Faith Matters
The Church Program
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Pskov – Russia's Most Social City
Every workday at 7 a.m. Michail Semyonov travels ten kilometers across town in an old hand-propelled wheelchair. The 26-year-old works at a disabled workshop – something rare in a Russian city. Most "social cases" in Russia – who include orphans, the mentally ill, ex-convicts and the homeless – are placed in internats, institutions more like a prison than a care facility for people in need of help. The system is a legacy of the Communist era, when people with problems were an ideological embarrassment and locked away out of sight.
In Pskov, however, a 200,000-soul city south-west of Saint Petersburg, internats are relegated to the past. Prompted by a German Protestant initiative, 15 years of work has gone into creating model institutions there: a remedial support centre providing schooling for disabled children, workshops offering jobs for disabled adults, apartments adapted for wheelchair-users. The city today even has a hospice, a place for the terminally ill to die in dignity.
While in office as president, Vladimir Putin hailled Pskov as "Russia's most social city". But it is still the exception, not the rule. In many parts of Russia, social tension is growing. The gulf between the fabulously rich minority and the bitterly poor majority keeps on widening. Against this backdrop, the German-backed "Pskov Initiative" sponsored a five-year training programme designed to turn doctors, psychologists and nurses into multipliers. The diplomas have now been presented. Those awarded are qualified to train up professionals to work with disabled people and spread the ideas embraced in Pskov to other areas of Russia.
