#4
St. Petersburg Times
December 21, 2001
Editorial
Yes, We Do Need All of Our Children
AS the well-heeled were streaming out of the packed concert of Moscow violinist Vladimir Spivakov at the Philharmonic Hall on Wednesday, they were greeted by a distressing and all too common sight. A small throng of street children - shivering in threadbare coats - gathered around on the square outside the hall, begging for spare change.
Some music-lovers reached into the pockets of their fur coats and came up with a little money - just as likely to be used to buy glue for sniffing as for food - while others ignored the outstretched hands and hurried to their cars. In the end, the concert crowd dispersed into the snowy evening - and only the children remained on Arts Square.
Although St. Petersburg is, of course, far from being an affluent city, it does suffer from something of a split personality. On the one hand, it is making tremendous strides toward recapturing some of its previous glory. The summertime White Nights Festival and winter's Arts Square Festival not only demonstrate the best the city has to offer, but also pay tribute to humanity's finest aspirations.
On the other hand, there are the neglected street children, abandoned by their own parents and growing up in a misery that no one should ever know. On Page 4 of today's issue, The St. Petersburg Times presents a glimpse of that misery and introduces some of the people who are grappling with this problem. Such people, however, are few. As one activist put it: "Neither the authorities nor society realize the scale of the problem; nor do they know what should be done about it."
According to the only research available locally, the scale of the problem in St. Petersburg is about 16,000 children. Living in attics and basements. Doing drugs. Begging on the streets. Committing petty crimes. Falling victim to pimps. Growing up cynical, illiterate and angry.
Obviously, it is a problem that does not admit of easy solutions. It is organically tied to the problems of the children's parents -despair, economic dislocation, alcoholism. It is tied to the poor state of city schools and the nearly complete lack of sensible after-school programs for children and teenagers.
On city streets not far from the Philharmonic Hall, the administration has begun putting up posters promoting the young generation. "We are all different," runs the slogan over the smiling faces of local teens, "But our country needs us all."
That's not the picture that one gets reading our report today. The children we spoke to certainly don't have the impression that the country, the city or even their own parents need them.
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