Press Release, 02.12.2014

On December 2, 2014, Chief Federal Inspector on Mordovia Alexander Pykov visited the refugees from Ukraine in the Atma village, the Republic of Mordovia. Instead of providing aid to the refugees he threatened to take away their children.

The official said that the refugees’ children were living “like Roma children”, so he would send the Guardianship Commission to the village. He also said that the refugees were “not entitled to get any mony” adding “no one wants you here”.

Pykov also said that he would “not ill not allow to make a Maidan here”. He told to the refugees “do not meddle in politics”.

Three refugees families live in one house in the village: 12 people, including four children. They have neither money, nor jobs. After a scandal on not paying the wages to the refugees local businessman Chalov terminated their employment contracts for “absence from work” that he had allegedly concluded with them.

YABLOKO continues closely following the situation with the refugees from Atma. The party forwarded letters to Vladimir Putin and the authorities of the Republic of Mordovia. Also today YABLOKO activists begin raising funds and collection of warm clothes for the refugees.

Refugees who came to Mordovia from Donbass filed a collective letter of complaint to leader of Mordovia branch of YABLOKO Vladimir Gridin. The wrote that they, like other people from the refugee camp, had received a job offer in the region. Each of them was promised to 100,000 roubles for resettlement. However, none of them had managed to get any money from the state for the four months and had to live in local residents’ homes. Sergei Mitrokhin also described this situation in detail in his blog, also he spoke about this situation on a popular TV programme of Channel One on November 27. After that District Prosecutor Sergei Illiyn demanded eviction of the refugees from the village.