Document 144

Report of medical team to Children's Commission of VtsIK on conditions in Moscow children's homes, October 1935

GARF, f. 5207, op. 1, d. 1056, l. 2. Typewritten copy.

With outrage the team points out the outrageous [repetition in original--Trans.] condition of the only medical children's home--the Dzerzhinsky isolation ward with a capacity of 350, accepted just four months ago by the Moscow City Health Department from the city board of public education (the isolation ward's director is Comrade Brunshtein).

As of the day of the survey, the isolation ward housed 446 children, of whom 377 were ill (287 with trachoma, 71 with herpes, 51 with syphilis) [Figures add up to more than 377; presumably some patients had more than one disease.]; the rest of the children were completely healthy, including 54 preschoolers who were compelled to be around the patients and 33 children who had recovered but had not been removed from this children's home [Again, the total figures inexplicably add up to more than 446.]. As a result, there were 29 recurrences of illness among the 33 children who had already recovered. The healthy children include some who are mentally retarded and deaf-mute. In addition, children who have recovered and are difficult to handle live in the comprehensive school for up to three years and have not been moved to the appropriate institutions.

The school premises are in an exceptionally neglected condition, filthy and unsanitary. Many windows have no glass in them, and there are no tanks for drinking water. The baths are in a cellarlike, filthy area, which has only thirty small tubs.

The Dzerzhinsky school sent two pupils who had ostensibly recovered to children's home No. 3 at the Pravda station, even though they had not been completely cured. As a result, nine pupils at children's home No. 3 contracted herpes.

The school's internal staircase has no railings. On 29 September of this year Vitia Kiselyov, a seven-year-old boy, started walking down from the third floor, but he fell off the staircase to his death. Yet even on 13 October, when our team visited the isolation ward, railings had still not been built for the staircase. The isolation ward also has a shortage of clothing and shoes for the children. There are no dishes, and the children drink tea from deep plates with tablespoons. No child-rearing work is done. Children who disobey are undressed and sent to sit naked in a separate room. Such "practices" result in the fact that even sick children are forced to run away from this isolation ward. For example, between 1 January and 30 September of this year, 105 children ran away. The greatest number of these escapes--fifty eight (since July)--occurred after this institution had been turned over to the city health department.