Leshа and Vika have known each other for 10 years. Both of them experienced terrible events in their early childhood, which determined the difficulties they would face in their future lives. Their childhoods were filled with pain, surgeries, and doctors who not only helped them survive but also taught them how to cope psychologically with other people watching.
Lesha and Vika are long-time beneficiaries of the Children’s Hospital Foundation at Speransky Children’s Hospital. This organization works with severely burned children and their families. Each year, approximately 25,000 children with burns of varying severity are admitted to Russian hospitals. For many, this means learning to live and adapt all over again.
In 2018, my photo project “Phoenix” was published on the website of the Russian service of the BBC, which tells the story of Lesha. At the age of two, he was rescued from a burning stove where his drunken father had thrown him. Immersed in Lesha’s world, I met his girlfriend, Vika, who agreed to share difficult childhood memories.
“When I was four years old, I set my dress on fire. I would light it and put it out, light it and put it out,” says Vika. “I liked fire from childhood. It caught fire on the third try. I did not expect it to catch fire so quickly. I had wisely locked the door from my grandmother, who tried to break into the room but couldn’t. In the end, she broke the lock with a hammer. Grandma tried to take off the burning dress and Vicky’s face was burned. She couldn’t get the dress off. So grandmother wrapped her in a wet towel.”
Vika remembers a red dress with white flowers. It was March 2003, and she was four years old. The family did not have a cell phone. Her mother found her with her grandmother by calling all the hospitals. She came to the hospital after her night shift to take care of Vika. “I had to learn everything all over again. How to walk, how to eat, how to talk. I had just learned how to dress myself, and then this happened. It was so painful,” Vika recalls. She spent a month in the ICU and about four months in total in the hospital. She even began to feel that the hospital was her second family, living in a large two-story building. Then Vika was discharged home. I remember when my mother was treating some wounds on me, and I was standing there crying and saying: “I want to go home,” and my mother said: “You are already home.”
In first and second grade, she says, Vika was a crybaby. But then she learned not to respond to teasing. The situation at home worried her more. “I have parents who drink. It bothered me when I was 10 years old, so I started convincing my mother to stop drinking. We still argue about it, and we argued a lot when I was a kid. My stepfather was an unpleasant man. He didn’t work and was always raising his hand against my mother and trying to hurt me. In the second grade, he beat me with a military belt for my grades. Five times for Cs and ten times for Ds. He continued to drink and bother everyone. My mother kicked him out of the house for molesting me. I was 11 years old and in the fourth grade. Vika considers her eighth-grade year to be her best school year because she had a good group of friends. “In seventh grade, the boy who bullied me to the end said, ‘What fools we were to pick on Vika,'” she recalls.
After completing nine grades, Vika attended courses for dog trainers, where she learned to work with dogs. She worked in a children’s camp in the organization group and in a theater camp, drawing posters and decorations, before returning to night school. She worked at the Uniqlo clothing store and passed the Unified State Exam (EGE). When Vika tried to get a job as a dog handler on the subway using the certificate she received after completing the courses, she was not accepted because of her burns. “They said, ‘You won’t pass the medical exam,’ even though I’m not disabled, they didn’t give it to me.” Then she was able to enter the Timiryazev Academy as an animal scientist, where she is currently in her third year. “I’ve always loved dogs since I was a kid, but I never had one because my mom doesn’t like them. Once we had a street dog, but my stepfather threw it out,” explains Vika. For several years in a row, the fund at Speransky Hospital, which works with burned children, organized trips to a husky kennel, and Vika realized that her love for dogs could become a career.
Vika and Lesha continue to meet with the Foundation’s psychologists and volunteer at its events. “There is a big difference in communicating with the guys from the foundation or from the school. With the guys from the foundation, you can joke around, and they will understand. Like a competition about how many surgeries each person has had. When we meet for the first time, the first question is, ‘Have you been burned before?’ That helps, you interact with people, you see how they live. If you have been burned, at first, it is easier to communicate with people who have been through it. And by looking at their experience, it becomes easier for you to communicate with others. Vika plans to move forward and face problems more easily instead of constantly wondering why exactly what happened to her happened. She wants to finish her studies and work as a dog specialist.
Photographer Pavel Volkov was born in the Urals, studied photography in St. Petersburg, and then moved to Moscow. His documentary projects focus on people with disabilities, subcultures, and military issues. Many of Pavel’s works have won Russian and international photography awards. His Instagram handle is @pavelvolkovphoto.