Faces of people who dared to challenge fate, who did not want to submit to circumstances, wanted change and made their difficult choice. Are they familiar to you? They have not yet blended into the local mosaic, unprotected by the country's laws, without documents and reliable work, without medical insurance and often without prospects, subject to any random misfortune and without a clear plan for tomorrow, very often without family and close ones, alien to the unfamiliar way of life and unusual routine. Always without a smile, almost always without emotions. A seriously focused expression of exhausted eyes, in their field of tension it is cold and uncomfortable, repulsive forces suppress attraction, and the result is disunity, or more precisely, hostility. One wants to ask: “What made them? Why?” But we all know anyway. And there are no guilty ones. And no one is in a hurry to understand. The laws of survival are a terrible drama! Someone wins the American dream, but how many are run over by the ruthless roller of unforeseen circumstances and unjustified hopes!
They are not tourists or emigrants, not temporary residents or citizens of the country. They are illegals, which means they exist - and at the same time they do not exist, just as there is no whole complex of social assistance for these people if they find themselves in any non-standard situation.
I do not undertake to investigate this bleeding wound of modern civilization, marked by signs of astonishing callousness and pragmatic egoism of our society. But I want to get closer to the problem, I want to understand, I want to tell. My stories are recorded on different streets and crossroads of the world, but they are all united by a piercing sense of human misfortune, unpredictable and cruel.
Tel Aviv story
Filko Yanchev, 50, a teacher at a technical college in Sofia. He has lived in Israel for five years, status - illegal worker. In Bulgaria, his beloved wife, with whom he lived for more than 20 years, and three children, who managed to grow up without him, remained.
They lived in Sofia without troubles and upheavals for many years, and then... Following Russia, Bulgaria experienced an economic collapse, his wife lost her job, his salary became catastrophically insufficient; a way out had to be found. An ordinary story of ordinary people: a university diploma gathers dust in a far drawer, and its owner works hard in a foreign country from dark to dark without holidays and weekends for many years in a row. Filko came to Israel under a contract with a team of construction workers, several times renewed his work visa, but at 50 it is impossible to get one, and he has been living illegally for almost two years now, scraping by on small construction jobs.
During this time, his daughter received a paid and very good education, he bought housing for his son in a prestigious area, his wife did an expensive renovation of the apartment in their common house, in which he has not been for so long.
And Filko rents a corner in a tiny apartment in a poor area of southern Tel Aviv. He has a girlfriend, a lonely middle-aged Russian repatriate, who waits for him and on weekends meets him with a home-cooked dinner and almost family warmth. And then he begins to think that his family is here, with this almost unfamiliar woman, in her unkempt, unoccupied house, and not with the one from whom he has been separated for so long, to whom he regularly sends all his hard-earned shekels and for whom he embarked on this many-year experiment in survival.
“Do I want to go home? Do I miss it? I don't know... It's so scary - after so many years. And was it necessary? Was this choice justified? And who to blame? Who knows...”
London meeting
In a cafe on crowded Oxford Street, a beautiful, stately waitress approached our table. Strict hairstyle, almost no makeup, attentive gaze of huge cherry eyes. Trained friendliness, practiced smile.
“Do you speak Russian?” And a moment later: “Oh, impossible! So we are almost fellow countrymen!”
And Natalya, an English teacher from Transcarpathia, with sparkling eyes tells about her adventurous story of conquering foggy Albion. She was lucky, the cafe is run by Lithuanians, and they are almost like her own. Their team is international - all of Eastern Europe. She is already 38, it is not so easy to find a job. Of course, she gets tired, they also do the cleaning in the cafe at night after closing. She lives on the outskirts of London, but there is the metro, that's not a problem. Natasha has been alone in London for many years, she is saving money to build her solid house in Ukraine. In the meantime, her elderly parents are raising her clever daughter, whom she misses so madly and for whose sake she lives in anticipation of a holiday of real life. She wants to give her daughter a decent education, sends her beautiful gifts and waits, waits, waits...
I wanted to shout at her: “Stop! Tomorrow will never come if there is no today!” But do I have the right to teach? And is my opinion so impeccable? After all, everyone sees in their own way and makes their own choice.
“Night butterfly... Well, who is to blame?”
According to estimates by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), about 50 thousand Russian women are trafficked to Europe alone every year for sale. In most cases, this traffic is associated with prostitution, to which women are forced by threats and violence. Among the countries they end up in are Israel, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, as well as the USA, Japan, and Egypt. As studies show, more than 80% of all sold women believed that they were hired for legal work abroad. They were involved in prostitution against their will after crossing the border. According to unofficial data, the trade in live goods ranks third in profitability after the arms and drug trade.
I met Oksana by chance on the beach in Eilat. A natural blonde with translucent skin and frightened, surprised eyes. She was accompanied by two very elderly respectable men who loudly and animatedly discussed their business problems while happily sipping cold beer, completely ignoring the presence of the lady. They were interested and comfortable without her. And she, like a hunted child, sat alone and dreary, looking into the endless distance. Then the men evaporated somewhere, and she felt freer, lighter. Oksana asked me to watch her things while she went for a swim. She came back, one thing led to another; her trivial story is a typical story of a country girl from the Ukrainian outback.
She was born in a remote village in the Poltava region. Technical college, bread factory, lack of money, drunken suitors, hopelessness. And like a light in the window - an offer to work abroad as a nanny in a wealthy family. And don't blame her for suspecting what it was about. Out of despair, without thinking, she threw herself into this venture as if into a whirlpool. They processed the documents quickly, in a businesslike manner. She entered Israel illegally via Egypt. Oksana has now been living in this alien and terrifying world for two years. She won't tell anything, she will remain silent. Without rights, without documents, without language or acquaintances, surrounded by embittered and envious girls and rude criminal masters.
‘What plans?’ - her face brightens for a moment. - ‘An apartment in Poltava. Marriage. Children. Everything, like everyone else. Let me save up a little money... This is only temporary...’
My documentary stories do not claim novelty or originality. I will refrain from rhetoric and moralizing. Alas, ‘everyone dies alone’ in this mad, mad world. But I want to remind that there is no such thing as someone else's misfortune, we are all human. And for each of us to survive, we must be together. We must manage to help.