Relatives of Refugees of Soviet �Hot Spot� are given 7 years to Acquire Rights 11,000 children have benefited from Interethnic Center of Rehabilitation and Social Protection of Children, which has operated since 1990. Its staff believe that one can�t help a kid without helping his/her family. Therefore the work of the Center is conducted along that line. 17-year experience shows that problems with refugees haven�t decreased. Center �Lastochka� was set up after the tragic events in Baku. Adelina Mnazakanoba, founder and General Director of the Center is a refugee herself, who miraculously survived the inferno. She is an Armenian and worked as director of a kindergarten for 25 years. She was saved by an Azerbaijani driver who drove the kids of superiors in the kindergarten. She went to Petersburg and decided that she was given a second life to help others. With the help from parishioners of Armenian churches on Vasilyev Island, then from Father Yesras, Senior Priest of the temple, she set up the Center �Lastochka� in order to help refugee families regardless of faiths. People who are forced to abandon their home in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan come to the Center, most of whom are Russian families. �Registering parents and giving them status of refugees is very hard now, though they are really refugees,� said Adelina Mnazakanoba,� What an absurd law! In order to get temporary registration, one should show air tickets. That is, one should fly to another city, then come back, in order to be registered at the airport. And then he gets registration for 3 months. Nothing more. After 3 months, one needs to follow the same procedures again. In the past there were civilian officials at the head of Migration Service. I feel it�s easy to talk to them and prove something to them. Now people wearing epaulet occupy the head of Migration Service. They say - we can�t allow you to break the law. But what kind of condolence can be given to people, who have lost his home and everything and come to their relatives, only to be told by their relatives:� I can�t register you. You don�t have Russian citizenship. In order to get Russian citizenship, you need to live here for 7 years.� -And living without any rights? -Since you are not registered, nobody will offer you a job. Hospitals won�t receive you. Great efforts have been made. But I have won many cases for children in front of organs of popular schooling, arguing that they are children, not some kind of social outcast. I told officials that they are our children, and you should accept them into schools, kindergarten and daycare according to our law. -why this direction is necessary? Shouldn�t every kid have the right to attend kindergarten, even in Moscow and Petersburg, where refugees are more than any other places? -They are �closed� cities. They are not for all, no matter should or shouldn�t, to come. But we are talking about people who flee. They are morally dead. Moreover, their children can�t attend normal schools. In the past when Vadim Gustov was Prime Minister, he was nice to us with great sensitivity. He gave many refugees dorms at 11 points in the region. In Vyborg there is a May Day Settlement where I myself helped settle down some old people. Those old people, many were without families, were very happy when they cooked there. Which thoughtless official invented laws that you must register with somebody and then live for 7 years before you are granted Russian citizenship? Where do refugees get that many relatives? What kind of strange person would register a family of 6-7 people? Officials don�t consider the problem of underprivileged people. Those families are extremely poor. One of the volunteers of the Center �Lastochka� proposed to set up accumulative fund supporting talented children from refugee families. In that way goodwill of individuals resisting bureaucratic mechanism occasionally can win. Source: �Svobodanews.ru�
Relatives of Refugees of Soviet �Hot Spot� are given 7 years to Acquire Rights
Center �Lastochka� was set up after the tragic events in Baku. Adelina Mnazakanoba, founder and General Director of the Center is a refugee herself, who miraculously survived the inferno. She is an Armenian and worked as director of a kindergarten for 25 years. She was saved by an Azerbaijani driver who drove the kids of superiors in the kindergarten. She went to Petersburg and decided that she was given a second life to help others. With the help from parishioners of Armenian churches on Vasilyev Island, then from Father Yesras, Senior Priest of the temple, she set up the Center �Lastochka� in order to help refugee families regardless of faiths. People who are forced to abandon their home in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan come to the Center, most of whom are Russian families.
�Registering parents and giving them status of refugees is very hard now, though they are really refugees,� said Adelina Mnazakanoba,� What an absurd law! In order to get temporary registration, one should show air tickets. That is, one should fly to another city, then come back, in order to be registered at the airport. And then he gets registration for 3 months. Nothing more. After 3 months, one needs to follow the same procedures again. In the past there were civilian officials at the head of Migration Service. I feel it�s easy to talk to them and prove something to them. Now people wearing epaulet occupy the head of Migration Service. They say - we can�t allow you to break the law. But what kind of condolence can be given to people, who have lost his home and everything and come to their relatives, only to be told by their relatives:� I can�t register you. You don�t have Russian citizenship. In order to get Russian citizenship, you need to live here for 7 years.�
-And living without any rights?
-Since you are not registered, nobody will offer you a job. Hospitals won�t receive you. Great efforts have been made. But I have won many cases for children in front of organs of popular schooling, arguing that they are children, not some kind of social outcast. I told officials that they are our children, and you should accept them into schools, kindergarten and daycare according to our law.
-why this direction is necessary? Shouldn�t every kid have the right to attend kindergarten, even in Moscow and Petersburg, where refugees are more than any other places?
-They are �closed� cities. They are not for all, no matter should or shouldn�t, to come. But we are talking about people who flee. They are morally dead. Moreover, their children can�t attend normal schools. In the past when Vadim Gustov was Prime Minister, he was nice to us with great sensitivity. He gave many refugees dorms at 11 points in the region. In Vyborg there is a May Day Settlement where I myself helped settle down some old people. Those old people, many were without families, were very happy when they cooked there. Which thoughtless official invented laws that you must register with somebody and then live for 7 years before you are granted Russian citizenship? Where do refugees get that many relatives? What kind of strange person would register a family of 6-7 people? Officials don�t consider the problem of underprivileged people. Those families are extremely poor. One of the volunteers of the Center �Lastochka� proposed to set up accumulative fund supporting talented children from refugee families. In that way goodwill of individuals resisting bureaucratic mechanism occasionally can win.
Source: �Svobodanews.ru�
