stories
Former director Grigory Sverdlin looks back on how Russia’s Nochlezhka homeless charity built shelters, showers, and laundries while expanding into Moscow
Source: Meduza
Since 1990, the charity Nochlezhka has helped people experiencing homelessness access food, shelter, medical care, psychological support, and legal assistance. Grigory Sverdlin led the organization for more than a decade, from 2011 to 2022. Under his leadership, Nochlezhka launched numerous projects: Neravnodush, a free shower facility; the Counseling Service, which provides legal and social assistance; the Cultural Launderette, where people experiencing homelessness can wash and dry their clothes for free; and a Moscow branch that opened despite threats and harassment from local residents, officials, and even the Rossiya 1 television channel. In his book “Punkt Obogreva” (“Warming Center”), published by Meduza with support from the StraightForward Foundation, Sverdlin recalls the challenges Nochlezhka faced over the years — and how the organization overcame them. We asked him to describe his work at Nochlezhka and show us what it was like.
The Night Bus
“The Night Bus actually ran in the evenings. It was a small minivan with shelving units installed inside, holding 20-liter [5.3-gallon] army thermoses full of soup. Volunteers handed out food day after day, at the same time, at the same stops, so homeless people already knew where and when to show up. The driver was in charge of each run — the only person who did this every workday rather than occasionally, as the volunteers did, earning a small salary for it. It was a Petersburg autumn: cold, dark, and dreary. A huge line, 40 people or so. You could tell many of them had known each other for a long time. I remember being struck by how often people said ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ — far more often than, say, in the Petersburg metro. The Night Bus was clearly a place where they felt safe and were treated like human beings.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“I expected to see people who weren’t very sober and were poorly dressed, mostly elderly. There were plenty of those, but many others showed up too: a smiling teenage boy of about 15; a working-class guy dressed, like me, in a black jacket and jeans; elderly women who knew each other from a nearby building; their pensions weren’t even enough for food, so they took the chance to get a free bowl of hot soup. About a third were people with homes. I really liked that everyone who got in line received food. There was no distinction between people who were homeless and those who weren’t; no need to prove you really needed that bowl of soup and piece of bread. No one waits in a line like that unless they have to. Just asking for help was enough.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“Some trips were especially memorable. Once the wiring burned out and the light in the cab went dead. We had to ladle out soup by feel. And suddenly, almost instantly, an old candelabrum holding about a dozen candles appeared, brought in by one of the clients from who knows where. And all of it — the bus, the soup, the people — turned before our eyes into a Christmas mystery play.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
The Warming Station
“The tent was packed full every day. We opened at eight in the evening, but the line was already forming by seven — people hurried to save a spot, though we ended up letting everyone in anyway. On the coldest nights, we had close to 70 people in a tent meant for 50. It might be crowded, but no one should be left out in the cold. The average winter temperature in Petersburg is minus 11 degrees Celsius [12 degrees Fahrenheit], which because of the city’s humidity, feels another 3–5 degrees colder [about 5–9 degrees Fahrenheit colder]. So staying outside on a winter night is simply life-threatening. We let everyone in: sober or drunk. The only rules were not to drink and not to disturb others trying to rest. It all looked like something out of a Bosch painting: darkness, some grim back alleys along the Obvodny Canal, people wrapped in several layers of clothing and shivering from the cold — that winter the temperature often dropped to minus 20 to 25 degrees Celsius [minus 4 to minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit]. Most visitors were somewhere between 30 and 50 years old, but there were children too, and some very elderly people.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
The Shelter
“Besides the Night Bus and the Heating Point, we had one more project: a shelter. In 2005, the city leased Nochlezhka a building at a reduced rate at the very end of Ligovsky Prospect, beyond the Obvodny Canal. It’s a rough part of the city that has always had a lot of dormitories and flophouses for people who came to Petersburg for work. To be precise, what stood there wasn’t even a building, but its skeleton: no roof, no windows, holes gaping between floors. Renovation took two years, and eventually a shelter for 52 people opened in a space completely unsuited for the purpose.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“The Counseling Service was on the first floor. […] The shelter itself was on the second and third floors — five rooms, each holding eight to 12 people. Four for men and one for women. That roughly matched the ratio among homeless people: there are about four times as many men on the street.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“[We called the biggest room] the Library. Here, shelter residents could read books or sit at a computer to try to find work, get in touch with relatives, or just play solitaire.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
The Counseling Service
“The Counseling Service was a kind of information desk for homeless people: here they got help replacing lost documents and filing requests or complaints with city agencies, and could call home to another city.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“People whose passports had been stolen would come in from time to time, and at the passport office they’d hear: ‘Where were your documents issued? In Rostov? Then go get them replaced there.’ That was completely illegal, but few people knew how to stand up for their rights. Others came who had traveled to Petersburg for work and been cheated by an employer — a very common story. A man works construction, lives in a site trailer, gets some pocket money, and is told: ‘We’ll settle up once the project is done.’ Then three or four months later he hears something like: ‘The contractor paid us less, here’s a couple thousand, now get lost.’ There was no employment contract, and even if there had been, workers like that weren’t prepared to fight for their rights in court. All they wanted was somewhere to spend the night. We bought some of them tickets home. Several dozen people came to the Counseling Service every day.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
The Cultural Launderette
“Nochlezhka isn’t just about restoring documents, finding jobs, or handing out food. It’s also about dignity — maybe, first and foremost, about dignity. People need to be able to feel human, not like outcasts — even if they can’t afford to do laundry. They shouldn’t have to be afraid to walk into a café or go to a job interview because their clothes smell.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“From the very first days, the laundromat was packed with people. Eight professional washing machines provided by Prachka.com churned away, with eight dryers working just as hard. In the first two weeks alone, 274 people came to us. Yes, occasionally older women who weren’t homeless came too. And that was fine — if someone was willing to come do their laundry at a laundromat for homeless people, they clearly needed it. On one of the first days, I witnessed a scene: an elderly man was freezing and clearly didn’t have enough warm clothing. A very poorly dressed young guy walked up to him and gave him his sweater: ‘You need it more; you’ll freeze.’ The man burst into tears.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
Neravnodush
“Then we launched Neravnodush, a place where anyone in need could take a shower for free. Again and again, I was fascinated by the act of creating something from nothing, out of emptiness. An idea would flash through my mind, and then came the hardest part: summoning the will and determination not just to start, but to see it through no matter what it took. And after that, miracles would begin to happen.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“It took us more than four years to open Neravnodush: finding a plot of land, arranging the lease, designing and building the facility after studying similar projects abroad, arranging electricity and water hookups, closing off Novorossiyskaya Street to lay pipe, and so on and so forth.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
The Moscow branch of Nochlezhka
“August 2018. To cut off any path to retreat, I happily posted on social media: ‘It’s official — Nochlezhka’s first project in Moscow will be the Cultural Launderette.’ Sweet summer child. It’s a good thing we can’t see the future. If I’d even suspected what awaited us, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to take that first step.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“For several months, we sent petition after petition and kept showing up at Moscow City Hall, asking the city to give us a space. But we were turned down four times. […] We realized we’d have to start with humanitarian aid, such as a laundromat, rather than with more complex and expensive projects like a rehabilitation shelter and the Counseling Service. […] I had never in my life seen as much hatred as was directed at us in the weeks and months that followed. Our laundromat, which hadn’t even opened yet, was threatened with arson three times, and we lost count of how many times people threatened to report us to Rospotrebnadzor, the sanitary and epidemiological service, the prosecutor’s office, and every other agency imaginable. Almost immediately, a group of activists formed and began campaigning against us.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“Rossiya 1, a Russian national television channel, shot a segment about Nochlezhka in the style of a public denunciation. ‘So-called philanthropists’ and “a strange Petersburg fund,’ the voiceover intoned ominously. ‘How can they put a homeless shelter right in the center of the city?’ the host said incredulously. ‘Especially since in Petersburg itself, Nochlezhka is stuck in a trailer on a vacant lot.’ Despite repeated appeals for people to turn out for the filming, only six showed up to picket Nochlezhka on camera. Even so, they were filmed and presented as ‘large-scale protests by local residents.’ It later turned out that the channel’s deputy director was our neighbor and a fierce opponent of ours.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
“And finally, in July 2020, two and a half years later: Dasha and I cut the ribbon. The Counselling Service in Moscow is open. And soon a shelter will open in the same building. A full two and a half years. That’s all it took. Just two and a half years, and now Nochlezhka in Moscow has 13 employees, more than 100 volunteers, and the Night Bus feeding 150 to 200 people every evening. Now 20 to 30 people will get help at the Counselling Service every day. Fewer people will be left alone with their troubles. The strange, timeless story of people who didn’t like this world and decided to invent another one for themselves went on.”
Grigory Sverdlin’s archive
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