I moved so no one would bother: Elderly in Tyumen mark New Year alone

A workshop is taking place in the boarding house dining room.

«I like this color! It goes so well with the Christmas tree,» comments one of the participants, taking a light green napkin.

«Me too!» chimes in another.

The others are busily folding origami. When hands don«t obey and the folds come out uneven, Tatiana approaches. »My dear, let me help,« she says and fixes the craft. All workshop participants are over 70 years old. Today they are making decorations for New Year, which they will celebrate together in the boarding house. Most residents have relatives, but no one is going to visit them for the holidays.

We tell how New Year is celebrated in the boarding house and how those who have family end up there.

«My children are in Zakarpattia. I can»t move to them.« Who lives in the boarding house

76-year-old Nikolai Pavlovich moved to the boarding house from Shorokhovo a year ago. He worked as a driver all his life. In the village, he lived in a private house and kept a household. When Nikolai Pavlovich fell seriously ill, he had to move to the city for treatment.

«I moved here myself so no one would bother with me,» says Nikolai Pavlovich. «I love solving crosswords. Otherwise, it»s lunch, dinner, breakfast—all the work. And for New Year, I«ll sneak away,» the pensioner says.

In the village, Nikolai Pavlovich has a son who visits his father from time to time.

Valentina Alexeyevna smiles when meeting. And before starting her story, she says: «I want to not only think about illness, but to lift my spirits and others».« The pensioner lived in Tarko-Sale, Zakarpattia, and Zavodoukovsk. She worked as a meteorologist, secretary of the Komsomol organization (the Communist Youth League). She admits that she misses the North—in her room, she keeps a collection of newspapers about her hometown.

At 87, Valentina Alexeyevna has four children and nine grandchildren. All live in different cities: in Zakarpattia, Tyumen, Tarko-Sale. Her daughter arranged for the pensioner to move to the boarding house when her mother had a heart attack.

«Three of my daughters live in Zakarpattia. They went there on vacation and got stuck: the special military operation began. One grandson, an athlete, moved to Canada. I can»t move to them: it«s difficult to do the paperwork. Now there»s no contact with them. And it weighs on me.«

Valentina Alexeyevna calls her son every day. She believes that after New Year, everything will change and she will be able to get in touch with the rest of her relatives.

Galina Vasilyevna was born in the village of Ptitsy. She trained as a paramedic and left for the Kazansky district, from there—to Tyumen with her husband. The pensioner worked in medicine for 44 years. In the city, Galina Vasilyevna had a three-room apartment. She sold it and bought housing for her son and herself. She says that when her granddaughter needed to do repairs, she sold her one-room apartment and moved in with her son. At 87, she decided to live alone.

«I decided to come here myself. My son was against it. But I couldn»t do otherwise: not everything was smooth with my daughter-in-law. She is a bit of a different character, not like my family,« Galina Vasilyevna says.

Galina Vasilyevna recalls that when she first found herself in the boarding house, she burst into tears. She says it was from happiness.

Nina Innokentievna lived alone in an apartment. She worked as a warehouse manager in an agricultural technical school, kindergarten, hospital. When at 85 she started having health problems, she told her relatives: «Arrange for me to go to a boarding house, you»ve suffered enough with me.«

«I»m not upset,« Nina Innokentievna says cheerfully.

«We made fir trees from handprints.» How New Year passes without relatives

The average age of residents is 80+. A boarding house employee says that often pensioners are brought here by their relatives themselves. Many of their children are over 60 years old, and they cannot care for their loved ones.

«Or some decide themselves that it»s better to live at a distance from relatives. There is a part of people who have no relatives. Three people came here from an orphanage,« says Tatiana Beresneva, head of the rehabilitation, socialization, and leisure activities department.

Residents do have relatives, but they rarely visit them. Therefore, the New Year atmosphere in the boarding house is created from December 1. At the beginning of winter, staff conduct workshops, students come with congratulations to the residents. On the eve of New Year, there was a concert in the assembly hall: a massage therapist was dressed as Ded Moroz (Father Frost), a lawyer as Snegurochka (the Snow Maiden), a dining room employee became Baba Yaga. Tatiana Beresneva says that the pensioners were delighted: like children, they guessed who was behind the masks of the characters.

«Recently, we held our own workshop on making fir trees. We have citizens with limited mobility—with them we made fir trees from handprints. When they started tracing their hands, they already faced difficulty: tracing hands is not so easy. And then we sang together,» says Natalya Beresneva.

December 31 was a special day in the boarding house. All staff dressed in New Year«s style, holiday music was turned on in the dining room.

«We have a New Year»s breakfast, lunch, dinner. Food block assistants and the cooks themselves wear caps. They prepare Olivier salad, red fish, herring under a fur coat (a traditional Russian salad),« says Tatiana.

Out of the entire boarding house, only five people celebrated New Year with relatives.

Earlier we told the story of a couple from the boarding house. Viktor Alexeyevich found his love Lyudmila there. Read about how they live.