House of the Seventh Sweat: who exploits the labor of homeless people and alcoholics
A special operation to detain a gang that has imposed tribute on the owner of the so-called workhouse is widely discussed on the Web. Six "high-status" criminals were charged, but no complaints were reported against the owner of the institution. Meanwhile, the incomes of the owners of such houses are estimated at tens of millions of rubles per month, and in most situations there are no tax deductions. Izvestia dealt with the details.
Shadows at train stations
Loss of housing, documents, and financial dependence are just a few of the factors that bring a person closer to a workhouse. Such dormitories, as Izvestia found out, are replenished mainly in three ways: either people come there themselves, or recruiters bring them, or relatives rent them out. Most often, citizens who have served criminal sentences become guests of workhouses on their own, where they provide shelter, food and cigarettes for hard work.
— People often have nowhere to go after serving time — relatives discharge problematic fathers, husbands and brothers from square meters, — a police officer specializing in the search for persons who have lost contact with relatives told Izvestia. — The rules there are almost the same as in the colony. The same "watchers", the same conditional code of honor.
At any train station, on almost every pillar, you can find an announcement: "Work with accommodation, regular payments, we will restore documents." Such a promising text is often accompanied by a postscript: "help with addictions." In fact, most expect disappointment — doshirak meals, cash for cigarettes (the cheapest), and a ban on drinking. Well, a lot of free work. But the recruiter won't tell you about it. They prefer to call themselves "volunteers." They can often be seen, for example, at the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow at the exit of long—distance trains - the correspondent of Izvestia was convinced of this. They are, as a rule, former residents of workhouses themselves, who find the right words to interest a tipsy guest of the capital with their proposal.
Those who are tempted by the opening prospects are taken to the place by car. There they are met by administrators, who are usually physically strong people with criminal experience.
— People don't get out of there painlessly (in the literal sense of the word) by themselves. If relatives love a person who has stumbled and are fighting for him, then the workhouse, as a rule, lets him go on all fours," says the policeman. — They don't need any problems. Money loves silence.
The fact that no one stands on ceremony with "violators of discipline" in workhouses can be seen from the news. People are systematically rescued from such slavery, but this is not followed by large-scale investigations and legislative conclusions. And there is an economic reason for this.
Socially oriented business
The organizers of the orphanages are very committed to their reputation — they present their business as charitable. Sometimes it is really a socially oriented business, in which both the owners of the institution and its inhabitants are satisfied. But there are few such projects, says Izvestia's source from the police. His words are confirmed by an entrepreneur who used the services of the residents of the maternity homes.
"There are enough strong—armed men among the contingent: welders, plasterers, tilers, even cabinetmakers," says the owner of a small company producing specialized trailers. — They have one problem — they like to drink. There are those who escape from the facility. In principle, they can be understood — the intermediary receives most of the funds.
The entrepreneur says that there were cases when he offered employees to cooperate with him directly and so people got out of workhouses.
— Now the master's hands are worth their weight in gold — the work is estimated two to three times higher than before 2022, — says the interlocutor of Izvestia. — The welders have moved to new territories or are working for themselves. In order not to go into negative territory, small businesses are forced to turn to workhouses.
The problem is even more acute in agriculture, where it is difficult to find people willing to do hard work for pennies in the field or with livestock. They have the toughest workhouses, which are run by ethnic criminal groups.
Dormitory layout
A typical workhouse is a cottage or apartment with barracks rooms. Bunk beds stand almost side by side, linen is hung everywhere. Unsanitary conditions, bedbugs, expired food are common. Up to 20 people can live in one room. Upon check—in, the guests' passports and phones are taken away, ostensibly for registration and "safety". In fact, this deprives them of contact with the outside world and the opportunity to call the police. They are escorted to work. Administrators create chat rooms and look for "runners" and "rats" to return or punish. The economics of this slavery are simple: the monthly profit of one workhouse can reach 600-900 thousand rubles. Entrepreneurs sign contracts at a rate of 1700-3700 rubles per person per day, and guests are paid 500-1500 rubles per shift — and even then not always. The system of fines completes the picture: lateness — minus a week of payments, conflict — eviction without money.
Another trick is to provoke a binge at the very salary. Usually there is someone from among the poor devils who brings alcohol with him into the house and arranges a drinking party, after which the participants are fined.
A first-person story
The Izvestia correspondent talked with one of the former construction workers in the Astrakhan region, who miraculously got out of the facility. The man, originally from Kostroma, agreed to tell his story on condition of anonymity — he is still afraid of the consequences.
It all started with a simple job advertisement. The interlocutor of Izvestia responded to the vacancy for a builder: employers promised 80 thousand rubles, food and housing. Kostromich had no money, and he needed the job urgently, so he agreed without even going into the details.
— We took the bus. They met him in Astrakhan, put him on another bus, and drove him for a long time, but it was unclear where. It was getting dark," the man recalls.
The final destination turned out to be a closed area with a high fence and security. There they were met by the foreman, who demanded documents from the doorway.
- "Give me the passports for registration," he said then. — I collected it from everyone. He said he would return it tomorrow. I didn't return it. Not in a day, not in a week. They're probably still there.
According to the interlocutor, it was from that moment that he stopped feeling like a human being — without a passport, he was actually a hostage in someone else's closed territory.
The work schedule, according to him, was exhausting: they built both a dormitory and production workshops — concrete, reinforcement, masonry. The working day lasted for 12-15 hours without a single day off.
The salary was not paid on principle. The money was given out only "on the record": if someone needed cigarettes or food, the foreman would give them a thousand or two and carefully enter the amount in a notebook. At the end of the month, instead of the promised 80 thousand, workers received 30-40 thousand, of which half were immediately given for accommodation and food. But most of them, according to the interlocutor, did not see this money either — they drank it right away.
— There were people from all over Russia. Some are out of work, some have just left the zone, some have run away from home," Kostromich says.
Four or six people were accommodated in a room on bunk beds. There was one washing machine for everyone, they were fed once a day, and the workers got the rest themselves. Those who had money left bought instant noodles and sausages, cooked on a shared stove in cubes.
Interestingly, the phones were not taken away — it was possible to make calls. But there was little point in this: the documents remained with the foreman, the territory was closed, and there was not a soul around.
— There is nowhere to escape, — sums up the interlocutor of Izvestia.
He especially remembered one worker from Samara. He constantly called his relatives and said that they were looking for him. According to Kostromich, it was this man who saved the entire brigade.
— That's probably when [the police] came, because the relatives made a fuss. And before that, no one cared.
As a result, the passports were returned, but not to everyone. Some of the workers remain at the facility to this day, either voluntarily or because they could not leave.
The slave labor does not solve the problem of vagrancy
Workhouses began to appear en masse back in the noughties. In some cases (and this pattern is still found in some regions) They operate under the guise of rehabilitation centers for alcoholics and drug addicts. Sometimes the state does pay attention to them. The case of the "Transformation of Russia" became high—profile - the all-Russian charitable public organization was liquidated by the decision of the Supreme Court in 2011 after repeated facts of its participants committing crimes against the person and property. The leader of the organization, Andrei Charushnikov, received nine years in prison. The "PR" was dispersed, but its members scattered across the country and organized other networks with a similar administrative structure. They were aimed at the same alcoholics and drug addicts. Izvestia previously wrote about one of these networks, Sparta.
The problem of workhouses, according to social activist Ilya Kuskov, has not disappeared anywhere.
"The way they were, they still are," Kuskov says. — People complain about poor conditions and virtually free labor. Although now employers at least pay something. But such earnings are not enough to get out of poverty or solve pressing problems.
Ilya Kuskov is a well—known social activist who has been helping the homeless for more than 25 years. Creator of the projects "Mercy Bus", "Salvation Hangar", author of the "Homeless Guide". His shelter in Khimki has been operating since 2017, during which time more than 1.5 thousand people have received gratuitous assistance.
The shelter in Khimki, run by Kuskov, continues to operate. Now they are developing production areas there, for example, they teach people in difficult situations how to make leather. It is noteworthy that the teachers are former homeless people who have mastered this profession themselves.
One of the wards is a guy from Bangladesh who decided to stay in Russia. He wants to go to college to study engineering, now he is applying for a Russian passport, but for now he lives in a shelter.
Almost legal
The main legal problem of regulating the activities of workhouses remains gaps in legislation, according to lawyer Ekaterina Krasnova. Formally, such an institution simply does not exist. Business owners take advantage of this. There are three main loopholes. The first is the lack of employment contracts: formally, people are considered "guests" or "volunteers" rather than employees, which allows them to avoid paying taxes and not comply with the Labor Code or contractual obligations. The second is voluntary: the guests come and give their documents themselves, and it is extremely difficult to challenge this in court, the police cannot act without a statement and other grounds. The third is vague responsibility: criminal cases are initiated not against the "workhouse" (in Russia there is no criminal liability for legal entities) and not under a specialized article for its organization, but under related articles — 127.1 (human trafficking), 127.2 (use of slave labor), 127.3 (forced labor). Krasnova notes that over the past 10 years, fewer than 60 cases have been filed under article 127.2, which is a drop in the bucket, given the scale of the problem.
She recalled that the problem is well known. The Alternative social movement (fighting slavery and other forms of forced labor) in 2025 proposed to introduce licensing of workhouses and similar organizations with the obligation to transmit information about guests to the labor inspectorate every 30 days.
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