why the authorities have gone so far as to resemble the Polovtsian or Mongol nomads, who seized Russian children and carried them off to the Horde or to the slave markets of Crimea.
On 29 March a press conference was held at the Independent Press Centre on the theme: "Taking children away for poverty: a new legal practice?"
Sergei Pchelintsev, who became known throughout Russia thanks to press attention to the persecution of his family, spoke at the conference. His case shows that the taking away of children is becoming, in the Russian Federation, a form of reprisal against political opponents or against people who are inconvenient to the authorities.
Thus, Pchelintsev explained that his children were taken from him because he is an activist of the left-wing movement who had, moreover, refused to be an informer.
The guardianship authorities behaved especially brazenly and jesuitically in this situation. The father of the family, shaken by the taking away of the children, came to them to find out by what right policemen together with a television company (but without any representatives of the guardianship authorities!) had broken into their home and, without producing any documents, had forcibly taken the children away with them.
In reply, the head of the Dzerzhinsk guardianship authority began to blackmail Pchelintsev: she would file a suit against him and his wife to deprive them of parental rights if he did not write, there and then, a statement saying that he himself asked that his children be taken from him into a shelter because of poor housing and material conditions.
Sergei and his wife at first gave in to this pressure and signed such a document. True, a little later, when the family began to receive support from public-interest lawyers and from the press, the Pchelintsevs annulled that statement.
When correspondents of the TVC programme "Postskriptum" asked the head of the guardianship authority what had actually happened, she said without batting an eyelid: "We did not take the children away from the Pchelintsevs, we did them a service. We have such a kind service: the temporary placement of children in a boarding school in connection with the difficult material situation of the parents. And they handed them over to us themselves."
How kindly the Dzerzhinsk guardianship authorities cared for the young family can be judged from the fact that, as soon as the parents annulled the statement extracted from them by blackmail and raised a fuss in the press, the guardianship authorities immediately filed a suit in court to deprive the Pchelintsevs of their parental rights.
The case of this young family ended happily - only thanks to broad public support and media attention did the Pchelintsevs manage, on 26 February, to get Maxim, their eldest child, back from the orphanage. And on 18 March, their two daughters as well.
On 6 April the court ruled that the Pchelintsevs' children must remain with their mother and father.
But another woman, Marina Volkova, told how she fell under the press of "child protection" after she dared to complain in writing to the director of the school her daughter Valeria attended that her daughter was being badly treated there.
Documents were immediately fabricated claiming that the mother supposedly beat her daughter. The grounds for this were a scratch on the girl's forehead, inflicted on her by fellow pupils who were bullying her. Non-existent bruises on the body were added to the scratch. However, the mother took the girl to a doctor, who certified the absence of any traces of beating. Nevertheless, the girl soon failed to come home: she was seized by force and placed in a shelter for homeless children, where she really was beaten by disturbed children.
The mother managed to steal her own child out of this children's prison and to stop sending her to school, teaching her at home instead. However, the "child protectors" - slave traders - continue their attempts to snatch the daughter from her mother's hands. And so she has to stay vigilant, sit at home with her and "hold the defence".
So, having thought these cases over, one comes to the conclusion that, first and foremost, the state takes children away not so much for poverty, as many people think, as for the parents' participation in opposition to the ruling anti-people regime or for criticism of individual representatives of its power.
Went out to a rally with a placard against rising utility tariffs or with a red flag - your children will be taken from you. Argued with your superiors, and they set the "child protectors" on you - and your child was taken away. That is how the German invaders took children away and drove them off to Germany. Now our invaders are inside the country.
But it is remarkable that the Pchelintsevs did not give up, fought desperately and by every means for their children, and won. Now their example and the court's decision in their case will undoubtedly help other poor families who have fallen under the press of punitive-commercial "juvenile justice" to win as well.
Interesting facts
- Communist, atheist. Main place of work: a construction site.
- Sergei Pchelintsev had his children taken away for several months by officials of the guardianship authorities in order to influence his civic activism. Since then he has paid particular attention to the protection of the rights of children and parents.
Contacts
Okay I'm cnovicend. Let's put it to action.
Telephone
- +7 908 23 96 033
On LiveJournal
Sergei Pchelintsev's page on the VKontakte network
In encyclopedias
An article on Sergei Pchelintsev's party activity in Communpedia