On September 1, 1895, the highest decree on houses of industriousness and workhouses was issued, and at the beginning of 1896, members of the Committee of Trusteeship on houses of industriousness and workhouses decided to establish a subordinate St. Petersburg Metropolitan Trustee Society on houses of industriousness, which would carry out locally the goals of the Committee, “ providing urgent, if possible short-term, assistance to those in need, by providing them with work and shelter until a more lasting arrangement for their destiny.” The founders of the trusteeship were Chamberlain T.S. A. S. Taneyev, D.S.S. M. N. Galkin-Vraskoy, Major General N. V. Kleigels, gr. N. A. Lamzdorf, D.S.S. V. A. Ratkov-Rozhnov, bar. P. A. Korf, t.s. bar. O. O. Buxhoeveden, above. owls B. M. Yakunchikov, D.S.S. I. V. Rukavishnikov, Col. ac. bar. N.B. von Wolf and Chamberlain S.S. M. V. Artsimovich. The charter was approved by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on May 9, 1896. On June 15, 1896, the first meeting of members of the society was held, at which V. A. Ratkov-Rozhnov (fellow chairman), M. V. Artsimovich, V. F. . Galle (treasurer), O. I. Wendorf and W. E. Elsner (secretary). Mayor N.V. Kleigels became the Chairman of the Board, and this post was subsequently occupied by mayors: in 1904-1905 - I.A. Fullon, in 1905-1906 - V.A. Dedyulin, in 1906-1907 - V.F. von der Launitz, in 1907-1914 - D. V. Drachevsky, in 1914-1916 - Prince. A. N. Obolensky, in 1916-1917 - A. P. Balk.

Initially, the society had a capital of 40,000 rubles, allocated from the treasury by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, as well as a plot of land to build a house of industriousness on the embankment. Obvodny Kan., 145, donated by the St. Petersburg Public Administration. The foundation stone of the 1st house of industriousness of the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Trustee Society for houses of industriousness took place on July 21, 1896, and the opening of the institution was on February 9, 1897. The building was built according to the design of civil engineer A. A. Smirnov, the construction was personally supervised by N. V. Kleigels. The trustee of the institution was always V.F. Galle (in 1897 - captain, in 1917 - major general).

In the institution, which became the largest of its kind in the capital, workshops of various profiles were set up: a sewing workshop (it was attended mainly by women without skills in needlework; girls from 10 years old were given the right to learn how to sew on sewing machines under the supervision of a cutter); wallpaper (since 1904, large orders for furniture upholstery were accepted here from government institutions and private individuals); carpentry and turning; weaving (here, colored curtains, towels, tablecloths and napkins were made on looms under the supervision of an experienced craftsman; the products were accepted into the store of the “Help to Manual Labor” society and other stores); painting and painting (conducted work on painting products of the House of Diligence, writing signs and boards with inscriptions; mainly attended by boys who studied under the supervision of a master and then found work in private institutions); metalworking and blacksmith shop (was established in 1900 in a separate, specially adapted room; here, in particular, work was carried out on the production of window bars, beds for barracks, chest armor and shields, invented by Colonel V.F. Galle and Captain K.K. Zadarnovsky, who donated all the profits to the establishment); a workshop for gluing boxes for cigarettes and envelopes (founded in 1901; carried out, in particular, orders for the cigarette factories A. N. Shaposhnikov and A. N. Bogdanova and Co.); shoe shop (here they repaired shoes for workers for free). In 1906, also on the initiative of the trustee, a tailor's workshop was opened to repair dresses and linen free of charge for the boarding schools of the institution, as well as for visiting laborers. For a short time or intermittently there were workshops for the production of: lifebuoys; rope rugs and mats; rugs and paths made of cloth edges and rope products; baskets made of splinters for packaging small goods; suitcases and backpacks; bamboo furniture; cast metal products; wicker baskets and reed seats for Viennese furniture. Up to 70% of hard workers visited the workshop for menial work. The main occupation here was plucking hemp and making mops; In addition, teams were formed from among the unskilled workers for the city construction of public and government buildings, for work on chipping ice, removing garbage, sawing wood, etc.

Work in the 1st House of Diligence began at 8 am and ended at 6 pm (winter) or 8 pm (summer), morning and evening visitors were given 2 lumps of sugar, tea and half a pound of rye bread; lunch consisted of two courses without limited portions. Since November 1897, religious and moral interviews with the people were opened, as well as readings, accompanied by “foggy pictures”; later there were also dances. At Christmas and Easter, visitors were provided with free lunches in the common dining room.

On December 31, 1899, a special building was opened in the courtyard for a disinfection chamber with a laundry, built according to the plan of V.F. Galle, as well as a free overnight shelter for 52 people. On January 1, 1901, an intermediary office was opened at the establishment to find places for sought-after hard workers who had proven themselves to be excellent in behavior and zealous desire to work. In 1903, the establishment organized a reading room for workers, interns and employees. At the same time, children and teenagers began to be taught one of the crafts existing in the house, and, in addition, a teacher chosen from among the hard workers taught children literacy and the basics of science for 2 hours every day.

The establishment had an emergency room with a first aid kit; one of the paramedics from the Narva unit’s emergency room came every day, and doctors came at least twice a week. Twice a month, each visitor to the establishment was given a free ticket to the bathhouse. On November 3, 1903, day nurseries were opened for female workers for 20 children under 7 years of age, who were provided with full care and board. On June 15, 1904, a successful trade in products from the House of Industriousness was opened in a specially built stall, which was facilitated by the editor of the “Gazette of the St. Petersburg City Government” M. G. Krivoshlyk, who daily published publications and advertisements of the Houses of Industriousness free of charge.

The 1st House of Diligence took part in the St. Petersburg handicraft exhibition in Salt Town (1899, silver medal), the All-Russian handicraft and industrial exhibition in the Tauride Palace (1902, gold medal), the 2nd All-Russian handicraft exhibition (1913, small silver medal) etc.

In 1908, during the cholera epidemic, a separate pavilion was built at the entrance to the 1st Night House for the free distribution of boiling water and chilled water from 6 to 24 hours. In 1913, over 50,000 teapots and up to 300,000 mugs of boiled water were issued.

In 1903, the Committee of Trusteeship of Labor Houses and Workhouses issued 29,773 rubles. for the reconstruction of the building of the 1st house of industriousness and its addition to the 3rd and 4th floors, which was carried out according to the design of civil engineer L.P. Andreev. The consecration of the rebuilt house, which could accommodate up to 400 people, took place on November 2, 1903. Subsequently, the 1st House of Diligence was visited by over 35,000 people a year.

On March 31, 1900, the industrious houses of the Society of Cheap Canteens and Tea Houses and industrious houses came under the jurisdiction of the society: in their own building on Gulyarnaya (now Liza Chaikina St.) 8 and in a rented building on Bolsheokhtinsky Ave., 52-5. The establishments were named, respectively, the 2nd and 3rd houses of industriousness of the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Trustee Society for houses of industriousness. In 1902, the Committee for the Construction of Lodging Houses built and transferred to the management of the society the 1st overnight house for 900 people (145 Obvodny Kan. embankment).

On November 8, 1903, the society opened the 4th house of industriousness with overnight accommodation for 252 places in the building donated by the Committee for the Construction of Lodging Houses (Ushakovskaya St., now Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya St., 6). On April 26, 1904, this institution was named after Adjutant General N.V. Kleigels. In September 1914, the carpentry and metalworking workshops of the 1st House of Diligence were transferred here. In 1915, the 4th House of Industry was visited by 5,702 men and 2,456 women. More than 85,000 men and 5,600 women visited the lodging house per year (1912). On December 23, 1903, the society received full ownership of the building at Porokhovskoe Highway (now Revolution Highway), 35, where the 5th house of industriousness was set up under the tutelage of V.F. Galle with overnight accommodation. However, this establishment turned out to be in little demand, and from December 1906 the building was rented out for 3,600 rubles. per year to the St. Petersburg City Public Administration for the construction of a department of the Hospital of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

With the outbreak of World War I, on August 15, 1914, it was decided to use the 1st House of Diligence as a hospital with 192 beds, for which 8,000 rubles were allocated at a time for equipment, and up to 3,000 rubles were allocated monthly for maintenance; in addition, more than 2,000 rubles were received monthly. from officials of the Petrograd police and fire brigade. In 1915, in one of the premises of the 1st lodging house, a carpentry, basket and shoe workshop were equipped for the work of wounded soldiers. During these years, the 1st shelter and the shelter of the 4th house of industriousness were repeatedly occupied by reserves and refugees called up for war, and the two-story stone outbuilding and wooden house with a mezzanine of the 2nd house of industriousness were transferred to the needs of the Labor Assistance Committee.

Lit.: St. Petersburg Metropolitan Trustee Society about the Houses of Diligence for the first ten years of its existence. 1896-1906 St. Petersburg, 1908.

Anyone can find themselves on the street. Help, it would seem, was nowhere to be found. But there are also those who are ready to lend a shoulder. TASS correspondents visited the Noah House of Diligence. People who have gone through their own personal hell come here. Here they are trying to return to normal life.

House of Diligence "Noah"

House of Hard Work "Noah" is a network of shelters for homeless people. The first one was opened in 2011. Founder - Emilian Sosinsky. “Many organizations help targeted, specific people,” he says. “My task was to deal not with just a few, but with thousands.”

“Noah” employees are sure: work is the main thing in life, and a person must understand that everything in life must be earned. This is also why all guests are paid regularly. Emilian Sosinski is convinced that this promotes socialization.

Now the network has 12 branches located in Moscow and the Moscow region. Two of them are social homes (mainly for the elderly, disabled and women with children), the rest are work homes (for able-bodied men). Residents of workhouses earn money for the entire community by finding work as workers. In social houses, people run the household, providing the community with meat and eggs.

"Standard Story"

Forest near Moscow. Behind the high fence is a vast area and several large red brick houses with many entrances and exits. “Everyone who enters the fence is drawn to alcohol,” a foundation employee tells us, who asked not to name him. “From the newcomer to the founder of the house, Emilian. So that a person understands from the very beginning: they don’t drink here at all. If you want to drink, go to railway station".

Most people who find themselves in Noah arrive here directly from the train station. “I came to Moscow from Krasnodar,” says a woman of about 40. “I found a job here for myself, and a school for my son. I had 50 thousand rubles - I could rent an apartment until my first salary. I turned away to buy water for my child - they stole both my money and my documents.” . I found “Noah” on the Internet. Here they help you restore your passport, but to do this you need to live in the house for a month. “Then you can get a job,” she says. “I worked in a confectionery factory for half my life, I remember the recipes for all the cakes by heart.”

This is a relatively happy story. It can be worse.

Women and men live in separate rooms. Any relationship outside of marriage is called “fornication” and is strictly prohibited. And even if the couple signs, this does not mean that they will automatically be given a shared bedroom - only the most “deserved” inhabitants of the house receive them. Mothers and children live separately. When the work day begins, one of the women stays with the kids - that is, in fact works as a nanny. This is the Noah principle: everyone here works to provide a comfortable life for themselves and others. Everyone does what they can and have the strength to do.

Residents work at home six days a week. Rise - at 8:00, lights out - at 23:00. Although the cook, for example, gets up at half past five in the morning to prepare breakfast for everyone. The food is simple and satisfying - today, for example, there was borscht for lunch, and buckwheat with meat for dinner. In "Noah" there is subsistence farming: pigs, goats, rabbits, chickens. The residents of the social home provide themselves completely with meat and eggs. They save on gas thanks to a field kitchen donated by the Pokrovsky Convent.

The bedrooms in the buildings are packed with bunk beds so tightly that it is difficult to walk between them. And still there is not enough room for everyone. That's why some of the house's inhabitants spend the night in the stable - literally. In the future, it is planned to transfer some of the guests to a new branch, which will open in the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region. But so far there are not enough funds for it.

“Homeless old people, women with children and disabled people, including bedridden people, should move there,” says Emilian Sosinsky. “According to my calculations, the branch could accommodate all the disabled homeless people in the Moscow region who are ready to accept our rules. Now we are looking for philanthropists who could help." Able-bodied homeless people already have the opportunity to get to Noah from the street - but many disabled people do not yet have such a chance.

“I got to such a low point that I couldn’t walk.”

Olga is 42, she has black drawn eyebrows and a bright scarlet manicure, she confidently scribbles on a typewriter and makes aprons for local chefs. “Am I a professional seamstress?” Olga laughs. “What do you mean! I learned to sew in places not so remote. How long did I sit? How many times?” Olga had three sentences; in total, she spent five years in prison for fraud and forgery of documents. And in her youth she “was good”, did acrobatics, received ranks. But then I gave up. Olga has an adult son, she never lost contact with him, but “I won’t sit on his neck, let him arrange his life.” Now she is looking for a job - she can do a lot, from sewing to repairs, but they don’t hire people with a “camp” education as seamstresses, and she is no longer healthy enough for hard physical work. Until he finds it, he will stay here.

There are dozens of such stories in Noah. “I drank for years, lived on the street, kind people brought me here,” “I was imprisoned, took drugs, my family doesn’t know anything about me for a long time,” and even “I’m an uncomfortable person, I didn’t get along with my son-in-law, I had to leave home” are the most typical explanations for this. why people come here. The guests at Noah are completely different. From a worker with three years of education to a mathematician who worked at secret facilities during Soviet times. But when you listen to their stories, they seem to merge into one.

"...I had two apartments in Moscow. I sold them to buy one simpler one and save money for my child’s education. I was robbed. I can’t tell you, I don’t even want to remember, it makes me shiver. I have nothing..."

"...I come from Dagestan, in 1996 I fled from there from the war to Volgograd. And then I had to leave. I didn’t have my own home. I have relatives, but everyone has their own family. If you don’t have money, who needs you? Who needs you Will they give you food and water? Well, the first month, the second, and on the third they say: “Sorry, but we don’t have to feed you...”

“...One woman ended up here after the hospital: a thief doused her with acid. And while she was lying there, her husband managed to take out and sell all her property. But she only stayed here for two months: she quickly got divorced and got married again...”

“...I drank on the street for two years. I got to such a low point that I couldn’t walk. When they brought me here, they told me: “Brother, how are we going to get you? You have to go up to the fourth floor, sleep on the second tier of the bed." I climbed onto the floor on my knees, and by some miracle onto the bed. I hung from there, smiled and said: “I have fulfilled your conditions.” Now I take care of the pigs. I've never dealt with animals before..."

This house really looks like Noah's Ark. Here everyone is given a chance to survive - no matter what hell they have gone through before.

"I didn't want to live"

Lyudmila does the laundry here. She is a large woman, 39 years old, quiet and reserved. She has five children, two live with their grandmother, three live here with her. The youngest girls are three months old and are twins. Lyudmila has been in “Noah” for three years, her husband is the head of one of the labor houses. Looking at her, you wouldn't think that she once sold drugs.

“We were never close to my mother,” says Luda. “I could leave the house and return in a year.” Once she “came out” so much that she ended up married at the age of 16. But an accident occurred and the husband fell into a coma. Lyudmila started drinking. Then everything turned out to be predictable. “I was such a girl... an adventurer,” she says. Drugs, a colony, a connection with a gypsy company - there really were enough adventures in her life. One day the gypsies invited her to Moscow, supposedly to work in a chain store. In reality, Lyuda’s documents were taken away and she was forced to beg. And then they raped me. “I ran away from the gypsies, all beaten,” she recalls. “I didn’t want to live.” Lyudmila tried to commit suicide, but failed. The social patrol found her on the street. That’s how she ended up in “Noah” - as it turned out, pregnant. “I didn’t want to leave the child, I thought he would remind me of what happened,” she says. “But I still gave birth to a son.” The boy turned out to be HIV+. As it turned out, Lyudmila was infected.

Now the woman and her son are taking medication. The babies were born with a negative status. She even began to keep in touch with her mother, who lives in Ukraine. Lyuda has a 22-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter there. Perhaps someday she will take her home with her.

The fact that there are HIV-positive people in the house is treated normally here. There is only one requirement in the house - follow the rules, and we will help you with everything else. HIV-positive people are registered and provided with therapy. Those who have lost their documents are helped to restore them. And women whose children were taken away due to drunkenness can return them as soon as they themselves return to a normal lifestyle. "Noah" works closely with all authorities - from the local police department to the guardianship. But compliance with the rules is strictly monitored here. For swearing - a fine of 50 rubles. This money is put into the general cash register - they recently bought a TV with it. For assault, the offender is immediately blacklisted and leaves the house until everyone he has harmed forgives him. And even then, you can only return after three months of rehabilitation (during this time a person works for free, only for shelter and food).

Smoking is allowed, but it is not encouraged. All types of intoxication are prohibited. “At meetings I say: I’m a drunk like you, but I haven’t drunk for four years,” says Sergei Sterinovich. Four years ago, he came here immediately after surgery on the pancreas: “My stomach was not yet stitched up, the wound was healing itself, there was a 15-centimeter hole.” He began to sit on watch - because he could not help but work, and he was still not able to walk. Now he heads the security service of the entire organization, is married and has a child.

"I do not have"

Not all people stay in “Noah” for a long time. For example, a couple - she is 40, he is 45, met here. They'll sign soon - "but without ceremony, I'm not a girl to wear a white dress." They plan to find an apartment and leave: they want to live in their own home, “so that no one pokes their nose in and says: this is not how you live.” The staff of the house treat this normally: no one is obliged to live here forever. There is only one question - where does the guest go? “If some careless mother is going to go homeless, guardianship comes and decides what to do with the child,” they explain to us. But if a person has found a job and shelter, they will only support him and even help him with registration.

Leaving Noah, living a new life, not worrying about accommodations and coming to the station only when going on vacation is the best outcome for any guest. Many people succeed. But sometimes even those who have somewhere to go are not ready to return to their family.

Galina Leonidovna is 58 years old, she has been a housewife all her life and will receive a pension only in two years - due to old age. 20 years ago she left her husband and 18-year-old daughter in Krasnoyarsk. I went to Moscow to sell pine nuts and met a man at the market. Galina Leonidovna never returned home - she didn’t even divorce her husband, so she couldn’t sign with her new lover. Four years ago he died of cardiac arrest. “The apartment where we lived, the dacha, the car was sued by his son - he found an old will. And I was left without a husband and without an apartment.”

At first she lived with her “mother-in-law,” who is already 90 years old. “She either accepted me or kicked me out. She cried: “Why didn’t you sign with my son, it’s your fault!” Actually, it’s true - it’s my fault. It happened that she would wake up at night and start screaming. I can’t stand it - and out the door , I’m going to the station. And I just sat at the station for several nights. I didn’t live on the street, although, probably, if she had died, I would have ended up on the street right away.” Galina Leonidovna's legs were paralyzed from stress. She came to Noah by accident: she became ill on the subway, and they helped her. Here she sews and understands that, most likely, she will stay here until the end. “I won’t return home,” she says. “When all this happened, I said that I was going abroad for a long time and would not call. I made three boxes for her. We used to communicate on Skype, corresponded. I have never seen my grandson in person. I saw that I left when my daughter was 18 years old, she was still studying, and now my grandson is already 15 years old.”

Pavel also once had a family, an apartment and a dacha. He is a tall and strong man, about 50, who prepares firewood for the entire house. He looks like a country man, but at heart he is a philosopher. He himself admits: he was always told that he was “not a city person.” Pavel was an alcoholic. For years he held on, but still left - first on a binge, and then from home. I lived on the street for a long time. “Moscow is full of food - they often throw away the good stuff,” he says. “We were grazing at the supermarket, there was anything: meat, dairy, vegetables and fruits. There were a lot of bananas. Once I came, I thought: damn, again bananas.”

Emilian Sosinsky is sure that the fact that it is so easy to survive on the streets in the capital corrupts many. “This is a real epidemic: more and more homeless people are becoming parasites, because our region is favorable for doing nothing,” he says. “They understand that it is not necessary to work and stop drinking. When a person does not work, he begins to think that he does not owe anything to anyone, everyone should him. Such people, if there are many of them, can be dangerous to society. Therefore, this epidemic must be stopped."

Help needed:

With money: 35000 rub.
Collected: 35,000 rub.

Ongoing projects

“Noah Workhouse” for the homeless

Have you seen my Rodin? But the Atlas, I came up with it myself, here you can put a candle on top - only the clay has not dried yet...

Ruslan's Rodin is a mini-copy of the famous "The Thinker". Ruslan is a former milling machine operator. Studied at art school. That's practically all he said about himself. We saw the rest ourselves - how he walked on crutches to his table, we saw the clay candlesticks he made, figurines, cups for lamps...

San Sanych willingly talks about himself - how he was imprisoned for theft, how he wandered between dosshouses, how he ended up with the Baptists... And at this time he himself, with an awl, tightens the rag ribbons in a small rug, removes the holes. There will be fringe along the edge - and the rug can be used both on a stool and under a pan.

Before Igor broke his hip and “registered” at the entrance to the River Station, he built and renovated apartments, and here, in “Noya”, he is a supply manager, an electrician, and, if necessary, replaces the crane axle box, and puts together a bedside table from old furniture.

In the Mytishchi social house from the network of shelters for homeless people "Noy" - dinner: in the dining room, the size of a small kitchen, four people are finishing buckwheat with meat, behind the wall there is a small shower. "Second shift!" - the head of the house, Ekaterina, shouts to the entire floor. She and I had just risen from the basement, where the workshops and storage of things and food are located.

The first shelter "Noah" was opened in 2011, today there are 10 workers and 6 social homes in the network. In the working class, those whom we call homeless people work and earn money to support social housing - populated by the elderly, disabled, seriously ill, abandoned mothers with children admitted from hospitals, picked up on the streets. The homeless people in "Noah" support the homeless people - and at the same time make money themselves.

Fine and mate

One day a woman with a child entered the courtyard of the St. Nicholas Church in the city of Krasnogorsk and asked for bread. They gave her a shovel to clear the snow in the yard, and when she was given 500 rubles for an hour and a half of work, she began shouting that this was a mockery and that she would go to complain to the patriarch.

The creator of "Noah" Emelyan Sosinsky, having worked distributing donations in churches, heard enough tales, saw enough of the "unfortunate" and stopped giving to the poor.

I realized that distributing food, clothing, helping to buy “tickets home” - well, all the known ways of helping the poor and homeless do not provide them with any help,” says Sosinsky. - Food, medicine and clothing are distributed to everyone indiscriminately. If you drink, keep drinking, you slacker, continue in the same spirit, here are some more clothes for you, so you can dirty them and come back for new ones.

To help these people, it was necessary to dramatically change their habitat. Emelyan, an active person, studied how shelters live and saw that they can be self-sustaining - even if people work there as helpers. But they work.

In 2011, the community of the Temple of Cosmas and Damian lent money to rent and furnish the first house of “Noah,” and at one of the free feedings Sosinsky announced that he was inviting everyone who was ready to “get involved” and start working. They will provide you with housing, food and all amenities, and over time they will help you with documents, he said, you just need to work and not drink. Three responded. But by the end of the month, all the places in the house on Dmitrovsky were occupied. And after a few years there were already more than ten shelters.

In each work house - these are mostly rented cottages in the near Moscow region - there live from 50 to 100 “street people” (Emelyan does not like the word “homeless”). After breakfast, these people go in teams to work, the simplest, most unskilled, mainly to construction sites - carrying, breaking, digging, dismantling, etc. In the evening, dinner, shower. The building manager is looking for a job - through advertisements, calling construction site managers.

Half of the salary is paid out every week (on average 18 thousand per month), the second goes to rent and utilities, food and medicine, and to social housing. Fines also go into the general pot - for poor work, swearing, drunkenness (everyone takes a breathalyzer upon returning from work), and fights. For systematic violations, they can be expelled and their wages deprived. You can leave Noah at any time, and stay for any period of time.

Those who survive “without any hiccups” are helped for a month with passports, involving a lawyer and a social worker. They promise permanent registration in six months - in Noya's own house near Vladimir. But only 2 percent survive six months without breakdowns, so there is a decent turnover here. Replenishment comes through social patrols that pick up homeless people; information about “Noah” is available at all police stations, and among social workers at hospitals and churches.

Over 7 years, about 8 thousand people passed through Noah.

No freebies

A wicker rug costs 150 rubles apiece - they are purchased from “Noah” by the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. So San Sanych, even though he is a resident of a social housing project, receives his rubles to buy something for tea.

Our principle is simple: if you do it, you get it, even if it’s purely symbolic,” says Ekaterina. - No freebies.

All the profits of “Noah” go to development; Emelyan puts only his salary in his pocket.

My goal is not profit as such,” he says. “It’s enough for me that all the homeless people fit into our houses.”

Today it’s difficult for “Noah” - 2 more social homes have been added to the network, and now on board the “ark” there are 50 percent of workers and 50 percent of people who do not bring in money. This is an unviable combination; we can’t survive like this; we need workers and philanthropists.

“Noah” is a structure independent of the state, saving people on its own, relying on the experience of Father John of Kronstadt, who organized the first House of Diligence in Kronstadt, which reduced the number of homeless people in the city by 3/4. And therefore Sosinsky is sure that the popular option of “sending the homeless to Siberia” is irrational: they will get drunk, burn everything around them and return to Moscow. Putting people in prison is expensive. The best are self-sustaining communities where you can work, earn money and have the opportunity to study. Communities need police support, jobs, government orders: “people of the streets” cannot withstand competition in the market - they have no qualifications, no health, they can only dig.

And the Gospel “give to the one who asks you,” Emelyan believes, is a spiritual commandment that requires “give” only what is useful for a person.

Direct speech

Emelyan Sosinsky:

I was a driving instructor in Tushino, had a high rating and earned up to 120 thousand. I had everything: a beloved wife, a good car, income, but life was losing its meaning. I achieved everything and realized that I didn’t want to wake up in the morning, there was a concrete dead end in front of me. I was looking for a way to die without it hurting. A complete atheist, in this situation I first opened a book with the word “God”, and in 2003 I first crossed the threshold of a temple and tried to become a believer. My wife said that it was as if they had performed a trepanation on me and changed my brain one hundred percent. Then I realized that if I am a Christian, I must find a way to be saved. According to the saints, there are only three ways of salvation: either you are a philanthropist, or a faster, or a person of prayer. Save yourself by what comes easier, but I always liked working with people, and I also had experience in teaching: in the 80s I worked as a senior pioneer leader, in the 90s - with difficult teenagers.

I have been helping the homeless since 2004.