In 2015 you can enter Shahtersk primary-school teachers’ training college without entrance exams. In result you can get “diploma of the DPR” with 6 levels of protection. Students of the college refused to go to holidays and weekends and repair the city. .. In 2012 attention of central Ukrainian media was attracted by a story of a student of this college – Tanya Kochetkova, who opposed actions of the college’s administration, which forced students to labor after classes and instead of them.
This story before the Euro 2012 became for me the reason to visit Donbass for the first time. We were activists of student labor trade “Direct Action” and received a massage in Vkontakte social network about situation in this educational institution. The massage seemed unreal, academic year was coming to an end and we decided to go to Shahtersk.
Reality was much worse – students were forced to clean territory around the college, city dump and road Rostov-Donetsk, and also they were systematically humiliated. For wrong make-up a girl could be dipped into a barrel of water. Students had to get back to dormitories no later than at 18:00 and spend weekends at home. They also had to fill tanks for water drain in toilets, when they were on duty around the floor, that day they couldn’t leave the dormitory. Punishments for non-observance of rules also were very exotic: “1” in grade report or 1,5 hours on the scene in assembly hall in front of all teachers and students. All classes were stopped in such cases and headmistress’s husband (her ex-student Vitya) was recording the process on video camera. Your mates had to say foul things about you on camera while you were standing on the scene. After that students were released and had to wash a toilet or a classroom as a punishment.
It’s important to understand that except sadistic inclinations of the headmistress Nataliya Zemlyanskaya, there was a simple fact of corruption. She had relatives in Regional Educational Department and City Council. According to documents building of the college was overhauled, but it was impossible to hold classes on the top floor because the roof was leaking. It became the reason to cancel some classes and replace them with labor therapy. Donetsk journalists called those events “Donetsk Middle Ages. Corvee in Shahtersk”.
No one knew in 2012 that in a few years Donetsk region will get into real Middle Ages with wars and tortures, “faithless” burnt at the stake.
Pro-Russian fighters shelled Shahtersk during the military conflict, everyone remember inconsiderate shelling of residential neighborhoods from a stadium. Maybe that’s how “overhauled” building of the college was damaged. It would have wrecked in two years without external impact anyway. But this is not the point.
After a protest of Tanya Kochenkova forced labor was canceled, bathrooms and shower rooms were repaired, students could get back to dormitories at 23:00 and Prosecutor’s Office made the headmistress repay students more than 150 thousand UAH for extra-payments for dormitories.
Everything, what was achieved during protests, vanished in “DPR”. It’s not surprising that terrorists liked the headmistress of the college Nataliya Zemlyanskaya. Students of the college clean the city, clear debris, cry, put on costumes and meet leaders of terrorists, posing in front of Russian media. They became prisoners of situation once again. But now it is dangerous to start a protest. Nataliya Zemlyanskaya supplies “well-dressed students” to every shooting – celebrations and “Days of Grief”.
I’m afraid to imagine what does the sadist Nataliya Zemlyanskaya can do now without attention of media and minimum control of the Ministry of Education? What price do students pay for loyalty of the DPR?
“Life is going on” – students of the college say for amateur social video. I’m afraid that those students with shovels and rakes cannot protect themselves against sadist-headmistress, neither against people in camouflages.
Aleksandra Dvoretskaya, coordinator of legal department of the “Vostok-SOS”, for the Informator.lg.ua