My name is Alexandr

I am 62 years old and I come from Russia.
I have spent most of my life in different countries all over the world, but the last 3 years I have spent in Copenhagen.

My family was very poor, and I became homeless in an early age. Russia is terribly cold during the winter, and I have lost many friends in cold winter nights. They died alone and hungry.  

The best way to keep warm during the winter was by drinking vodka, and that habit has stuck to me ever since. I decided to leave Russia to find happiness and a decent life in another country, so I travelled around. Always broke and with no proper place to live. I found comfort in the streets and I know how to survive, which I am proud of.

But the last 5 years have been tough. I am ill with cirrhosis of the liver and it is not so easy for me now to take care of myself. My stay in Denmark is illegal, and I am not allowed to stay in the shelters because I don’t have a residence permit. I don’t have enough money to have my own place to live – which is not really an option because I don’t have a Danish Social Security Number – and the streets are cold now that I am old.

I am not allowed any benefits from the Danish state, and I cannot get the treatment I need for my illness. There is nice people in Denmark, who help me and inform me where I can go to get help. But I don’t want to be a burden, and I don’t want to be kicked out of the country. I am running out of strength, so moving to a new country is not an option. The money I live off is the money I get from gathering bottles in parks and in bins along the streets to get the deposit from them in the supermarkets. This is also how I spend most of my day.     

Sara - a student in Social Work, has written the life story for each of the sculptures made so far. She has based the descriptions on the lives of foreign homeless people in Copenhagen.