‘We Need to Save Yuri’: Elderly Man and 16 Cats Perish in Filthy Samara Apartment

The smell is so strong it makes your eyes water. Behind a solid front door at apartment 103 on Maurice Thorez Street, tons of rags lie piled on the floor, cats scurry about, and flies buzz. The windows are tightly shut, with condensation from cat feces streaking down them—the air is simply unbreathable. Amidst all this lives an elderly man named Yuri. And all around him are numerous neighbors. Reporters from 63.RU visited this horrific apartment and tell the story of its inhabitants.

According to neighbors, they were unaware for years of what was happening inside the apartment. It was only after the death of the apartment«s owner, Olga—Yuri»s sister—that the full horror of this three-room flat was revealed.

Olga and Yuri«s parents received this apartment around 40 years ago. Their mother died in December 2019. According to Yuri, it was after their mother»s death that Olga began hoarding things. And collecting cats.

Neighbors say the adult heirs« way of life after their parents» death developed as follows: Olga did not work, and Yuri procured food by collecting expired products from dumpsters. They did not spend the disability pensions they received. An active neighbor, Tatyana, believes that in this way Olga managed to save up some money, which may still be inside the apartment.

“If you let volunteers in here now—they«ll throw everything out indiscriminately. Yuri will be left with nothing. And there could be important documents in there. He could lose the apartment. Scammers will come and make him sign everything away. There is gold and money that Olga hid, perhaps inside stuffed toys. And I cannot allow that. I feel sorry for him,” Tatyana says.

No relatives were found who wished to bury the former owner.

“He has a nephew from Novokuybyshevsk; I found his number in Olga«s phone. He came, looked at all this, and said: ‘I won»t deal with anything here until I inherit it.’ And that«s six months,” the neighbor recounts.

Tatyana had to organize the funeral, as she knew Olga well.

“I helped Yuri organize her funeral so she wouldn«t be buried in a mass grave. It cost 65,000 rubles (about $700 at current rates),” she says.

According to Tatyana, she protects Yuri from scammers who have kidnapped him multiple times, holding him ‘hostage’ and forcing him to gather expired food from stores for sustenance.

“He is prone to wandering and could end up in bad company. Now that you«re writing about this—people will immediately line up trying to get their hands on something valuable,” she is convinced.

We entered the apartment with the permission of the owner, Yuri. He views the situation differently than his neighbor Tatyana and is asking for help. We promised to publicize his story so that volunteers and social services capable of helping him would learn about his difficult situation.

Other neighbors, on the contrary, criticize Tatyana and accuse her of hiding the problem. They say that during her life, Olga never let anyone into the apartment and actively masked the smell with deodorant and perfume. If something seeped out, she would say: ‘It«s nothing serious—it»s just the garbage chute smelling.’

When Olga died and the apartment door was opened a bit wider than usual—neighbors saw what was happening beyond the threshold and were shocked. And now they don«t know what to do.

“She came out looking tidy, and he came out looking tidy. You know, I can«t say he came out looking like a homeless person—no,” recalls a neighbor from the stairwell.

“He needs to be taken away. He«s an asocial person. He can»t take care of himself, he can«t live on his own,” a downstairs neighbor is convinced.

Yuri himself said he wouldn«t mind going to a care home, but doesn»t understand what he needs to do to get there. He was in a similar one in Kazan before—he liked it there.

According to neighbors, he has a mental illness. But his mind works well.

Residents, learning that reporters had come to their building, gathered at the door on the landing. But no one went inside the apartment. People argued amongst themselves, debating what to do about Yuri and his living conditions.

We tried to talk to Yuri himself, which was not easy. His voice is quiet, and he couldn«t shout over everyone.

Yuri cannot clean up the apartment himself. And according to him, social services workers have never come to see him.

Neighbors from the stairwell recounted how they first learned about the apartment«s condition:

“Olga came to me feeling unwell—with an arrhythmia. An ambulance arrived, but they couldn«t enter the apartment. She was hospitalized at the hospital on Tennisnaya Street, where she ended up in intensive care. After several days of examination, they found blood between her pleura and lungs, and she was urgently transferred to the Clinics of the Medical Institute, where she died. Before her death, she gave my daughter the keys to the apartment and allowed us to throw out some spoiled things. She said where the documents were, including the power of attorney to collect Yuri»s pension, his passport, and his SNILS (Russian pension insurance number). And she asked us to take these documents for safekeeping. Later, in the presence of the local police officer, we returned these documents to Yuri to avoid any issues. But most of all she asked us to watch over Yuri. He repeatedly ran away from home, lived on the streets, and she was very worried about him because he has a diagnosed condition,” one of the neighbors recounted.

Neighbor Tatyana is firmly convinced that junk should only be removed from the apartment strictly in the presence of the police, so no valuables go missing if they are there:

“On camera, with the local police officer. We will check every bag, as there could be valuables inside. Only under those conditions. There are good things in there, not just some trash, everything is in bags,” she says.

Other neighbors believe the active neighbor is holding Yuri ‘hostage’:

“She took his phone from him. She combed through Olga«s entire phone, found relatives. Although Yuri is the primary heir. We don»t know what he has in the apartment, we haven«t been there. At least now he comes out of the apartment, sometimes asks for hot water—it»s not difficult for us, since he doesn«t even have a way to heat water (there is no gas in the apartment.—Ed.). And as for her saying that we took some things from there… We don»t need it—for God«s sake!”

And at the end of the conversation, Yuri himself repeated:

“I need help, I agree to go to Kazan, to the ‘Mercy’ care home where I«ve already been, I liked it there. And here it»s awful: the conditions are unbearable.”