How Labor Slavery Operates in Russia

In Russia, there is a sprawling system that exploits people in difficult life situations—those struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, the homeless, migrants, and people seeking work in unfamiliar cities. Private rehabilitation centers, under the guise of free help, create work crews for garbage removal or freight transport. Recruiters sell their victims to owners of large and small businesses. Journalist Ilnur Sharafiev investigated how this system works.

Recruiters at Food Distribution Points

Igor Antonov, a driver for the St. Petersburg project “Nochlezhka” (Night Bus), visits food distribution points for the needy five times a week with volunteers. He often notices vehicles nearby—usually minivans, tinted Mercedes, or BMWs. People from these cars approach the homeless before Antonov arrives, offering paid work with accommodation and meals, new clothes, free addiction rehabilitation, and help restoring documents. Antonov says all recruiters look similar: “track pants, a certain way of walking, man-purses under their arms, and a completely different look in their eyes.” Their methods are similar to those of social workers—they track new people and identify those who might be suitable.

When the “Nochlezhka” bus arrives, the cars leave, usually taking two or three people with them. Antonov doesn’t know exactly where they go, but suspects the homeless end up in private “free” rehab centers (sometimes called “labor houses” or “houses of diligence”) or at large or small factories.

The Dagestan Brick Factories

Recruiters are interested not only in the homeless—they look for anyone capable of physical labor for free or in exchange for basic living conditions. Usually, these are people in tough situations, often with alcohol or drug dependencies, making them easy to approach. Dmitry Poletaev, director of the Center for Migration Studies, explains: “The typical labor slavery scheme is recruitment, transportation, sale, exploitation. Recruiters make big promises and help out. They might offer a free ride to the employer, who then says the travel must be worked off. Money is deducted for accommodation, food, cigarettes, and supposed fines for broken or stolen equipment. This is how people fall into debt bondage.”

According to the International Labour Organization, about 20 million people worldwide are in labor slavery. The profits from this business are comparable to drug or arms trafficking. “Drugs run out, weapons wear out, but a person can be resold until they die,” says Poletaev. He notes that very few criminal cases are opened under Article 127.2 of the Russian Criminal Code (“use of slave labor”). “It’s very hard to gather evidence, there aren’t enough investigators who know how to handle these cases, and witness protection programs don’t really work—those who testify against traffickers can be killed by their accomplices.”

“Apparently, a system has developed where human trafficking and labor slavery are the norm,” Poletaev continues. “There is an international ranking of countries fighting human trafficking—Russia is in the third category, where laws exist but enforcement and public awareness are lacking. The problem is much deeper than just blaming the police. If efforts are increased, the complexity and resource demands of these cases could lower overall crime-solving rates, which currently affect law enforcement salaries.”

Judicial statistics show that in 2015, only four people were convicted under the relevant article. “Such cases are hard to prove: authorities claim slavery doesn’t exist, so opening a case is nearly impossible,” says Irina Biryukova, a lawyer with the Public Verdict Foundation. “Many victims don’t even go to the police. In the infamous Golyanovo case, one woman escaped and went to the police, but officers who were ‘fed’ by the store owners returned her to her captors, where she was beaten in front of other workers. After that, no one else wanted to go to the authorities.”

Sold for 18,000 Rubles

Anton Pogorelov from the Nizhny Novgorod region was sold to a brick factory in Dagestan for 18,000 rubles. In 2015, he came to Moscow looking for work. Out of cigarettes on the train, he asked a stranger for one at the train station. The man, introducing himself as Zakhar, offered Anton “a good job by the sea.” Anton agreed. They traveled to Derbent by bus; Anton had no documents, but was hidden in the luggage compartment at police checkpoints, which were never checked.

In Derbent, Zakhar handed Anton over to the owner of a brick factory in the village of Novo-Gaptsakh. The owner said he would pay only 10,000 rubles a month, and Anton had to work off the money paid to the recruiter. The factory was an open area with piles of clay, where Anton worked from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. with a lunch break, cutting bricks, stacking them, and firing them. Meals were meager: tea and bread with butter for breakfast, pea soup (sometimes with meat) for lunch, and a main course for dinner. After three months, Anton asked to go home, but was refused—he hadn’t “worked off” his debt, and daily deductions were made from his pay for cigarettes and alcohol. (Most brick factories give workers alcohol every evening to make them easier to control and less likely to run away.)

Anton told his story after being freed. Several months later, Zakir Ismailov, head of the Dagestan branch of the “Alternativa” movement (which fights labor slavery), saw three men beating two others on the road near Novo-Gaptsakh. Ismailov and his brother intervened; it turned out the workers were being punished for leaving the factory grounds without permission. Ismailov offered to send them home, but only Anton agreed.

“It’s not surprising—they’re scared. They’re always watched, have no documents or money, and don’t know where to run. If they get a phone, it has a negative balance so they can’t call family or friends. Sometimes workers escape, but where can they go? They don’t trust anyone, not even us,” explains Ismailov.

The “Alternativa” Movement

Ismailov got involved in fighting labor slavery by chance in 2013, after seeing a Facebook post about an Uzbek citizen, Lutfilla Ishankulov, who ended up in a Makhachkala hospital in critical condition. Recruiters had brought him from Moscow two years earlier, promising work in the south. When he got sick, his employers locked him in a basement, expecting him to die. After ten days, near death, he was dumped on the city outskirts. Passersby took him to the hospital, where he died a few days later. The police never found the “owners.”

Since then, Ismailov has searched for businesses using slave labor and joined “Alternativa,” founded in 2012 by activist Oleg Melnikov. Melnikov, once a political activist, later became disillusioned with Russian politics. “We’re all strong guys, and if the law doesn’t work for some people, it doesn’t work for others,” says Melnikov, hinting that activists sometimes have to use force. “We don’t kill anyone, but if someone is being held and not released to us, we make it clear that life won’t be easy for the owner.”

In its first three years, “Alternativa” claims to have freed about 500 people. Most people, however, have to escape slavery on their own—often without money or documents.

Multiple Escapes from Slavery

This is why Alexey Donetsky was enslaved four times. The first time he escaped was after being beaten with plastic pipes for refusing to work in Novoaleksandrovsk, Stavropol Krai. One night, the gate was left unlocked, and Alexey fled, sleeping by a pond for four days. He needed money for a ticket back to St. Petersburg, but couldn’t find work at a local church. A policeman offered him a job selling stolen phones or helping with repairs, but Alexey refused.

The policeman then introduced him to Vitaly, a Korean man who paid the officer 1,000 rubles for Alexey’s labor watering fields. After a month, Alexey suffered a stroke, and Vitaly took him to a hospital in Astrakhan without paying him. After being discharged, Alexey tried to get home without money, but was approached by a woman offering work at a brick factory in Makhachkala. When he couldn’t work due to poor health, the owner sent him to a local church, but Alexey collapsed and was found by a guard, who handed him over to a doctor. The doctor fed him but didn’t pay him. Two weeks later, the doctor contacted “Alternativa” activists.

“There are set prices for people,” explains Ismailov, who mainly works in southern Russia. “If someone is thin, the price is 15,000 rubles. If they have a skill—mechanic, tractor driver, driver—it’s 20,000–30,000.” Employers and recruiters negotiate the price. Activists estimate that 20% of people are lured with false promises, while the rest are drugged (usually with sleeping pills in alcohol).

How Recruiter Buses Pass Police Checkpoints

Ismailov can’t explain how recruiter buses pass through federal police checkpoints on the way to Dagestan, as in his experience, it’s nearly impossible to leave without inspection. “Alternativa” estimates that about 7–8 minivans arrive in Dagestan daily, each carrying two or three future labor slaves. “Most are undocumented; I’ve met people wanted regionally, federally, or even internationally,” says Ismailov. There are about 500 brick factories in Dagestan, all needing constant labor due to ongoing construction.

“A significant portion of Dagestan’s population with spare money sees real estate as the safest investment—apartments or private homes,” explains Konstantin Kazenin, a senior researcher at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. “There are high risks for business and investment, but construction is one of the safest options. There’s also a cultural aspect—a man with a family must build his own house.” Most building materials stay in the republic, though some are sold elsewhere.

Activists believe labor slavery is widespread across Russia, with reports from Ingushetia, Chechnya, Moscow, Volgograd region, and other areas.

On average, people spend one work season—six to seven months—at brick factories. In winter, working with clay is hard, and it’s not profitable for owners to keep workers. If contracts are made, they’re handwritten, usually stating the person came voluntarily, handed over documents, and agreed to be paid at the end of the season. Some, however, stay much longer—Sergey Khivnoy from Murmansk spent 18 years in slavery with eight different owners; Pyotr Nikulin was brought back to Voronezh after 16 years, traveling by bus because he only had a Soviet-era passport.

According to Ismailov, brick factory owners feel untouchable. “There are no cases where directors have been jailed for using slave labor. People ask where the fences are, how workers are held? There aren’t any—people are physically afraid and don’t know where to run, especially without money or documents. Owners don’t know the law and don’t understand that a person isn’t their property—they can resell, beat, or even kill them, and nothing will happen.”

Rehabilitation Centers and Forced Labor

People in “difficult life situations” can also end up in private rehab centers, which don’t charge for rehabilitation itself. Nikolay Kaklyugin, a psychiatrist and head of “Mothers Against Drugs” in Krasnodar Krai, says such centers began appearing in the mid-1990s, often run by neo-Pentecostal religious groups. “The pioneer was ‘New Life’ by Sergey Matevosyan, who gathered the homeless from St. Petersburg basements and took them to his house, creating a huge commune.”

In 2007, Alexander (name changed) entered “New Life.” It wasn’t his first attempt to quit heroin—he’d tried all the usual steps: “talking, going to the countryside, toughing it out.” He didn’t research “New Life” beforehand; he was using about 10 grams of heroin a day and was near death, just wanting to quit. In St. Petersburg, he and his father met the center’s director at a former movie theater. Inside, the hall was full, with people standing in the aisles. “On stage, they sang songs like ‘The Lord Saved Us All,’ ‘We Will All Be Happy,’ with half the crowd raising their hands and shouting ‘Hallelujah.'”

Alexander decided to stay, hoping to reduce his daily dose. The rehab center was on an abandoned military base near St. Petersburg, with barracks, a canteen, a bathhouse, a cowshed, and a garden, all fenced in, housing about 200 people. Conditions were basic: Alexander lived in a four-story barracks, slept on a bunk bed, and spent most of his time working.

He was assigned to make paving stones—mixing cement and dye, shoveling the mix into a machine, pouring it into molds, and laying out the finished stones. “I had a ‘senior’—a former addict who’d been there for months. On the first day, I told him I had diarrhea from the drugs, and he said, ‘Here’s a Big Shovel, it’ll cure you of everything.'” Alexander believes the paving stones were sold to pay for electricity, gas, and land taxes.

Meals were simple: porridge, sometimes with lettuce grown on site, or instant noodles. “Before eating, everyone said ‘Hallelujah,’ and the director asked us to pray for bread, even though there was a bakery right under my room.”

Alexander says he wouldn’t have survived withdrawal at home, but after a day of hard labor, he had no trouble sleeping. “The Big Shovel really did cure me,” he laughs. But after ten days, he decided to leave. The rules didn’t allow leaving the same day—you had to wait three days. Alexander thought it over and left anyway—”to keep using.” Later, he ended up in a “motivational house” in Kazan, but now runs a paid rehab center for addicts. “When parents say they have no money, I tell them about free rehab and say: use this time to find money for real treatment.” He notes that “labor houses” have become much more commercial in recent years.

The Economics of Exploitation

Kirill (name changed) saw an ad for “help in a difficult life situation” in Kiev in 2009, when he was struggling with alcoholism. He went to the address, a local branch of “Preobrazhenie” (“Transformation”)—a three-story house with 18 residents, mostly homeless, including alcoholics and drug addicts. One of the leaders asked for his passport and phone, locking them in a safe. He explained the rules: no phone calls, smoking, drinking more than once a month, or having personal money or valuables. Relationships with women were forbidden, and no one was promised money for work.

The day at the “labor house” started at 6 a.m. with work—usually moving offices and apartments or digging graves (the group advertised themselves as “sober movers”). A leader always accompanied them, described as a “physically strong, very religious brother who watched our every move.” When there was no work, the leader said there would be no food, since they hadn’t earned money for it. “This could go on for a week,” says Kirill. “Even on normal days, food was scarce: two spoonfuls of strange porridge and two thin slices of bread for breakfast; lunch was a bowl of water with two potatoes; dinner was plain porridge.”

Veniamin Demenko, former press secretary of “Preobrazhenie Russia,” who ran a branch in Kemerovo region, explains the typical “labor house” economy: “30–40% of profits went to rent, food, and transportation, 10% to headquarters in Kemerovo, another 10% to regional development and advertising,” including ads for “help in a difficult life situation,” which the residents themselves posted. The remaining 30–40% stayed with the branch. “It’s clear that a former addict, suddenly given unlimited power, is unlikely to resist temptation,” says Demenko. “The leader understood that depriving people of money was also an effective way to keep them in the group.”

Besides work, there were daily prayers and Bible readings. “It was more for show; I got nothing spiritual out of it,” says Kirill. “I don’t know if the leaders themselves believed—at the leader’s wedding, they all got drunk and fought.” Kirill says he wasn’t beaten, but leaders did use physical punishment on others. “Often, when someone realized where they were and wanted to leave, demanding their things, they were humiliated or beaten.”

Kirill left after being forced to work three days almost without breaks or food. “I couldn’t take it physically—I had a little money, drank vodka for courage, went to the leader and said I was leaving, asked for my documents and phone. They didn’t give them back, so I left. I went to the police, but they looked at me like I was crazy; the officer didn’t even bother to check the house.”

The Transformation of “Preobrazhenie”

“Preobrazhenie Russia” became a nationwide charity in 2008, the largest network in Russia helping people in “difficult life situations,” with about 300 branches in 180 cities and a dozen abroad at its peak.

The organization often made the crime news. In May 2009, an employee, Evgeny Giza, beat a client to death in Leningrad region. Giza was sentenced to six years in prison.

According to human rights activist Kaklyugin, the closure of “Preobrazhenie” branches began in 2010 in Leningrad region, after a client ate the deputy prosecutor’s dog. “Some ex-prisoners or tuberculosis patients believe eating dog meat boosts immunity,” explains Kaklyugin. The deputy prosecutor contacted the governor, and in September 2010, St. Petersburg lawmakers demanded an investigation and removal of “Preobrazhenie” ads. Law enforcement and the FSB began a serious investigation.

On November 15, 2010, the Ministry of Justice suspended “Preobrazhenie Russia” after finding illegal business activity—the organization wasn’t really doing rehabilitation, but using people as free labor. They also found financial and bureaucratic violations, like illegally using city emblems. After ignoring the ministry’s orders, the Supreme Court ordered the organization’s liquidation in June 2011.

The leader, Andrey Charushnikov, was later jailed for murdering a client in Kemerovo. In 2004, he suspected the man of stealing pigs and beat him to death with a shovel handle, ordering subordinates to bury the body.

After the ban, “Preobrazhenie” split into smaller organizations: “Initiative,” “Revival,” “Grace,” “Your Path,” “Path to Overcoming,” “Nika,” “Shore of Hope,” and others. Many still operate across Russia, sometimes run by Charushnikov’s associates. Almost all still send 10% of profits to Kemerovo—to former “Preobrazhenie” leaders and Charushnikov’s wife. The state still doesn’t monitor “labor houses,” though experts say they should be registered as non-profit organizations providing social rehabilitation.

Varvara Tolstova, a volunteer with the “Your Home” charity, denies any connection to “Preobrazhenie Russia.” She says their organization lets people pay what they can for rent, doesn’t take documents, and doesn’t hold anyone by force. However, “Your Home” has about 100 branches, and Tolstova admits much depends on the local leader. “In St. Petersburg, we’ve had cases where someone started making money off it, but when the president of the fund finds out, the leader is removed. Of course, we don’t find out quickly; you can’t tell by phone how people live—only when they come to us and complain about being fed only canned stew or being beaten.”

Usually, “labor houses” that emerged after “Preobrazhenie” focus on services: moving, gardening, cleaning, garbage removal. “Sometimes they get long-term contracts with supermarkets or hypermarkets to clean parking lots or move carts. If they’re lucky and have connections with big construction companies, they send their ‘slaves’ for daily unskilled work—carrying bricks, removing construction debris,” says Kaklyugin.

Most such organizations are closed off from the outside world. After mass inspections, they avoid the word “rehabilitation” and attract clients with slogans like “Help for alcoholics and addicts,” “Free. Unlimited. Anonymous,” promising workers 20% of profits, sometimes allowing smoking and drinking on weekends.

“There’s no real resocialization—if someone stays sober, they’re sent to another region to help start or run a similar organization, which led to the explosive growth of ‘Preobrazhenie Russia,'” says Kaklyugin. “People are isolated, under constant supervision, always in the cycle of ‘breakfast—work—lunch—work—dinner—sleep.’ Before, there was the ‘drug scene,’ now it’s the hustle for work, new orders, moving workers, collecting payments. That’s why they stay sober—just a replacement for the old hustle. As soon as they’re out of it, relapse is guaranteed. So, as long as you’re there, you’re alive and sober, but outside, it’s back to drugs or alcohol—and eventually prison or the grave.”

A Vicious Cycle

“Alternativa” continues to free people from labor slavery at factories—currently, about 20 people are on their “live waiting list.” Melnikov explains: “Right now, we need to free someone in Abkhazia. That means sending at least one staff member—12,000 rubles for a round-trip ticket, at least four days there (6,000–8,000 rubles), plus local travel, and returning is complicated because the person has no documents—fines can be about 30,000 rubles.” “Alternativa” raises money through crowdfunding, and activists also use their own funds.

Activists regret that the problem is only being addressed piecemeal. “We know almost the entire chain at the train stations—middlemen, employers—but no one cares, because the problem doesn’t affect politics and 99% of the population will never encounter it,” says Melnikov. “As practice shows—even if you kill a slave, unless you’re caught at the scene, nothing can be proven. To solve the problem, changes are needed: only about 30 people a year are convicted for using slave labor. Russia has no department in law enforcement dedicated to human trafficking. If there’s no fence, it’s assumed no one is being held.”

“[Free rehab] centers aren’t black and white, but shades of gray. ‘Preobrazhenie Russia’ wasn’t pure evil or even created just to make money. It’s a pattern,” says former “Preobrazhenie” employee Demenko. “The state shut down ‘Preobrazhenie’ and now there are 1,200 centers instead of 400.”

“Nochlezhka” activist Igor Antonov says many homeless people encounter “labor houses” more than once—they call them “slave centers,” but sometimes return knowingly. “There are no other options: on one side, death on the street; on the other, a chance to sleep, warm up, and eat—maybe trick the manager and escape later,” Antonov explains. “As winter approaches, people go to ‘labor houses’ more often, knowing they’ll work for a bowl of soup or a pack of instant noodles, but at least they won’t freeze or get beaten by teenagers.”

“Nochlezhka” estimates there are 50,000–60,000 homeless people in St. Petersburg, but fewer than 300 places in the city where they can sleep and eat, counting all charities, night shelters, and city beds. Getting a city bed is difficult—you need documents and proof of homelessness: a passport, proof of last registration, a departure slip, and a certificate of no registration; ex-prisoners must show a release certificate.

“Homelessness in Russia means high mortality, but the conveyor that puts people on the streets never stops: people leave prison, orphanages, and institutions; children kick out the elderly; parents abandon children; wives leave husbands and vice versa,” Antonov concludes. “Any real estate deal is potentially dangerous because of black realtors. There are people with memory loss or psychological problems, former residents of now ‘extinct’ villages, people who came for work and lost their documents. Any of these situations can become unsolvable, and society, the state, and individuals clearly lack support mechanisms.”