How to steal an apartment

Just to give you a good example of how thoroughly permeated this society is with evil, I'll relate this one little problem to you:

Most homeless here are not mentally ill or drug addicts. There are three categories:

• the elderly
• ex-cons
• middle-class single people

How do the elderly end up here, when they should be the most secure, ginve that they had been given free housing by the Soviet government? Here's the trick: A firm shows up at your door and tells you they want to buy your house. You get to stay in it for the rest of your life, you get a lump sum down, and you get free medical treatment for life. You are thrilled and sign on the dotted line. What actually happens is that (under the best of circumstances) the firm later comes and proposes a swap. they take you to the country and show you a house in extremely ill repair, promise to help you fix it up, and leave, never to be seen again. worst case is that the police find your body as the snow thaws in Spring.

How about the released convicts? They loose their registration and passports as prisoners, and consequently they have no access to work or a new home. It's a vicious Catch 22.

And the YUPPIES? You come home from a vacation and find your keys don't work. In fact, you find another family living in your apartment. When you take them to court, you are presented with all the paperwork, including your own signature, that you actually sold the apartment. The court won't even consider the possibility of forgery. The trick: all your personal information is linked to your place of registration, so those who guard your registration now have tremendous power. A clever businessman goes to them and simply pays for your information. The new homeowners are only partly innocent, because they know at least that they are getting paperwork that has been "expedited." Why young singles? Because they are least connected to relatives that can vouch for them.

Combine capitalism with greed in the absence of a fear of God, the result is Russia.

More on homelessness in Russia here.