Housing is to die for
in former Soviet Union
MOSCOW (AP) — Raisa
Milshtcin liked her vodka and she
liked her friends. Together, they did
her in.
Her story ofbetrayal and murder at
the hands of ruthless young men
sounds like a novel by Dostoyevsky.
But this is a modern tale with a dark
moral, one plucked from an as-yct
unwritten survivor’s guide to the dan
gerous new Russia.
Milshtein, 56, became one of the
dozens, perhaps hundreds or thou
sands, killed for the one thing of value
they had: an apartment.
Millions of Russians, particularly
the elderly, were impoverished by the
dizzying economic changes wrought
by the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1991. Raging inflation wiped out life
savings; pal try pensions failed to keep
pace and state services were cither
inadequate or nonexistent. For pen
sioners, the promised free market be
came a flea market. They stood on the
streets selling the socks from their feet
or anything else they could spare.
Although cash-poor, many became
property-rich when the government
announced in 1992 that they could
claim and sell their state-owned apart
ments, breaking the Soviet system’s
70-ycar stranglehold on real estate.
Suddenly, an apartment of three or
four rooms in central Moscow was
worth $ 100,000 or more. Even smal ler,
less-desirable apartmen ts could be sold
for tens of thousands of dollars, more
than most Russians could earn in a
lifetime.
The lure of money proved espe
cially strong for the old and lonely,
who dreamed of cashing in and get
ting out of the mean city to spend their
final years in country comfort, or for
alcoholics looking for a bottomless
bottle.
Some quickly learned just how cruel
capitalism could be.
Criminal groups began preying on
those who lived alone. They devised
several schemes, sometimes offering
to buy the flats for cash and the prom
ise of new housing outside Moscow,
other times drawing up contracts that
offered lifetime maid service, food
and medical care in exchange for the
apartment after the owner’s death.
“The tragedy begins when the pa
pers are signed,” said Vladimir
Vershkov, a Moscow police spokes
man.
Milshtein lived in a one-room
apartment and spent much ofher time
drinking with friends, said Vitaly
Ryabov of the city prosecutor’s ofTicc.
“Among her friends were two
young men who knew she was living
alone and wanted to seize her apart
ment,” he said. “They tricked her into
signing a trust agreement to sell the
apartment, and during another drink
ing party, they took her to the country
side and killed her by injecting her
with some drug. They buried her at
their dacha outside Moscow.”
The criminals were caught after
they bought a flashy foreign car with
theprocccds. Investigators believe they
killed another elderly woman in a
similar setup.
At least 30 Muscovites arc known
to have been killed for their apart
ments last year, and police are inves
tigating the whcrcaboutsof3,000 who
disappeared after selling their flats.
Russians arc still required to register
with police when they move.
“They were either killed or com
pletely bungled all of their docu
ments,” Ryabov said. “We have no
idea where they are now. It’s a serious
problem both for the prosecutor’s of
fice and the police.”
Authorities expect the number of
known victims to grow with the end of
winter: They are finding unidentified
bodies that had been concealed for
months in snow-covered woods or
frozen rivers.
“As horrible as these facts are, it is
only natural considering the high cost
of housing,” Vershkov said. “The tran
sition period of the economy is a good
breeding ground for criminal^”
So far, 1.5 million apartments in
Moscow have been claimed by their
tenants, about 40 percent of the total,
Ryabov said. Filing the privatization
papers is easy and the only payment
required is a small document-han
dling fees.
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