Misty Rene Freudenberg
Yekaterina Gorbunova dreams of raising her four children to become doctors, engineers, military generals and athletes.
When the mood was pessimistic, she cried.
Yekaterina Gorbunova with her three children Photo: Washington Post.
"I felt completely abandoned. It was as if you were on a sinking boat that no one came to save," Gorbunova said after her husband lost his job and her family was pushed out of the apartment she was renting.
Globally, Covid-19 rocked a series of economies and the world facing the most severe collective recession since the Great Depression between 1929 and 1946.
Russia, meanwhile, was particularly hit by the double blow from Covid-19 and the collapse in oil prices.
Since March, Russian charities and NGOs have had to host large numbers of guests they have never met before: Families who have never been in a financial crisis but are now in despair.
According to data from the Russian federal statistics agency Rosstat, as of the end of May, about 4.5 million people in this country have been unemployed.
Thousands of small businesses went bankrupt in the midst of the Russian economic crisis.
"You have to overcome yourself," said welder Ivan Molchanov.
"I sleep in a public restroom," Molchanov said.
Welder Ivan Molchanov Photo: Washington Post.
Dom Druzei (Friends House), a relief organization that often provides medical assistance to homeless people, has rented 6 motels in Moscow since April 22 and began distributing essential food to people
"The number of people who need help doubled and tripled overnight," said Dmitry Aleshkovsky, founder of Nuzhna Pomosh, a charity that raises money to support charities and non-governmental organizations across Russia.
"I once met a person who had an income of 200,000 rubles (more than $ 2,800) a month." After a second, he had nothing left.
Lana Zhurkina, founder of Dom Druzei, was deeply sympathetic to the case of a young salon worker in Moscow and an 18-month-old child.
"She came to us asking for food because she no longer had food in the house," Zhurkina said.
"There are many such stories," said Olga Lim, the founder of an organization supporting orphans and crisis families in Khabarovsk, in the Far East of Russia.
When Russia loosened restrictions and blockade, some people returned to work.
Alexander Gorbunov, 42, husband of Yekaterina, worked for many years as a client manager for a truck company.
A woman sits outside of Dom Druzei's motel in Moscow Photo: Washington Post.
His family used to live in two small rooms of an apartment in Moscow.
"Everything is very difficult. I don't know where to get the money to pay for April and May," Gorbunova said.
"We couldn't pay because we didn't have the money. I was really panicked. I was confused and disoriented. When the crisis happened, the state government didn't help us," Gorbunova added.
The couple borrowed 300,000 rubles (nearly 4,300 USD) from the two banks to cover living costs.
The family now lives in the small house of Gorbunova's mother-in-law on the outskirts of Moscow.
President Putin promised to support families and children but many are feeling left out.
"Every family with a lot of children sees that," Gorbunova said.
"The situation is getting worse," said Nikolai Rubanovskii from Nochlezhka, an organization that distributes food to the needy and provides legal assistance to the homeless.
