The whole country was repairing Nadezhda’s apartment

The social services took the daughter from her mother because of the conditions in which the family found itself

- “We lived in a trailer in a parking lot. Me and my two daughters”, 46-year-old Nadezhda Komelkova recalls about the worst days of her life.

Before that, Nadezhda from Lytkarino and her two children - 14-year-old Katya and 21-year-old Sasha - were literally on the street. Komelkova and her daughters lived with her brother. Soon he got married, his children were born. They were nine in a one - room apartment. It was impossible to live like that, and Nadia and her daughters were put out.

- “I got an apartment from my ex-husband. He died, and these 38 square meters were inherited to me. He drank heavily, so he brought the apartment to a terrible condition. It was impossible to live there”, says Nadia.

Fixing an apartment would cost at least 300 thousand rubles. Nadezhda did not have that kind of money. The woman works as a security guard at the parking lot and receives 20 thousand rubles. The eldest daughter Sasha at that time was a packer for minimum wage. There was nowhere to go. So they decided to settle in a trailer in the parking lot.

Soon this was learned about in the guardianship authorities and recommended temporarily placing 14-year-old Katya in a social and rehabilitation center for minors - until Nadezhda has something with an apartment.

Then the Komelkovs  began to be supervised by the SoSdetki volunteer organization.

- “The social services asked us to help this family, and we arranged such a transformation. It was awful in the apartment. That was not just a cosmetic repair, we cleaned everything and even changed communications, removed cockroaches and wood lice”, explains the curator of the movement, Ekaterina Babeeva.

The apartment was renovated by citizens who care from Lytkarino - Vyacheslav Kovalenko and Anatoly Popov.

- “For me, apartment renovation is just a hobby. There are a lot of tools in my home, I have my own online decorations store, I decorate apartments for my pleasure”, said 38-year-old Anatoly Popov.

The man has been working with the volunteer movement for a long time and found out about the help of the Komelkovs through the organization’s social networks. They also talked about the progress of the repair and raised money for building materials.

“Someone sent money, and someone brought unnecessary tiles and other materials at a collection point for humanitarian aid,” recalls Anatoly.

Repair began in mid-September, the apartment was done a little more than a month.

-“We still haven’t finished. We planned to change the windows, the furniture had not yet been brought to the end. But we will finish this trifle anyway. The apartment was literally repaired by the whole country”, - laughs the curator Ekaterina.