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The "Komunalka" T Even after being here for awhile, some aspects of the way people lived during Communism and still live now shock me. One example i often think about comes from the apartment above our center that serves as our living space and offices. On any given day there are between five and ten of us living and working here. This goes up and down because sometimes we go to work on the farm and volunteers from abroad come and go. It’s quite crowded when you consider one bathroom, a small kitchen, and three bedrooms, one of which is being used for storage. Sometimes the temptation to complain comes, but then i start to think about the three families that lived in this same apartment before us in the “Komunalka” style and how they had to share almost everything. “Komunalka” is the Russian word for a commune, or common apartment. Usually, three to four families live in this commune. Each family (three to five people) has a “private” room, usually no more than 20 square yards. In the “komunalka” all of the families use the same kitchen (with two stoves and one or two sinks). There is one bathroom that consists of one toilet and one shower. The hot water is usually not available all day if at all. Many of the children that we help come to the street from this kind of apartment. Can you imagine what it would be like to live with five people in one room and share your kitchen and bathroom with two or three other families? But not only that, imagine that one or two of those people are violent alcoholics or drug addicts and don’t like you for some reason. This is the reality that many of our children face and they would rather go to the streets than live in the “komunalka”. Many of the families do not have enough food. Some of the children that we feed share with us their experiences and this helps us to better understand them. Actually being able to see a “komunalka” has helped us to understand where these children come from and to appreciate even more the great blessing i had to grow up in the United States. I share this with you because i hope this also helps you to understand even more why we need to help these children. We have been giving out a lot of clothing because the city in the winter is very wet, cold and dirty. When we give new clothing we take their old ones and wash them and prepare them for the next time they need to change. Thanks be to God the work here continues to progress. We had a great Christmas and New Year’s celebration for the children in the center. More new children continue to come to the center. Please keep us in your prayers and be assured of my prayers for you. Thank you for your continued support. May God bless you! |
his has been a new experience for me. New Years is the biggest holiday in Eastern Europe because during Communism the celebration of Christmas was prohibited. Imagine that all of a sudden the government of the U.S. made it illegal to celebrate Christmas or any other religious holiday. This seems almost impossible to imagine because we are so used to freedom of religion, however that was and still is the reality for some churches here.