Glass Girl

Anonymous regards ØYGARDEN, WEDNESDAY 4TH JUNE, 2014: “I’m going to set fire to the house. Just you wait and see.” She claims she had warned them several times. It wasn’t her who had asked to be put in this shithole far out in the mouth of the fjord. Cooperation, the caseworker had said on the phone. The only thing that would make things better for Ida was cooperation. But she was going away now. She’d set fire to the house if breaking windows didn’t help. She was 15, had a scar on her back, crusted blood on her knuckles and a wounded soul; dreaming of being just an ordinary girl. A girl who could sit quietly on a sofa with her mother and watch films, eat crisps and be free. A girl who could walk out of the door without people from the institution following her. She’d warned them. She’d do everything to get away. Absolutely everything. “I don’t give a shit if I die,” she’d said.

3 STAVANGER, AUGUST 2014. I knew nothing about the fire in the coastal community of Øygarden. There are so many fires. A new email was in my inbox when I got to work one Tuesday two months later. “STRUGGLING BECAUSE I’M NOT BEING HEARD BY THE CHILD WELFARE SERVICE,” was in the subject line. It was sent at 01:53. I sighed. Parents in deep despair or former child welfare service children asking us to write about their battle against the child welfare service contact the editorial department regularly. We chose to investigate a few of the cases more closely. Most of them quickly ended up in the bin. Investigating them didn’t automatically mean that they made it into the paper. We rang back and said that we couldn’t take the story further, mostly. There could be many reasons. The case was too complicated. Allegations couldn’t be verified. The story did not belong in public. We didn’t have adequate resources to go into the matter, even though it was disturbing. Checking out a child welfare services case often means giving somebody hope, only to disappoint them. Desperation, sobbing, yelling, silence was on the other end of the line. They were phone conversations in which I tried to be sympathetic and professional. “HI, I’M A 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL. I’ve been in the Child Welfare Service’s care for 7 months and am now going to move to my 7th place. The Child Welfare Service isn’t listening to me. I demand an intense investigation of the Child Welfare Service. Police who have cooperated with the Child Welfare Service have also often used aids such as handcuffs, where you’re put in handcuffs chained to your leg. They’re not allowed to use these on a 16-year-old girl. I need help to be heard by the Child Welfare Service and it’s gone too far. I’d appreciate people reading this. Greetings, Anonymous.” I read the email several times. Then I replied. Could we have a discreet chat? I got a call from an unknown number ten days later. It was her. 4 Ida explained that she now lived in an acute care institution in Stavanger under strict conditions. She came from Karmøy, would turn 16 in a few weeks. “Does the Child Welfare Service know you’re calling me?”. “No. And I’m not allowed to leave here by myself. And I have to return the mobile at 16:00.” I looked at the clock. We had just 20 minutes. “Should I tell my whole story now?” She seemed gladdened. “We probably won’t manage that,” I said. “But perhaps you can start?” Ida’s view from the institution in Øygarden. Photo: Jarle Aasland “I don’t want to hurt anyone”

ØYGARDEN, WEDNESDAY 4TH JULY. She hadn’t planned to set fire to the institution that evening. She was just in a bad mood and tired after not having eaten or slept properly for several days. Now she was sitting in her room, a white-painted garret on the first floor of a house she hated. 5 She drew out the black plastic sack from under the bed, fished out the six pack she’d stolen from the shop, and felt the cider trickle down her throat. She grabbed a bottle of perfume on impulse and threw it. Threw it as hard as she could towards the window. It hurtled through the glass pane. Shards rained down on the ground one floor below. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs. She had punched her fist right through the same window once, and had to be taken to the emergency outpatients’ clinic to have it put in plaster. She’d thrown the PC through the pane another time; a lamp the third, and a bedside table the fourth. She’d broken all of the windows in the house, perhaps, since arriving at the end of April. And she’d done that either with her fist of what she had to hand. They’d once nailed a chipboard plate in front of the window and the daylight disappeared for a longer while. They shouted to her. Steps on the stairs. They were on their way up. She pulled out a bag from under the bed. There was the fish knife she’d got hold of some days earlier lying in it. About 20 cm, a black shaft, stickers on top; a bit of rust or old fish blood on the blade. They stood in the hallway looking at her. “What is that, Ida?” they asked. “Do you see this knife?” she said, and looked at them. She had long hair then. Large brown eyes. She was slim and tall, almost 1.80. She was pretty. She’d actually once walked along a catwalk at a fashion show to applause. Pictures of her from the spring of 2014 showed her smiling warmly. Now she just felt cold and calm. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Can’t you please go downstairs?” That’s how she remembers the exchange of words. Both child welfare service workers backed down the stairs. Ida remembers the man’s expression. She’d never seen him like that before. He seemed scared. She threw a couple of cider cans at them. The roles 6 were reversed. Suddenly she had the power to control what was going to happen. That was actually a good feeling. She stood in her girl’s room that was soon going to be transformed to embers and ashes, and took out the lighter she’d hidden away. House rules forbade lighters. “I thought that “OK, they’re not listening”. So I have to do something. Then I set fire to the institution.” The County Governor only considers implementing an inquiry a year and a half after the fire in Øygarden, and following a long series of serious incidents connected to Ida. She stuffed the duvet under the bed, lit fires in several places and made sure that the flames grabbed a hold. Then she went down to the ground floor. She didn’t see the two employees and assumed that they’d locked themselves in the office. 7 “I’m putting the fire extinguisher here, outside the door,” she shouted. She set one of the jackets alight on the row of hooks in the hallway. She made sure it caught fire. The fire alarm wailed. She went out.

IT WAS A NICE SUMMER’S EVENING, scattered clouds, warm. The girl who wanted to be an ordinary girl couldn’t remember having stopped outside the garage, picking up a huge stone, throwing it through the rear window of the estate car belonging to the institution. She passed the county road and clawed her way up a rocky crag between the houses in the small housing estate in Oen. She looked down upon the house where she’d lived for about a month, apart from the five days that she’d spent in the town’s adolescent psychiatric facility. It looked like a completely ordinary home in an idyllic small cove. A white-painted house in ‘80s style. A garden with a lawn, hedges, vegetation. A garage with antlers above the door. A trampoline. But everyone in the neighbourhood knew. Perhaps they didn’t know that it was an institution with two teenage girls on forced placement. But they certainly knew that it was a child welfare institution. And it was the most desolate place that 15-year-old Ida had ever experienced until then. “Do you know what I’ve done, Mum?” She said while speaking on the phone that thick, grey-blue smoke billowed out of the broken window. She cried and sniffled while she paced to and fro on the mountain. Then she rang her lawyer and confessed to him too. Fire engines, police cars, ambulances, and TV2 drew up in front of the house. She stood behind a bush to watch. The smoke, the blue lights, the wailing alarm, the firefighters who were working hectically, all the neighbours standing round and watching. She remembered that she suddenly felt like she was one of them, astonished by what she had done. The police officers were armed with pistols and had dogs on leashes with them. Somebody suddenly pointed towards the hill, pointed at her. Then they came towards her, the policemen and dogs. Ida ran along the mountain and through the heather, undergrowth, and houses. The sea on one side; the archipelago on the other. She ran into the scant housing estate, heard them calling her name while she looked for hiding places and escape routes. She ran into a garden where a box was, which she 8 opened. Some cushions were in the box, but there was room for her too. She crept into in, shut the lid, and it got dark. They weren’t more than five metres away, perhaps, when she opened the lid ajar. She looked right at the policemen and dogs. They were so close. But they didn’t see her. And went on. Why hadn’t she taken the longboard with her? She could have skated towards town then. She walked to the bus shelter down the road, but no buses were running. She stood leaning against the back of the shelter, didn’t know what she should do, when she heard someone shouting to her. It was Robin Dale Oen. The neighbour who ran a youth activity centre. She’d said hello to him at the weekend. He seemed on the level and had said that she could join in on what she wanted. She’d quite like to paddle a canoe. “You’re more than welcome,” he’d said. “Don’t be scared, Ida,” he said now. She sat in the bus shelter and told him what had happened. Robin thought it best that she came with him to talk to the police. One of the police cars passed by, screeched to a halt, and reversed in their direction at full speed. She ran behind the bus shelter again but got no further; her path blocked by hedges and bushes. Robin walked calmly after her, held her. The rest was like a thick fog. The aggressive shouting. Pistols, back against the hedge. Shields. The knife that rubbed against the inside of the trouser lining. The barking dogs. One policewoman who shouted: “I won’t let go of the dog if you stand still.” After a while, she recognised a new voice. She’d med Geir the policeman twice before. He once found her in the middle of the road, at the bottom of a hill. She’d fallen flat on her face off her long board and had fainted. He’d gone out to the institution one night because of trouble, had sat down and talked with her. Then she began to explain, and he had all the time in the world. 9 Geir was speaking with her again now; just talking calmly, asking her if she could look him in the eyes, didn’t stop before she lifted her gaze. The smoke spread over the evening sky and, according to the report that police officer Geir Fjelstad wrote later, Ida had said: “This actually isn’t me.”

Ida’s life in 28 minutes

STAVANGER, FRIDAY 22ND AUGUST. She had 20 minutes left before the phone would be confiscated. “When were you taken away from your mother?” I heard she was leafing through the papers. “14th January 2014.” “14th January this year? But that’s just seven months ago. Have you been in institutions for seven months?” “Yes. That’s why I want to raise this. I’m being moved from pillar to post, and it irritates me.” She was soon 16 and had become an expert at summing up her life story for adults who had little time. She’d grown up with her mother in Haugesund, and didn’t know who her father was. When Ida was 11, her mother had taken her with her to an African country. They lived there for three years. They moved to Karmøy in the summer of 2013. “Everything went fine,” said Ida. “Then I was going to text my friend. But I sent it to the wrong number. It went to a teacher instead. Personal things were in it. Then the Child Welfare Service came and picked me up at school and put me in an emergency home on Stord.” “Something serious must have been in that text?” “I wrote that I’d taken Valium. And one personal thing: that I was raped in Africa. But it wasn’t Mum’s fault,” she hurried to say. “Mum tried to set limits.” The way in which Ida told the story was that everything painful in her life had begun in January 2014, when the Child Welfare Service was standing 10 on her doorstep. She’d been at school before that day and her marks were satisfactory. She played football and handball, had friends, contact with the family, and a home. She’d never got in touch with police or tried drugs. “I was a right-minded girl that did many activities,” she said, sounding like an adult viewing herself from the outside in. Everything was turned upside down some months after the Child Welfare Service took charge of her care. She had been moved from institution to institution, had dropped out of school, had almost no contact with her mother or family, had no friends or leisure activities, had debuted with drugs, and there’d been a lot of nonsense with the police. She was regularly in court to fight the Child Welfare Service’s decision: a care order. Emergency placement. Enforced placement. She and her mother lost each time. FACTS: A CARE ORDER The last was that the Child Welfare Service’s had decided to forcibly place her at an institution in Indre Troms following the fire at Øygarden. She was to be there under forced placement until the following summer; alone under supervision by personnel 24 hours a day. Her mother refused. Ida refused. The case was appealed to the County Social Welfare Board. The decision would fall next month, in September. Everyone asked her to wait and see. Everyone asked her to be patient. But Ida was soon 16 and fed up of waiting. FACTS: THE COUNTY SOCIAL WELFARE BOARD She was extremely unhappy at the emergency centre in Stavanger, where she’d lived since the fire. Youths in Norway were never meant to sit and wait patiently in emergency institutions for three and a half months. “I just want people to see what the Child Welfare Service is doing,” said Ida. Her voice was like a song. She seemed right-minded and likeable. I couldn’t manage to make myself believe that the girl at the other end of the line had set a house alight out of pure evil. “I’ve got all the papers. You can read them.” 11 I answered neither yes nor no. She hung up, photographed the case documents with her mobile, emailed them to me, and gave them her phone. Eight minutes past the deadline.

“I was a happy girl … fuck the night watch”

STAVANGER, JUNE-SEPTEMBER. We were located in the same city, but in realities which hardly intersected. I still hadn’t decided whether to investigate Ida’s case. I read the papers, an extremely limited excerpt from the entire caseload, I later realised, and travelled to see her lawyer in Haugesund to discuss the case. I lived my standard life seven kilometres away, and imagined that Ida was sitting in her room in anticipation of the County Social Welfare Board’s decision. It wasn’t until several months later that I was allowed to read the journal’s descriptions of broken panes, swallowed glass shards, of a girl who could be calm by day, but who at night began walking restlessly in the corridors before escaping unhesitatingly and ending up in the police’s arrest van or, if she got away, going to Burger King on Torget in the centre of town. Sitting down beside the window, looking at the nightlife, and dreaming of slipping into the crowd. She wanted to go into town one Saturday; never mind what the institution’s lights-out time rules said. She roamed back and forth and threatened to burn the house down, and they knew that she might be capable of it. “What would have happened if I hadn’t had a knife on me?” she asked. “Then we’d have to search you,” they answered. But she refused to let them do it. They called the police. She threw the lighter on the floor, taking a carpet knife out instead and fiddled with it, before she handed it over. They searched her room and found a razorblade under the bed. Then they asked her to get some sleep. She began to throw rubbish out of the window the same evening. She set off the fire alarm by stuffing paper underneath the electric wall-mounted radiator and wrapping a duvet around it. She blocked the bathroom sink up with paper. Water ran all over the floor. She was taken to have a serious chat. A scuffle between her and the staff arose. According to them, who were the only ones describing these events afterwards, it happened because Ida threatened 12 them and tried to kick one of them. They put her on the floor twice. She began breathing strangely after the second time, so they drove her to the emergency outpatients’ clinic where an x-ray examination showed that she’d swallowed something. On the x-ray picture, it looked as though she’d swallowed some jewellery. It was not until after personnel first returned to the institution that they noticed all the tagging. The mirror and wall in her bathroom were full of it. Fuck the night watch, you deserve to die, and I’ll make sure of that. Pay close attention to what’s happening behind you. I was a happy girl at my mother’s. I miss her. A new chance would be good. Yearning. My life is fucked. I don’t give a shit about the rest of it. My life will never be good. Please. Give me one more chance. SHE WAS SUBJECTED TO 26 FORCED INTERVENTION MEASURES during the course of the 16 weeks at the Stavanger emergency centre. Ten of these took place in situations of acute danger where she was restrained, ideally, or put on the floor. They refused to let her go anywhere without personnel for extended periods, she was isolated in a separate flat, or refused the use of a mobile. There was breaking institution windows, and her speciality: swallowing glass shards. One day, personnel found her in the bathroom. She was holding a tool in her hand suited to ending it, and she said: “My life is ruined.” 13 The seemingly ordinary-looking house near the mouth of the fjord was closed down as a child welfare institution after the fire. Shown here during restoration.

Missed call 

WHY DID SHE SWALLOW GLASS SHARDS? She was at the emergency outpatients’ clinic in Stavanger 12 times during the autumn of 2014. She was admitted to hospital five times, twice at the child and adolescent psychiatric outpatients’ clinic. She underwent x-rays – or CT scans – eight times, usually after having swallowed glass, but a carpet knife and other objects too. She told hospital psychologists that she struggled in relation to staff putting her on the floor and placing her in the institution’s sluice flat. She ended up there when she lashed out, resisted rules and the like. One psychologist wrote in the hospital journal: “She felt confined with personnel in these situations and had frequent flashbacks from traumas, something which made her desperate, at risk of 14 wanting to force her way out to get away from highly unpleasant feelings. These episodes often ended with lash outs and swallowing glass shards, according to Ida.” The psychologist asked for a meeting with Stavanger emergency centre several times. The request was allegedly turn down. She rang the centre eight times on 22nd September, without anyone answering. It wasn’t possible to leave a message either, she noted in the journal. She got through by phone on Wednesday 8th October. She was informed that Ida had been moved to Northern Norway. The psychologist sat down and wrote a final entry about the young patient. “The undersigned asked for permission on several occasions to come out to the emergency centre to discuss the situation and guide personnel in relation to safeguarding Ida’s mental health. But the centre turned this down each time. Several instances, including a head of department, pointed out that they didn’t require guidance and this was unnecessary. When the undersigned pointed out that this was important both for Ida’s health and for us to be able to do our job, this was plainly turned down, nonetheless. In October 2014, we were told that Ida had been moved to another part of the country.”

Rapporteurs on Ida

That year, 14,495 children and youths in Norway were placed away from their own homes. Slightly more than 1,300 of them were put in a child welfare institution. Ida was a thin pile of paper on the tip-off shelf behind my office chair. I had a lot of other things to do. She had to wait. A couple of weeks passed before I realised that she had been moved to Indre Troms at the end of September. A long time later, I read how Stavanger emergency centre had praised her in their final report for being a resourceful, positive, and fun girl. The institution’s management apologised that she had been at the emergency centre for far too long. Three and a half months. Conclusion: The stay had been harmful for her. The final report from Øygarden, the institution she almost burned to the ground, described many of the same problems. But there was one 15 important difference: The Øygarden report contained no self-criticism. If one read the Øygarden report and many of the case documents that the municipal lawyer on Karmøy had sent to the County Social Welfare Board, it was almost as though a monster had taken shape: The institution in Øygarden had called the police for assistance handling Ida 16 times in April and May. Reconstructing the institution after the fire would take six months and cost a million kroner. The institution wrote that Ida’s behaviour had been so extreme, that police had seen it necessary to use both pepper spray and handcuffs despite reinforcements. The only reason for her not ending up in a solitary confinement cell in Bergen was that a police lawyer had put their foot down and said that this was no place for a 15-year-old. Instead, they’d placed her in seclusion, isolated her at another institution. She’d broken almost all of the house’s windows, some of them several times. She’d threatened staff with glass shards, and had said that she would kill employees and their children. “The girl can be perceived as being extremely calculating when she issues the threats, and both police and personnel consider none of the threats to be made in the heat of the moment,” states the final report from Øygarden. She certainly had “many positive interests and skills”. But she had not managed to “make use of these resources”. Her behaviour was “destructive for herself and her surroundings”. While Stavanger emergency centre accepted self-criticism on behalf of the Child Welfare Service, the management at the institute at Øygarden formulated themselves in the following way: “Ida’s expression was so extreme, that the unit did not see itself as capable of safeguarding her youth to the degree necessary for her development.”

The toilet floor

INDRE TROMS/STAVANGER, SUNDAY 19TH OCTOBER. “Hi Thomas! I wonder if you think my going to the media with my case might help me?” 16 It was Sunday. I discovered the email late in the evening. But I’d made up my mind. I was going to ring her during the week, tell her that I wanted to delve into her story. Why? Ida was exposed to massive coercion and use of force. But she’d also done the most horrible things. Everything had happened in less than a year in the care of the Child Welfare Service. What makes a 15-year-old girl set an institution alight? Why does she suddenly begin breaking windows and threatening the lives of staff? Had Ida been some sort of ticking time-bomb that just had to explode in the summer of 2014? Was she so damaged following neglect that this just had to happen? Or was it what Ida claimed? Had the Child Welfare Service provoked a type of behaviour that Ida did not recognise as being hers? What type of child welfare service was this, then? Why did the Child Welfare Service and the Police see it necessary to use force and coercion? Could it have been avoided? And what was it like for a teenager to be forcibly placed in an institution? These were questions about Ida. But they were also fundamental. They were about a universe that most of us will never know anything about. These were questions that I wanted to find the answers to.

BUT SHE GOT NO ANSWER from me that Sunday. I exist in a world where one day more, or one day less did not matter. It was a completely different world to Ida’s. That same day, she tried to take her life, according to the journals that I subsequently read. When she awoke the next day, Monday 20th October, she apparently felt more optimistic. She was driven to school in Bardufoss, 40 minutes away. During the course of the day, she left the classroom to go to the toilet. There she swallowed several tablets of medication that she was allegedly given by another pupil at the school. I went to work, got a coffee; thought that I would ring her soon. Ida sent her mother a text, said goodbye, and passed out on the toilet floor.

Toyota and Mercedes for the Chosen Few

“Don’t disturb me,” says the already nervous Petro Cherepiy. “Don’t disturb me because I’m hearing cases today.” The mantle looks good on the judge. He is past his sixties, slender despite being short. There is a glittering badge on his dark mantle – a symbol of judicial power. Petro Cherepiy has confidently worn this attire for a long time. His demeanor shows that he is used to ordering people around. He has led the Frankivsk Regional Administrative Court since 2007. A very important institution for whichever government is in power at the time. Here you have election cases, tax cases or, for example, customs disputes. Just a few minutes into our conversation and the judge loses it and starts kicking us out of the office.

“Oh, will you just stop it!” screams the master of justice. Awkward questions cause considerable resentment in the judge. Questioning people during trials is his prerogative. But here’s some annoying journalist bothering him: where is the Mercedes from, and who gifted it to you. But of course. A professional such as Mr Cherepiy should have a lot of grateful supporters. After all, he was a leading person in the justice administration of the region before becoming in charge of the court. He has also worked in the Bar Commission. And in assessing lawyers, his word was very important.

But questions from an ordinary journalist are nothing for His Honour. He has been questioned by the public prosecutor so many times there is enough to make television series about it. Not every judge can “boast” about having so many cases with so many Criminal Code charges behind him. In the sense that, there were cases but law enforcement were not able to convict the judge. In short, there was no abuse of an official position and no embezzlement. And he was never a fraudster. Moreover, he never bribed the famous judge-the-caroler Ihor Zvarych. And he never confiscated his own son’s apartment. His wife gave a statement to the prosecution but then somehow changed her mind during the investigation. Like, no complaints.

So went on Petro Cherepiy’s life, attending interrogations, conducting court trials. Well, and driving his Mercedes. Sent over from Germany. Only for his car, this owner of the mantle has not paid a penny in tax, excise and customs duties. The judge has used a scheme that allows you to have a car from abroad and not pay any money into the treasury.

But let’s take things in order.

It is common knowledge that in Poland or Germany you can buy a foreign-made car cheaply. But when you drive it into and register it in Ukraine, the price will increase significantly. Sometimes 60% or even double. Because you have to do a customs clearance and pay taxes, excise duties and required fees. But there’s a sophisticated scheme in Ukraine that allows you to bring a car from abroad, register it and pay nothing in excise duties and taxes. Because our conscientious citizens would use any law to their advantage. Even the law on humanitarian aid.

It’s very simple. If a person is disabled and has mobility problems, they can join a waiting list to be provided with a car. Those waiting lists are the responsibility of the welfare protection agencies. Ideally, the state must provide disabled people with transportation. In the past, it was Tavriya and now it’s Daewoo Lanos. And there are a lot of disabled people entitled to the provision – but the state has in fact no money at all to procure these cars. So in 1999, lawmakers and ministers allowed people with disabilities to buy those cars from abroad and pay nothing for customs clearance. Only there is one important point. The car has to be a gift. You can’t just go and bring the car over from abroad.

A logical question then. There are a lot of international charitable funds, institutions and philanthropists. They can give a car to a disabled Ukrainian as a present. Well, it would be a sin to demand taxes and excise duties for such a car. And the average disabled Ukrainian person wouldn’t have such money. But when someone has enough, say, for a Mercedes or Toyota, one has to pay the treasury. It’s logical. If you have 40,000-50,000 euros for a foreign-made car, pay the treasury. If you don’t have enough – buy a cheaper car. And if your car is a gift from abroad – then rejoice and thank your benefactors.

“I have relatives in Germany,” says the judge Cherepiy.

“Could you give their name?”

“But what use would it be to you? What use? Michelle, Janek, other names. I could name the lot.”

What use would it be indeed. Someone at that time gave a Mercedes to the head of the court as a gift. The judge never paid a penny to the treasury for it. But why won’t the judge name this kind person? We found details of the man who signed the deed of gift for Cherepiy. The benefactor was Yakiv Liokumovych. A person with the same name was a confidant of the presidential candidate Vasyl Onopenko in 1999. The latter, as I recall, was elected as a judge of the Supreme Court of Ukraine in 2002 and was the institution’s head during 2006-2011. 

“You are not approaching these issues objectively. You should carry out your orders elsewhere,” said Peter Cherepiy as he parted with us and slammed the door.

We then headed to another happy owner of a humanitarian car. But he also began removing us from his office.

“Are you from the tax office?! Well, that will be all! Goodbye! Even if you are from the tax office! Do whatever you like!” shouted Anatoliy Levitsky, the head of Drohobych in-patient tuberculosis hospital in the Lviv region.      

“I’m telling you again, go away. Are you from some investigation bureau or something?” Mr. Levitsky wouldn’t calm down.

A serious-looking physician, the doctor’s gown and a cap, an important position. A great amount of certificates and diplomas on his office shelves. And he drives a Volkswagen made in 2012.

“Am I expected to wear bast shoes?” – an indisputable argument. That was the head’s snap reaction, caused by one single banal question about who gave him the vehicle as a gift.

“You underpaid excise duties and taxes to the treasury. By approximately 60-70 percent.”

“Darling, enough, enough.”

“Who gave you the car?”

“Why you need this, why you need this?” 

Just curiosity really. Perhaps some grateful patient or relative gave it to him as a present. From the documents, we found out that the generous benefactor was Harry Lehman from the small town of Lahr in Germany. And there was a firm that sells second-hand cars registered under the same name.  

“Please relieve me from talking to you… This is unsubstantiated. Am I obliged to answer you!?” – a standard set of phrases. And of course, in addition, “How old are you?” and “What are you filming?”

On leaving the hospital we were greeted by a medical UAZ van which was falling apart. The medical cross on the side of this derelict vehicle was an eyesore in the background of the head’s Volkswagen parked nearby.

As it turns out, many of our disabled people have reasons to be happy. According to the Ministry of Social Policy, 888 cars were donated to Ukrainians in 2013-2015 alone. But after you analyse the records of the lucky ones who got those cars from abroad and paid not even a penny to the treasury, you begin to feel really happy. Happy for those heads of hospitals, senior managers of pension funds, heads of the social welfare authorities. Happy for them, brothers in arms and those in the know. After all, to qualify as a person with a disability, a person inevitably comes into contact with doctors and a pension fund. And in addition, all decisions regarding the paperwork and permits for humanitarian cars from abroad now lie with regional state administrations and departments of social security. And precisely those high-ranking officials of the above mentioned institutions become the happy owners of humanitarian cars from abroad. And in addition to them, well, some of the not so ordinary people. The judges, relatives of people’s deputies and politicians, customs officers.

Just keep in mind that a car from abroad should be given as a gift. Only then do you not pay customs duties, excise duties and taxes for a car from abroad. And if it’s at all plausible, foreigners “give” cars to all those chiefs, managers and officials. Why then are those mighty and powerful people so unwilling to name who gave them foreign-made cars as gifts? Lawyers have their own version of the story.

“Of course, it’s all a fiction. Foreigners do not give out those cars as gifts. The car is bought abroad at it’s usual price,” the lawyer Yuriy Tanasiychuk is convinced. “Certain senior influential officials in Ukraine are allowed to pay nothing to the state.”

Is this really possible? But here is the deed of gift!

Here is Vitaliy Lisovyy who has this document. He’s in charge of the forestry and hunting sector in the Khmelnytsky region… for the past eighteen years. The fourth president, the eleventh governor, government and ministers change one after another. But Vitaliy Lisovyy finds a common language with everyone. In a word, he is a professional. He is also a politician who served as a regional people’s deputy for more than 15 years. Respectable man, in short.

“Which German gave you this gift?” I asked.

“It was an anonymous person,” blithely replys Mr Lisovyy.

Now that’s a leader. None of this “why do you need it”, “does it matter” and “what are you, some kind of law enforcement”. 

“So you don’t know that person?”

“Of course not.”

“A stranger gives you a Volkswagen as a gift.”

“Yes. He saw my details and gave away it for a disabled person.” 

Any further questions? Similar cars today attract just under 300,000 hryvnas.

“We are registered on a website. I’m on the social security waiting list for a car for the disabled. If someone who wants to donate a car is found, I provide my details on that site,” the main gamekeeper of the Khmelnytsky region tries to convince me.

What site? What is he talking about? The social security department insists that such sites simply don’t exist. 

“It’s confidential information because not everyone wants to disclose that they have disability,” says Olexandra Kurnytska, Head of the Social Security Department of the Lviv regional state administration. 

We have also searched the Internet for a long time for sites, lists of disabled people and their care needs and confirmation of all this. We have not found anything.

“He found me through this site,” Mr Lisovyy insists on his version.

“What’s his name?”

“Dick knows, I can’t remember.” 

In my opinion, a reasonable explanation.

Yaroslava Tsynkalenko had equally compelling arguments, Head of Administration of the Central Hospital in Sokal.

“They are relatives, Antik, yes.”

“Antik?”

“Yes, the Ternov’s family, they are our relatives,” head Tsynkalenko stares at the wall.

Her husband Bogdan is a known local doctor and politician. He was a local member of parliament from the Svoboda party when his wife got a car for a disabled person. He was the one who went to talk to the social security commission. And it sounds fine, the head’s explanation. And her relatives seems nice. But just one moment.

“According to the documents, Bogdan Bliok gave you this car, do you know him?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Who is he?”

“Hmm, it’s, it’s, well, it seems that they are my husband’s relatives.”

“Bogdan Bliok is your husband’s relative?”

“No, not my husband’s relative. Antik is a relative, then they were already abroad.”

“Why is Bogdan Bliok on the documents then?”

“Well, that is Bliok, well, out there, where it is, they are ours, not relatives, they are our friends. They arranged it all.”

“So was it your relative Antik Tarnavski’s gift? Or Bogdan Bliok?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know such details.”

Customs officers that oversee the import of humanitarian cars do not believe in “miracles”

“Let’s call her a pseudo-benefactor or something like that. Someone who is used for making those donations. But I believe that the majority of those vehicles are bought with money,” Levko Prokipchuk smiles.

A shirt with traditional Ukrainian embroidery, a modest wristwatch, this official is accessible to ordinary people and sincere. The chief customs officer of the Lviv region reminds me more of a European politician.

“We don’t see in our documents that the car was purchased by a disabled person. All we see is the deed of gift.”

The same document is seen by the department of social security. Although they are skeptical about this procedure. 

“Do you personally believe that such expensive cars are gifts to people with disabilities?” I asked Svitlana Lukomska, Director of the Social Security Department of the Khmelnytsky Region State Administration. 

“I believe that about ten percent out of one hundred are,” said the official. She insists that she is an honest person with no intention to deceive “But the majority of them were dealt with in a different way.”

Which way? Some lucky drivers don’t even bother to hide it.

“We know that you have a Toyota Avensis 2012 release…,” I asked Yuriy Vyaznitsev, who is in the military forces.

“I’ll tell you this. I gave someone the money to buy a car for me…”

“Was it expensive?”

“Let’s say this: it was registered as a gift. I paid 15,000 euros for it.”

A true colonel. None of that “well, I don’t remember” stuff. He just paid a middleman the money and he brought him a Toyota and the deed of gift. A large sum of money didn’t make it to the treasury? So what? Yuriy Vyaznitsev has done so much for the country! Let alone leading the military study department of the Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas for the past nineteen years!

“I gave money to the man. The car itself costs 13,000 euros, and, I think, I gave 36 euros for it to be brought over. 15,000 in total.”

In fact, it is possible to find a lot of middlemen on the Internet. They’ll arrange the entire process for 1,500 euros. You just say what car you want to buy and the rest is done by those masters of their trade. 

“Do you know the donor who gave you your car, can you name them?”

“No, no.”

“How did you find them?”

“I basically know people who, well, know other people who can give you a car as a gift. Or find people who can provide or transfer the vehicle,” Volodymyr Ivahov, Deputy Head of the Pension Fund of Ternopil region skillfully explains the origin of his family’s foreign-made car. Interestingly, prior to this position, Mr. Ivahov was deputy head of the Department of Social Security of Ternopil Regional State Administration. In the Khmelnytsky region, Olga Vyshpolska is another deputy head of a similar department. She has worked in social security institutions for many years. She is responsible for signing a number of documents related to car donations for disabled people at the Department of Social Security. Her husband has also received a car from abroad as a gift. By the way, Vyshpolska’s daughter now also works in the Department of Social Security, and her son Mykola heads a department in the Khmelnytsky City Council.                  

And there are so many such chiefs and officials that it’s unbelievable.

“As an ordinary citizen, a person who is entitled to it,” Petro Sereda calmly replies, the head of Social Security for the Kamenetz-Podolsk district council.

“You are the head of the social security department that is in fact responsible for providing humanitarian cars.”

“Yes, carry on checking.”

The administration of the pension fund, as well as of the office for social security, are the lucky ones. Here, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, a luxury SUV Mitsubishi ASX was given to Halyna Cheredarchuk, Deputy Chief of the Pension Fund of the Kolomyia district in 2011. A similar second-hand model could cost up to 400,000 hryvnas. In the same region, a car has reached Mr Dmytro Nalyvayko, deputy head of the pension fund of another district, the Nadvirnianskyy. 

We also spotted an interesting trend among benefactors from abroad that signed the deed of gift. In most cases they were the same individuals. Raphael Fasalov, Michal Lagoda, Igor Golub, Alexander Kofman and Jerzy Balovski gave dozens of cars away to different people in different regions.

Hundreds of millions in losses to the budget. And the happy owners of foreign-made cars rejoicing. 

Perhaps Robert Hensel is a good man. He gave a Volkswagen away. And then, perhaps, another disabled person turned to him for help. So Mr Hensel gave them a Mercedes E 200, 2010 release. We even found the registration number plate 05LFB6 in the customs declaration. Google it and you’ll get several results from Dutch sites. In one of them it says that this Mercedes was on sale for only 49,000 euros!!! And that does not include taxes and fees. But Hensel just gave it away as a gift.

“You needed hot facts, you now have them. Well, how are you? You work hard with your little feet for your bread, that’s it.” Viktor Borysenko was not in a mood for talking.

Until recently he had worked at the Lviv Regional State Administration. And not as just some clerk. As the deputy director of the Department of Civil Protection. No wonder that the Western regions are at the forefront of humanitarian car provision. This is understandable because it’s very close to the border with the EU.

Here is doctor Oksana Hrytsevych, who is also the wife of a politician from Western Ukraine. Roman Hrytsevych, people’s deputy of the Lviv City Council since 2002! He is a known politician and now he is in the Poroshenko party. Mr Hrytsevych’s influence is so high that he can be seen in the company of Vitali Klitschko during festivities. There are also photos of him with the people’s deputy Oksana Yurynets. Mr Hrytsevych is also head of the department of the first city clinical hospital named after Prince Lev. So. From last year, the wife of a politician has enjoyed a luxurious Volkswagen, 2012 release. It seems that the family is not poor. They have some wheels. According to Mr Hrytsevych’s declarations, he bought a Suzuki Jeep in 2014. And just last year, the family also acquired a Mercedes. The cars weren’t some rubbish. Both were released in 2007. Despite this abundance in their garage, a benefactor appeared abroad and decided to give Oksana Hrytsevych a Volkswagen as a gift. But the doctor, the wife of a politician, was abrupt: “I won’t be giving any comments, guys.” 

The Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytsky and Rivne regions are the leaders. And, well, of course the Kyiv region is as well.

It is worth noting though that formally a foreign car is given as a gift to the Departments of Social Security of regional administrations. But it must be passed onto a particular disabled person. He or his family members are entitled to use it. And, according to the documents, a person with disabilities can become the full owner of the car after ten years. In case of death, the family members of the deceased car owner become the owners straight away. But there’s one uncomfortable moment here – the disabled person cannot simply sell that foreign-made car before the end of this term. But if social security departments are the formal owner, is it possible to seize that foreign-made car from the disabled person? 

“Do I understand it correctly that for the last three or four years no cars were returned to the Department of Social Security?” I asked Svitlana Lukomska.

“Actually, not a single car during any period,” confirms the official. 

There’s one but very important limitation when it comes to the donated cars for disabled people. Not all people with disabilities can get them without paying a large sum to the treasury. This is prohibited for those who use a new car or have bought such car within the last seven years. But Regions Party functionaries have skilfully evaded this law. Just as Myhaylo Voytyuk did. Before the Maidan, he was deputy head of the regional organization of the Party of Regions in the Khmelnytsky region at Vasyl Yadukha’s office, who spent four years working as a local governor. Mr. Voytyuk spent years of his career serving the State. And he is very proud of it.

“I worked in this position between 1992 and 2002. The Head of the Office for Mineral Resources, Tourist Resorts and Tourism.”

Later, Mr Voytyuk led the state enterprise Hmelnytskkurortresursy several times. And since 2010, he was also a region’s people’s deputy for the Regions Party. He jokes about his cooperation with the latter one: “I didn’t slice those golden loaves with Yanukovych.”

Perhaps it is true but Mr Voytyuk is known in the Khmelnytsky region as an organizer and active participant in rallies and pickets in support of the Party of Regions. And public office staff were usually made to attend those rallies. The local media exposed his attitudes towards Maidan participants by quoting him during that time: “He called the local Euromaidan activists ‘chawbacon’ and said that they were ‘incapable’,” wrote the Independent Community Portal. And Mr Voytyuk has also had a criminal case in the past. “I had to exploit mineral deposits without a special permit,” says the man about his actions as head of the state enterprise Hmelnytskkurortresursy.

Two courts found him guilty. In particular, of abuse of power and official authority that resulted in grave consequences. By the way, this was in 2008 and 2009. Mr Voytyuk appealed. But Yanukovych came to the throne in 2010. Who could have doubted that in April the Supreme Court of Ukraine would annul both verdicts and close the Mr Voytyuk case due to the absence of actions on his part that could constitute a crime.

“And after that, I took the prosecution to court and won 200,000 hryvnas in compensation for the period I was not able to work, stress and so on. I bought a car,” Mr Voytyuk smiles.

The then Regions Party member skillfully invested his money.

“A car that was worth 230,000 hryvnas at the time… The Nissan X-Trail.”

And everything seems to be fine except the fact that a kind Helge Mullig from Germany gives Mr Voytyuk an Audi A4 SUV in 2014 as a gift. Prices for similar used cars, even now, are holding in the area of $24,000, roughly 600,000 hryvnas. And Mr Voytyuk has not paid a penny to the treasury of Ukraine for that Audi. But what about the law then?

”If someone has a new car or has bought a new car within the last seven years, they are not entitled to a humanitarian vehicle. And you had one, you bought one… and here comes another one, an Audi.”

“It’s different matter. I bought one but I gave it away. I can’t drive two cars. I gave it to my son so he has it. And I have the one that the German gave me… When we bought it, we bought it under my son’s name… Every parent thinks about how to help their child.”

It turned out that it’s so easy and effortless for someone to get around the law. Helge Mullig is a cool person. His arm didn’t fall off when he signed the deed of gift for a further two Mercedes for disabled people. Here is one of them, a 2011 release. Wikipedia describes the model as Mercedes W212, a family car of the fourth generation E-class (a business car). Two models match the engine specifications, “E 200 CGI Blue EFFICIENCY” and “E 250 CGI Blue EFFICIENCY”. This range’s models are sold for 1,800,000 – 2,000,000 hryvnas. Mr Mullig bought a car like that on 23rd January 2014 and gave it away as a present on the same day.

And I’d like to believe so much that there are a lot of good and wealthy benefactors overseas who give away foreign-manufactured cars to Ukrainian people with disabilities from their heart. But after checking the names of benefactors, I have some reasonable doubts. Different regions but the same benefactors. Olexander Kofman gives away a Mercedes, an Opel and a Hyundai. The same people here and there. Elena Yundt from Dresden, Maxym Petrenko from Osnabrück. Also from Germany, Sergiy Padalka and Lubomyr Borynets. The list of donors to the Lviv region in the past three years. The same names. Here’s Olexander Greenberg – a Ford, a Renault, an Opel and another Opel. This man gives away four cars in just three months. In early 2013, Mr Greenberg, in addition to a Volkswagen, splashed out on a Dodge. He bought it at Christmas and gave it as a gift to a Ukrainian woman three days later. Now the price for similar cars abroad is between $3,000 – $11,000. Of course, you would have to pay roughly as much for customs clearance and all the fees and taxes. Also in 2013, Greenberg gave away two Nissans and two Opels as gifts. Not even a penny paid to the treasury for all those cars. In total, Mr Greenberg gave away thirteen foreign-made cars as presents in just three years. 

Documented foreign nationals that gave away foreign-made cars to Ukrainians are based in a dozen countries. Lithuania, Romania, Latvia, Spain, Italy, France. But Poland and Germany have the lion’s share. We decided to talk to the philanthropists from abroad. To begin with, we called on the small Polish town, Dynów. Registered there are Andrzej and Svitlana Teplitski. Thanks to their generosity, a Renault Megane 2010 and a Volkswagen Sharan Turbo went to the Ternopil region. 

“I’m originally from Lviv but someone from Ternopil suggested I should contact you,” I said to Andrzej. “I’d like to buy a car in Poland. My mother has a disability of third degree and I want to register that car under my disabled mother’s name. You know all the nuances with customs duties so it should be like a gift. Would you be able to help me with it through your firm?” I continued.

“I think so,” was Andrzej’s laconic reply.

So off we go to a meeting in neighbouring Poland. Our choice was not accidental. The Teplitski’s address was identical to that of the firm Disel that we obtained from a Ukrainian social security office. And numerous auto-moto sites in Poland even mention the owner of this company. It’s our hero Andrzej. And selling cars is stated in the company’s activities section. We agreed to meet on the streets of Dynów. Here comes the benefactor himself. We encounter the first surprise. Our man is Ukrainian.

“That’s it, I don’t wish to,” Andrzej Teplitski says calmly after looking at our journalist identification cards.

“Do you wish to make a comment…?”

“What for?”

“Could you clarify please, we have documents here showing that you and, in my understanding, your wife Svitlana Teplitski give cars to Ukrainians as gifts. Do you really give them as gifts or do they pay you money?”

“I don’t wish to answer your questions. I’m not the right person at all.”

Notably, during our telephone conversation, Mr Teplitski had tried to be helpful but, after realising that we are journalists, he speaks to us quite differently now.

“Presented as a gift and that’s it. Got it? What else you want me to say? Well. I won’t be telling you anything because I’m not going to say anything on camera. You’re bugged and stuff like that.”

It is worth mentioning that the company Disel is known to judges and Ukrainian state fiscal service. This company was involved in several court cases where customs and excise fought a private enterprise based in Ternopil, asking the court to fine the director by seizing a hundred percent of his stock of goods. Ternopil businessmen had imported foreign cars from Poland to Ukraine. The court found that the Ukrainian businessmen’s trade documents had ‘false sender (vendor) information and false details in the proof of purchase between the seller and the buyer’. In another case, the court also found ‘falsification of shipping documents, including invoices and specifications, resulting in the underestimation of the invoices’ value and, as a consequence, a shortfall in customs duties.’ So, that Ternopil private enterprise provided customs officers with documents showing that cars were bought from Andrzej Teplitski’s firm. But the court found that the vehicles were purchased from other organizations. And the documentation packs were simply swapped at the border.

“I had problems, I know I had problems… I know it because everything was from the Polish side,” said Andrzej, while getting into his car and leaving after threatening us with going to the Polish police.

Perhaps another benefactor would be more talkative. So off we went. In Poland, generous benefactors are scattered all over the country. But the largest concentration of them is in regions that border Ukraine. Another generous benefactor works in a little village, Orły in Podkarpackie Voivodeship. Krzysztof Valchevski. His company sells, well… also cars. With his easy signature, a “modest” Mercedes went to a disabled person in Poltava. Today, a car of this class in Poltava would sell for almost 550,000 hryvnas. Perhaps the address indicated in the customs declaration would finally lead us to a charitable fund? But no. A company called ADMA is registered at Krzysztof Valchevski’s address. Even though they didn’t let us in, we noticed some cars in the yard, and one of them had German registration plates. Perhaps a gift for Ukrainians.

A lot of people who sign the deed of gift for a Mercedes or Toyota are from the border on the other side. The Polish-German side. They’re from glorious Wrocław and the surrounding towns and villages. Stanislav Kuzelyak, originally from Ivano-Frankivsk, is registered there. He gave away a Land Rover Freelander as a gift. Similar Jeeps now draw the price of 300,000 hryvnas. And with no regrets, he also gave away a Mercedes A-Class W169. The registration brings us to a small village near the German border. We paid a visit there but were greeted by Poles.

“There’s no Kuzelyak here. He lives in Nowa Sól. He is not here. He hasn’t lived here for a long time, for two years now…”

“They live in Tsesaniets,” says the hostess.

What a miracle, it turned out that Stanislav Kuzelyak, who was able to give away so many cars, just rented accommodation here. But we must find him. So we go to another village that the Polish woman told us about. Tsesaniets is hidden in depths of the forests. The recorded number of people living here is about 500 residents! Indeed, where else would such a rich man live.

“We have the deeds of gift here that show you gave cars away as gifts. Is this true?” we ask the benefactor.

“I need to have a look, I don’t remember, it was a long a time ago.”

“Do you give cars to Ukrainians as gifts?”  

“No.”

“You don’t?”

“No, why should I, for what reason?” wonders Mr. Kuzelyak. 

In addition to a Mercedes and a Land Rover, Stanislav had also signed deeds of gift for a Skoda, a Ford, a Volkswagen. His daughter Martha signed for a Volkswagen, and Volodymyra Kuzelyak for a Ford-S-Max.

“Did they pay you for those cars?”

“Well they paid, I mean they paid me for work, to bring the car to the border and things like that. The rest was not my business.”

“But you were the one who signed the deed of gift for the people?”

“Well, I had to. How else you can do it?”

“You wrote them, you signed the deeds of gift, so as people with disabilities they wouldn’t have to pay customs duties and excise taxes at the border. Is this true?”

“But they are disabled… Well then what is the problem?” 

Mr Kuzelyak gave away so many cars as gifts that it’s hard to even remember them all. 

“You don’t remember whether you gave away a Mercedes as a gift or not?”

“I don’t remember. No, believe me! Do you know how many cars I had in the past? I had to, it was required as a driver or to do deliveries or as a courier.”

“And they asked you to sign the deed of gift?”

“Well, when they asked me to, I went to a public notary and did it formally.”

But Piotr Nastal can certainly be named as the champion of giving cars away as gifts to Ukrainians. He lives in a small village called Hurko just ten kilometers from the border with Ukraine. He gives away foreign cars as gifts by the dozen in different regions of Ukraine. This village is even smaller than the previous one. There’s only one street here. We’re on our way to visit a person who should most definitely be an oligarch.

”A Ukrainian man bought those cars, something like that. He’d bring them and I would sign them off as gifts. It was something like that,” explains Piotr Nastal.

“They weren’t your cars?”

“No, I’ve never had a car. I just signed that I gave them away as a present. But they weren’t my cars,” explains the man anxiously, turning a few dozen of pages of the deeds of gift we brought with us.

“You testified at the public notary that they were gifts, why?”

“But that’s the only way to avoid paying customs duties at the border or something like that.”

Somehow our conscientious citizens are not in a hurry to pay the treasury. Posting on Facebook that our state is bad and that everybody steals is one thing. But paying taxes – oh no, we won’t. Our roads are bad, there is no medicine in hospitals, rubbish is not being collected – you hear cries from every direction. But when it comes to fair formal employment procedures or refusal to take wages of cash in envelopes – oh, no, why should we pay so much to the state. “Everyone is a bribe taker”, “nothing has changed after the Maidan” – well, that’s obvious. And at the same time people continue to give a couple of cents here and there to solve their problems in all areas. Starting from giving birth, kindergartens and education. But if something goes wrong, well, it’s not us, it’s the bad government.

While tens of thousands of disabled people wait in vain for the state to provide them with Daewoo Lanos, the chosen few get luxury cars from abroad. They don’t pay any taxes and duties to the treasury on these cars. Because of corrupt schemes, the Ukrainian Treasury loses hundreds of millions of hryvnas. But for a special caste of the lucky few, life is good.

Taras Zozulinskyy

“The investigation was prepared within the Polish-Canadian Programme for Democracy framework and with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development of Canada”