Urals school head forced staff into debt
Elena Yakovleva began as a primary teacher and later became the school principal.
Teachers in the Urals settlement of Ayat, in Nevyansk District, have sunk into a debt trap. Local educators hold a stack of loans they took out not even for themselves. The former school principal forced her staff to take out huge loans. For each one she invented a convincing reason and tearfully promised to return every last penny.
But in December last year, Elena Yakovleva was asked to step down. She left the school and stopped sending money to her colleagues. Now the teachers are repaying the loans; some have had to find side jobs because of this.
Here is how the headmistress persuaded teachers to fall into debt bondage.
«She tricked us every which way»
Teachers valued and respected principal Elena Ivanovna — she worked at the school for decades. Thanks to her, colleagues recall, new equipment appeared in classrooms and the number of medal-winning graduates increased.
She had never borrowed money before, so when, in 2019, she first asked a teacher to take out a loan for her, the teacher believed it was serious.
«I was the very first to take a loan. She talked me into it. She needed 300,000 rubles (approximately $3,000 at current rates) for a wedding, then she needed 350,000 for a bathroom renovation (approximately $3,500 at current rates). In total, I counted six loans I took out for her — 1.5 million rubles (approximately $15,000 at current rates)! —» says one of the teachers. «Then it was that her son had run over some woman — he had to be “bought out” urgently; then she needed to buy a car — she deceived us every which way.»
A message where Elena Ivanovna requests money, citing an urgent surgery for her granddaughter.
At the time, the teacher did not yet know she was not the only one taking out loans for the headmistress. The boss asked that no one be told about her problems, and the colleagues kept quiet. Maintaining the secrecy, almost the entire teaching staff ended up in financial bondage.
«At first I thought nothing bad. Well, a person is in trouble — we should help. But then, when she started “burying” all her relatives one after another — someone died, someone was on their deathbed, then a newborn granddaughter in intensive care needing urgent surgery, then a friend’s daughter had died — I started to suspect something,» one teacher recalls.
The geography teacher took out a loan for 300,000 rubles (approximately $3,000 at current rates), the math teacher — for 400,000 (approximately $4,000 at current rates), the Russian language teacher arranged loans totaling 800,000 (approximately $8,000 at current rates), and a primary school teacher — for 1 million (approximately $10,000 at current rates). Each time, the headmistress extracted money more cunningly.
«The last loan — that was when we “bought her out of jail”. She texted that someone had planted drugs on her, two big guys showed up and grabbed her. She said she was in a cell and needed money. I took out a loan for 100,000 rubles (approximately $1,000 at current rates),» a former colleague of Elena Ivanovna says. «She’s such an actress.»
At times, bank refusals were the only thing stopping additional teacher loans.
One teacher fell into debt just a few months before retirement. She didn’t even know how to use a banking app — Elena Ivanovna taught her.
«She asked if I had a cell phone — and my son had only just given me one. I told her I hadn’t figured it out yet. She took my mobile, did a few taps — and says: “I took out a loan, don’t worry, I’ll pay it back in six months.” But the loan was for five years,» the retiree says.
At first the headmistress did transfer her money to make the payments, as she did for everyone else, and then she stopped. The former teacher had to urgently look for a side job to service the debt.
«Now I mop floors in the evenings just to get by. My monthly payment is 12,500 rubles (approximately $125 at current rates), a cleaner’s salary is 13,000 (approximately $130 at current rates) — it turns out I give away all my money. My husband doesn’t know I took this loan,» the retiree says.
She harassed those who refused loans
Those who refused to take out loans for the headmistress ended up on a blacklist.
«She’s an official, a principal, and she started manipulating that. She could walk in mid-lesson and start dressing you down in front of the children, finding some pretext for it even if there wasn’t one. She humiliated, constantly picked on you, bullied you publicly. The girls who didn’t give in — she just kept grinding them down,» says one teacher. «People from the outside noticed and asked why and what for she had started treating them like that.»
«It wasn’t just loans — she also borrowed plain cash. From some — 5,000 rubles (approximately $50 at current rates), from others — 8,000 (approximately $80 at current rates). We have the feeling she borrowed to cover other debts. And around the settlement she collected plenty of money too: either for a roof repair or something else,» another colleague says.
One of the borrowers turned out to be a student’s grandfather. Sergei Konstantinovich says he learned about the loan when, instead of his 22,000-ruble pension (approximately $220 at current rates), he received only 4,000 (approximately $40 at current rates). That is how the headmistress gave him a harsh lesson in financial literacy.
«I came to the school to help install pull-up bars and left my jacket with my phone at the school. She used the phone to take out a loan in my name. I was foolish — I had a slip of paper with passwords in the case, my grandkids had written them down,» the retiree recalls. «She took out a loan for 500,000 rubles (approximately $5,000 at current rates), and I have to pay it off until 2028.»
Sergei Konstantinovich filed a statement. He continues to pay down the loan. Elena Yakovleva promised to return the money, but the retiree believes the police should deal with her. Teachers at the settlement’s school have also contacted law enforcement.
Trial for embezzlement
After Elena Yakovleva left the principal’s post, she stopped communicating with former colleagues. Her phone is switched off, but she still lives in the settlement. Locals say she hardly goes outside.
«We went to her, knocked — no one opened the door for us,» the teachers say.
«I once met her on a commuter train and asked: “Do you have a conscience?” and she smiled: “Sergei, I will repay you.” No shame, no conscience,» says retiree Sergei Konstantinovich.
After her dismissal it also emerged that the headmistress had pulled a financial maneuver with the school budget. This came to light when an extracurricular education teacher went on sick leave. She wrote in the paperwork that another teacher had temporarily performed those duties and issued him a salary for those hours.
«She said: “We’ll run you through the paperwork, but you won’t be working, and the money we transfer to you you’ll give to me for the school’s needs.” By then I already had a loan taken out for her, and when I received the money, she told me to use it to make a payment,» says the teacher who “substituted” for the sick colleague.
Elena Yakovleva was found guilty of embezzlement committed with abuse of office by the Nevyansky District Court (Nevyanskiy raionnyy sud). She transferred to the teacher money for 14 working days — and was given a two-year suspended sentence.
«As a result of intentional criminal actions, the school suffered material damage in the amount of 11,299 rubles 30 kopecks (approximately $113 at current rates), of which 10,000 rubles (approximately $100 at current rates) the teacher kept for herself toward repayment of the loan she had taken out for the principal, and the remaining amount she transferred to the principal,» the Nevyansky court reported.
Where the money went
The strangest thing, the indebted teachers say, is that Elena Ivanovna’s material situation did not improve from their loans. The teachers have already learned that her relatives did not suffer misfortunes and that all the tragic stories were invented. They even found the friend’s daughter who had supposedly died in a traffic accident on social media. She wrote that she was alive and well.
«We discussed it all for a long time. It seems she was gambling — maybe in an online casino — because she had even stopped buying clothes for herself lately. We were afraid to come to work in a new dress or blouse — she noticed everything: if we were buying things, it meant we had money. She would start working on us right away,» one teacher says.
The teachers worry the former principal will get away with it. They do not know whether a criminal case has been opened following their statements. Nevyansk police told E1.RU the materials had been forwarded to the Sledstvennyy komitet Rossii, the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR), while the regional ICR declined to comment.
In the opinion of Yekaterinburg lawyer Igor Uporov, it is obvious the teachers became victims of fraud.
«When a person deceives, misleads, and forces people to take out loans — that is blatant fraud. In my view, that is exactly what happened here,» the lawyer says. «If a criminal case is opened, one can go to court with a claim against her without paying the state fee and recover the money, as well as moral damages.»
We attempted to contact Elena Yakovleva and her husband, but the former principal’s phone is switched off, and her spouse did not answer our calls.
Earlier we wrote how scammers managed to defraud a teacher out of one million rubles (approximately $10,000 at current rates), and how a teacher from Uralmash transferred all her savings to fraudsters, also taking out two loans.
Read also about how a math teacher gave scammers 10 million rubles (approximately $100,000 at current rates).
