Russia, a three-generation family has lived undocumented for 30 years

2021-04-05T18:36:00.130Z

In Ulan-Udė, a city in Southern Siberia, a family was discovered, a 60-year-old husband, 59-year-old wife, 36-year-old daughter and grandchildren aged 16, 13 and 3, who lived for 30 years without any documents. The family, all Russian citizens, neither have nor have ever had any official documents of the Russian Federation. The only document available is the grandmother's USSR passport. The latter had refused to replace him with a Russian passport after the Soviet collapse. For this reason she was unable to obtain birth certificates for her daughter and she was unable to obtain birth certificates for her 3 daughters afterwards. Family members have no pension position with the Russian Pension Fund, have no health cards and have never contacted the family doctor or the polyclinic. The grandparents never applied for the pension, due to them for seniority. Neither the grandparents nor the daughter have ever applied for subsidies for the birth of children or subsidies for the support of family income and various subsidies due for minor dependent children. Overall, they did not receive subsidies due to them by right for about 15 thousand euros. The story was discovered by pure chance when the 16-year-old girl at school was asked for an identity card (Russian internal passport) for admission to the high school exams. After the outbreak of the case, the social workers visited the family, also speculating to remove parental authority and send the 3 grandchildren to a family home. However, they were very disconcerted: the living conditions were satisfactory, the two eldest grandchildren attend school with good academic performance. The only family income available is the grandmother's job as a non-compliant saleswoman, who collects the black salary. However, he manages to pay the rent for the two-room apartment and provide for the needs of the 3-generation family. After the case became public knowledge, the local authorities started the full verifications, discovering in the city of Ulan-Udė alone… another 61 “Soviet citizens”, those who live with the passports of the non-existent state, the Soviet Union.