"I thought I was here for a couple of years, but I stayed for 20."
In 1996, 28-year-old Lyudmila Gusachenko and her daughter came to Vitebsk from Barnaul, and for a while, she took a job as a Red Cross nurse, where she helped elderly people.
- I provided services to an elderly lady Hama Borisovna, she would say: "Honey, wait till I die, then you will look for another job", - remembers Lyudmila. - Hama Borisovna died a few years ago, and I am still in the Red Cross. Over these 22 years, I have been working with the feeling that I am here temporarily. I would find a place, but then always something would stop me. I love my elderly people. My father passed away, my mother is in Germany, I guess I lack parental love.
"I would come before going to bed when i had to."
Ludmila opens the door of her apartment for us at 5.45 am, whispering “hello”, her husband and daughter are still sleeping. The nurse wakes up at 5.20, puts necessary things into her bag, feeds two domestic cats ("old age must be respected, one of the cats has been with us for 16 years") and makes sure to take some food for the street cats that she will meet on the way to her beneficiaries.
She has to be at her first beneficiaries, the Marchenko family, by seven in the morning. In just one day, the nurse usually visits six patients. But, sometimes, someone needs an injection urgently, then the elderly call Ludmila.
- Safe and sound, thank God! – the Marchenko family meet the nurse on the doorstep.
Galina Frantsevna is 79, Georgy Alexandrovich is 83. They have been together for half a century, but have never seen each other, both are blind. She comes from Slonim, he comes from Vitebsk, and they met in Minsk, when they studied at the institute.
- He would invite me to Vitebsk over and over again and I stayed there," Galina Frantsevna smiles.
"Seven o'clock sharp! 25 degrees" - just as we crossed the threshold of the apartment, the clock told the time. The Marchenkos hear the time announcement every hour, the pressure appears not only on the tonometer display, but it is also announced. There is an insulin pen - a syringe for the blind, with which Galina Frantsevna injects insulin to her husband. And all things have their certain place.
- Even if it seems that there is a mess, it is not a mess, it should be so - the nurse smiles and starts doing the standard procedures – blood pressure, insulin ...
- You have been injecting it to me for 25 years, I have counted, - Georgy Alexandrovich addresses Lyudmila.
- No, I have been coming for 25 years, but we have been on insulin for 6 years now, we had taken pills before," the nurse corrects.
At least twice a week Lyudmila comes to the Marchenkos at seven in the morning.
- If the sugar is stable, I visit them twice a week, when it jump up, I come every day," the nurse explains. - I used to come at 9 pm before going to bed. I inject once a day and I taught Galina Frantsevna how to use a syringe-pen.
Today Georgy Alexandrovich has good blood sugar indicator. The man remembers all the indicators. Every day they are recorded in Braille by his wife.
Georgy Alexandrovich lost his sight in his youth, after that he studied at the institute and worked as a teacher of political economy at the technical school for 30 years, he speaks about his work very willingly. To his classes he went together with a guide dog. The Marchenko family had many of them.
-If someone was late and wanted to enter the classroom quietly, the dog would immediately bark, "Woof!" Meaning, where are you going? - Galina Frantsevna adds.
Pensioners were recently offered to raise money for a guide dog, but the family refused.
-Well, it is hard. I am 80 years old now. And the dog, sometimes, needs to go out at night - says Galina Frantsevna and reflects on the dogs. - The Germans gave us the last dog - Silva, a black Labrador. We used to have sheepdogs as well. Oh, there was Jung! How big it was, 80 centimeters tall!
Almost all their dogs lived until old age; one was shot on the street by hooligans. Now the family has been living without a guide dog for 15 years.
- But they work hard, so they live for 13 years," Galina Frantsevna said. - We went from here to Grodno region, to visit my parents, with a guide dog. And we went for a swim...
- We would go swimming - he would watch the clothes, - smiles Georgy Alexandrovich. - And if we went too far and the water was a little higher than our chest – it would rush to pull us out. If we did not get out, it would scratch us! We used to come to the shop with Jung, he would put his paws at the counter: "Woof!", saying “We are here”. Everyone in the shop knew him, and they gave him meat.
There comes another beep in the room – it is the phone: you arere getting a call from number six-two-one...
- It's my sister who is worried whether I am up or not," Galina Frantsevna smiles as she hears the last digits of the number and comes to the phone. She sits in a chair – she is petite, with perfect posture.
There is a tape recorder on the table next to the chair. Let's turn it on. The Belarusian group Navi is heard from the speakers on the radio, and Galina Frantseva says they often listen to fiction. Their friends record audio books on a flash drive. But it's harder to get literature written in Braille.
- During the Soviet time I received both books and literary magazines, and now they are not sent to other republics.
When Lyudmila leaves Marchenkos, she must turn off the light – the husband and the wife remain in the dark.
"I put the holy charbel where it hurts. I want to live."
- Oh! I'm going to go put my teeth on! - The 82-year-old Tamara Fominichna laughs. - Excuse me, I am an old lady.
The elderly women greet Ludmila like a relative, they dress up before the visitor scome. On the table in Tamara Fominichna’s room there is an open book with recipes, on the wall there is a table for checking eyesight, and on the sofa there is an image of a saint covered with plastic.
- This is my Dr. Charbelle! A good saint, I like him. When I feel dizzy, I say a prayer, and put him on my head. It helps. And on the spine, and on the kidneys. He does not hold where it does not hurt. What to do, my darlings? I have been a cripple since the first second of my life. All people go out with their heads first and I went out with my legs. They were pulling me; I got a dislocation of my hip. That is why I struggle my whole life because I was too clever by half already in my mother’s womb.
The woman cut Charbel’s image out of a popular medicine magazine. There she read that before going to bed one should breathe in valerian and put a clove of garlic under one’s pillow.
- I do everything I read about, I want to live! I read that one should dance with one’s eyebrows! I tried it," she laughs. - You will not get bored with me!
Lyudmila Valeryevna has visited her only for a couple of months, but she is full of gratitude.
- She bought me a chair for the bath, because I couldn't wash myself, I was totally dirty! She put the wallpaper, brought food, bought me cinnamon! She also cleans the apartment and helps me wash! And she changes my bed linen.
Ludmila writes down in her notebook what to bring to Tamara Fominichna next time, and we go to Evgenia Abramovna Zhukova - we have to come to her later when she wakes up. The 90-year-old woman lives in a communal kitchen. She does not come there often, though. Most of the tome she stays in her room. She broke her femoral neck twice. They did not dare do the surgery second time because of her age. The doctors decided there was no one to take care of the woman, she would be better off in a nursing home. Yevgeniya Abramovna thought so too, but after three months, she called her nephew asking to find a car and take her home.
- Oh, you know, it is very scary: an old woman next to me would cry day and night and hear nothing, someone would moan and groan. And I felt quite ok," remembers Yevgenia Abramovna. - Then I thought: why could not I lie at home in my room, even if alone? I will hire a lady - I get my pension, it is enough not only for food, and I do not need to buy clothes.
The nurse brings the woman (one van hardly call her an elderly woman) porridge with sausage. Yevgenia Abramovna does not accept her age at all, she tells how she used to work in the Red Cross. She tries to remember how old she was when she retired.
- I was 80... Or about 70 something... I forgot everything now! - Eugenia Abramovna's eyes are very sad. – It is my 91st year now. I went to visit the patients of this age, and they did not walk and did not talk already. I would look at them and want to cry.
If one lives to be that age. One also wants to eat, but has no strength.
"I gave the albums to my nephews. They will throw away everything here when i die anyway."
Anna Nikitichna is 92. Ludmila has been helping her for almost 10 years. The woman has the first disability group and a stunning intuition.
- She feels all my changes and immediately asks: You will not leave me, will you? - Ludmila tells me.
The nurse opens the apartment door herself. During the day, Anna Nikitichna moves around more often in a stroller, and at night she goes with two sticks as the stroller rumbles heavily. She has not been outside for four years.
- Now I can't even go out to get the mail , the eyes of calm and balanced Anna Nikitichna fill with tears. - In summer the balcony is open, I would sit there. Four years ago, two times in summer, my friends took me to my husband’s grave. Do you come from Minsk? Minsk is a beautiful city! I often watch "Panorama".
The woman has a disability group based on general condition: she had oncology, and microstroke, and she has problems with joints.
- All my joints are deformed. You young people may not believe it: the whole bone is curved, now the second one is starting to bend. Sometimes I have such pains that I scream at night.
Anna Nikitichna hardly tries to get up from her chair, holding the armrests with two hands - her hands are shaking. I offer my help.
- No, no, nobody can help me here. If it were not for my hands, I would not have stood up or sat down. But my hands started to hurt.
- The apartment is warm, but it is very old. Everyone has everything new now, - the woman looks around. - Valerievna brought me toys. My brother brought a shell from Cuba. He died five years ago , also at 92.
Anna Nikitichna is on framed photos.
- I am 55 on that one, and this one was made at my 75 - for my passport. And this one is of me at 92 ," she points at herself and smiles. - I have not been photographed after that anymore. My husband took a lot of photos when I was young, there were 15 albums, I gave them to my nephews in Kiev. Because when I die - they will throw everything away, I have no one here.
When a photographer wants to make a portrait of Anna Nikitichna, she is flirting, saying that she is too old. But in a couple of days she asks the nurse about the promised portraits.
- She is a very kind person, so attentive. If I could... She deserves a state award," says the woman about the nurse. – She gives advice when needed. I am just happy.
It is getting dark outside, Ludmila is going home. I have to feed the cats, buy food for my daughter's birthday, make her favorite banana cake and finish the gift wallpaper - this has been a family tradition for many years.
Text: Maria Eleshevich
Photo: Svyatoslav Zorkiy