Artem Davdyan, born in 2009, disappeared on the night of July 6-7, 2012 (Krymsk, Krasnodar region). Location unknown.

Katya Chetina, born in 2005, disappeared on June 12, 2010 (Perm region). Location unknown.

Sasha Tselykh, born in 2003, disappeared on August 5, 2012 near the beach ( Rostov region). Location unknown.

Maxim Korolev, born in 2006, disappeared on December 8, 2010 (Volgograd region). Location unknown.

These children disappeared without a trace. It was as if they had disappeared into thin air. Today, there are 1,315 minors on such long lists of missing persons, 469 of them minors.

The chances that they are alive, unfortunately, are minimal,” says police colonel Andrei Shchurov, head of the search department for persons of the Main Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. - Of course, miracles happen, like with one thirteen-year-old boy who left home due to a conflict with his parents. The family, by the way, is prosperous. After the disappearance, a criminal case was opened, but the search led nowhere. And three years later he returned. We had the following dialogue with him: “Misha, where have you been?” - “Walked around the world!” - “Well, how about without documents?” - “Why without documents? I took my birth certificate with me!” - “So here it is!” - “No, Andrey Viktorovich, this is a color photocopy, but I have the original!”

My interlocutor is skeptical about the bill that the search for missing children should begin within three hours after their disappearance.

The colonel believes that the search should be included immediately - and no regulations are needed here. By the end of the year, a unified information database of missing persons will be launched in Russia, which will combine information on all citizens who have disappeared without a trace.

When we really see signs of criminal disappearance, we blow all the trumpets! Do you remember the last case in Moscow, when a former nanny took a nine-year-old boy Vanya away from school? A criminal case was immediately opened, I got involved investigative committee. About 150 people were involved in the search - and the child was found alive and healthy within 24 hours. Or a recent case in the Saratov region, when a six-year-old boy left the yard and disappeared. The search took a day. How much effort and money was spent! The police, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, internal troops, volunteers, and fellow villagers took part. The helicopter has been lifted! Many thanks to the track linemen who found the preschooler 8 kilometers from home.

When do the police start searching? Many people sincerely believe that three days should pass from the moment a person is reported missing. Today the law does not prescribe specific deadlines. In some places they start searching 24 hours after filing a disappearance report, and in others they are in no hurry at all, convincing parents to wait until the morning, or even three days, repeating like a mantra: “he’ll have some fun and come!” “Sticks” for a criminal case solved and sent to court have not been cancelled. An unnecessary statement for careless police officers is a headache.

It’s good if nothing happens to the child during this time. But sometimes the score life goes on on the clock.

These notorious three days are actually a myth. Such a requirement is not contained in any regulatory legal act. A missing child report must be received and registered immediately.

Every day in Russia up to 150 minors are put on the wanted list. The majority, according to police, are teenagers aged 12 to 18 who leave due to conflict in the family or in a boarding home. Fortunately, 98 percent of “lost” cases are found within 3–10 days. But the rest are in real trouble.

If the initial investigative measures: checks, interviews, searches did not yield anything and within 10 days the child is still not found, a search case is opened. A criminal case is initiated if signs of forced disappearance are revealed. When there are no such signs, but within a month the child has still not been found, the investigation still initiates a criminal case.

I understand that volunteers from Lisa Alert and Search for Missing Children need to post hot information on social media feeds, but sometimes it’s better for the media and volunteers to shut up,” says Colonel Shchurov. - Let us first deal with the circumstances. Now they are trumpeting about the missing boys in Bashkiria. And the boys there are not easy, they are 16 years old. One took 200 euros from his mother, the other took the documents for the car and the keys. And they cut across Ufa. They are seen in one place or another. Of course, there are questions for the police, because the car is wanted. Of course they were found.

Our society reacts violently to the disappearance of children, especially when we're talking about about kids. We have not yet developed immunity to indifference in these cases. A story about the disappearance of another child is shown on all TV channels, colossal activity is developing in in social networks.

The whole city rushed to search for nine-month-old Anechka Shkaptsova, who had disappeared from her stroller. Every resident of Bryansk knew by heart the signs of the baby in the pink jumpsuit. The hope that the girl was alive glimmered until the last. The reality turned out to be shocking: the parents themselves killed Anya and staged her abduction.

Actual child abductions are rare and are always an emergency. In such cases, a criminal case is immediately initiated under Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Kidnapping”) and all personnel are put on alert. Much more often the subjects of these stories are parents who cannot share their child. When everything is obvious and we are talking about non-compliance with a court decision, the search is carried out by the service bailiffs. But there are also crime stories. There was a case where a father secretly kidnapped his child and killed him, and then committed suicide. Another victim of family squabbles received severe emotional shock and is still being treated in psychiatric hospital.

It would seem that kidnapping young brides is exotic. But in April of this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Yaroslavl region received a statement about the search for a sixteen-year-old girl, who was taken away by three men in an unknown direction. The fugitive left a note to her family that she wanted to throw in her lot with her chosen one and asked not to interfere with her. The story ended relatively happily: after the first wedding night, the girl returned to her father's house.

We are already accustomed to the fact that volunteers are involved in the search for missing people. They work closely with the police and take on a huge part of the work. The trigger for the activation of volunteers was the tragedy in the Moscow region town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, when in September 2010 five-year-old Liza Fomkina was lost in the forest along with her aunt. The girl's remains were found on the tenth day. The child died from hypothermia. The volunteers were a day late. Then the “Lisa Alert” detachment was formed and the ranks of the association of volunteer organizations “Search for Missing Children” expanded, uniting about 8 thousand people and several hundred thousand subscribers.

In four years active work We took part in the search for over 2 thousand children who were found. They distributed orientations, conducted a survey of the population, and combed the areas. Our guys found 220 people directly,” says Dmitry Vtorov, head of the association.

Not long ago, volunteers conducted searches in the Yaroslavl region. We were looking for a 16-year-old girl who did not return home after her prom. She left early and disappeared.

The police treated the disappearance negligently, considering that it was most likely an unauthorized departure, Dmitry recalls. - The application was accepted, but they were in no hurry to begin search activities. But we know that within 15 minutes after the disappearance there can be a crime. Our guys got involved in the search and managed to localize the area where the girl and an unidentified person were last seen. And in the forest belt they found her, half-dead, raped, terribly beaten, unconscious. She spent a week in intensive care. Doctors did not give any prognosis. If we had been a little late, there would have been a dead body. The girl survived and the criminal was apprehended. He has already been convicted.

Dmitry tells stories, each more terrible than the other. About a couple of teenagers in love who left home, and 2 weeks later they were found in a holiday village with multiple stab wounds. The case is not yet solved. About a nine year old girl from Vologda region, found raped and dead. I had to tell the terrible news to her father, who also participated in the search for his daughter.

Volunteer burnout often occurs in such dramas. When you search for a child for several weeks, and then find a corpse. During this time, the guys grow into the “lost” one. They already know the parents of the missing person, his teachers, friends, and remember all the routes he took. And they continue to search even when the active search has long been completed.

Maxima Koroleva from Volgograd region and Katya Chetina from the Perm region, who disappeared 4 years ago, are still being searched for. Of course, not with the same passion as in hot pursuit. Every children's birthday is a reason to intensify the search. Katya is now 9, Maxim is 8.

Last year we received a witness statement: a woman saw a girl very similar to Katya, says Dmitry Vtorov. - We conducted an investigation together with the police and found it like two peas in a pod! But not Katya...

Volunteers periodically use an age progression system. Liza Tishkina, who disappeared without a trace on March 7, 2009 after a festive concert at a school in the closed city of Sarova (Nizhny Novgorod region), was 11 years old. What does she look like today, at sixteen?

Lisa's mother greets every new day with the hope that her daughter is alive.

Search beautiful girl with blond hair and green eyes did not bring any results, and then the inconsolable mother began to seek help from psychics. She can be understood, because despair makes her clutch at any straw. Each time, the unfortunate woman paid money for the revelations of the “clairvoyants.” Even police officers fell for the tricks of psychics, who in vain, at the direction of psychics known throughout the country, crawled all the hard-to-reach places.

This good psychologists. Young employees sometimes buy into this and believe in these fairy tales. “This has never happened in my practice,” admits Andrey Shchurov. - If they show me a psychic who, after looking at a photograph and talking with relatives, tells me to dig here or go into this house and I go with a group and find either living or dead there, I agree to give half the salary and keep this wizard with me.

“He left home and never returned” - most stories begin the same way. For some reason it is believed that with good boys And this doesn’t happen to girls from wealthy families.

It is important to understand that any child is at risk, says Dmitry Vtorov. - Children prone to vagrancy sometimes leave home 20 times. And everyone gets used to it: both in the police and at home. There was a tragic case where a twelve-year-old boy disappeared after running away from home fourteen times. We looked for him, but were too late: he went into the boiler room to warm up and suffocated with carbon monoxide. Many children fall into open hatches and die. No one is responsible for this. We have prepared a petition regarding this matter.

There are generally paradoxical stories. In Moscow, a 9-year-old boy left home. The child grabbed food, things, a flashlight and a compass. The parents reported to the police and notified the volunteers. The child was found in Bitsevsky Park - he came out into the light of the lights. It turned out that the guy was working orienteering, but he wasn’t very successful. Deciding that he was not worthy of his successful father, he gave himself a survival test.

There are more and more cases of missing children. One child is found and another disappears. Police note an increase in crime stories. Last year, 32 children became victims of crimes and were searched for as missing. Over 6 months of this year, 15 “lost” victims died.

From time to time, terrible rumors circulate that several small children disappear every day in Moscow. Horror stories appear about a gang that steals babies and disassembles them for organs. These stories, fortunately, were not confirmed.

But today we are forced to state a lot of facts of depraved acts with children,” says Colonel Shchurov. - The worst thing is that this often happens in families, even prosperous ones. There seems to be no reason to leave home, and then it turns out that the children are running away from violence. When psychologists start working with them, it becomes truly scary.

How long does it take to find a missing child alive?

There is no time at all,” Dmitry Vtorov answers without hesitation. - Sometimes, even five minutes is enough for the worst to happen. The first days are especially important. Because during this 24-hour period we can still find witnesses who saw the child last in order to localize the search area. During the day, people still remember who they met on the street, what attracted their attention. And then the impressions of the new day are superimposed, and it becomes almost impossible to remember the boy in the blue jacket or the girl in the green coat.

Many parents themselves hesitate to report to the police. Some people do not want to cause panic, others are afraid that repressive measures will be taken against them by the guardianship authorities. Someone asks for help on the volunteer forum, but volunteers join the search when there is a police report.

If your child was supposed to come home half an hour ago, but he is still not there and the phone is not answering, you need to call the police! Let him return in 2 hours - you can always hang up.

Start calling everyone: school, teachers, classmates, neighbors, friends. Raise the alarm! Because there are situations when you need to save not tomorrow, not in three hours, but now!

If the police refuse to accept a statement, call the helpline that hangs on the wall in each territorial department. Finally write to email address Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, and your message will reach Colonel Shchurov in a few hours.

While you were reading this text, one child disappeared in Russia. Right now. God grant that he returns alive.

Elena Svetlova
Newspaper headline: Found alive!
Published in the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" No. 26662 dated October 29, 2014

Nineteen out of twenty children will voluntarily leave stranger. Such an experiment was carried out by volunteers of the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert" (hereinafter referred to as LA - author's note). Children have a certain stereotype regarding appearance and the behavior of the kidnappers. What we parents tell our children: you can’t talk to suspicious people. Suspicious - what kind?

Kidnapped by "ordinary" people

“You don’t go anywhere with bad uncles,” parents say. Children go away with ordinary uncles and ordinary aunties, who in children’s heads have nothing to do with evil,” says Irina Vorobyova, coordinator of “Liza Alert”, director of the search system development fund missing people "Method Center".

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"

What must be explained to a child - never to an adult won't ask children for help. Under no circumstances will a normal adult go to the playground and ask for help catching a kitten, making a movie, or carrying bags. The child must firmly know this and say “no.”

“We conducted an experiment during classes with children at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. We showed the children a film, by agreement with the parents, one of the volunteers took the child out of the makeshift hall, allegedly at the request of the mother. The parents warned that the child should not go anywhere,” says the LA coordinator. “Adults” watched from the sidelines, almost everyone was sure that their child would under no circumstances leave with a stranger: 19 out of 20 children left.”

The parents' task is to prevent their child from leaving with strangers. Surveillance video shows the children leaving completely voluntarily with their captors.

A child should only respond to people he knows. This is your close family circle: mom, dad, teacher, teacher, grandparents.

He should know that if a stranger suddenly takes you by the hand, shoulder, or briefcase, you don’t need to ask, you need to shout. Questions and phrases will take time. In LA they say that if the child is not confused, you need to shout: “Who are you? I don’t know you!”

This will attract the attention of other adults.

He ran away and won't return

Lisa Alert volunteers use US statistics and analytics regarding the time available to rescue a kidnapped child. There is a certain formula. If a child is abducted for the purpose of sexual violence, according to analytics from American services, the child has three hours. According to LA, the situation in Russia looks the same.

Parents must react immediately. There is no need to panic. If you realize that the child did not return home on time, got lost in the park, went to training, and has been gone for half an hour, then you need to call the police and LA immediately.

Telephone hotline"Lisa Alert" 8 —800 —700-54-52.

“Parents, this is important! Yes, there is a psychological barrier “that I will call, and he will come home now.” The time here is the time of your child’s life,” they say in LA.

LA Stories: In Moscow we had a 14-year-old runner girl. At some point the police refused to look for her, she ran away so often. The girl lived on the street and died in one of the abandoned buildings. Accident.

The myth that ran away and will return on his own - just a myth. Children on the street are in danger.

History of the search for an aircraft: a woman calls, speaks Russian poorly, a five-year-old child has disappeared. He disappeared two days ago. She was afraid to go to the police. I thought that I could submit an application only on the third day. We are still struggling with the 72 hour myth. He's gone! The child was found in one of the children's hospitals.

“Demand that your application be accepted. They can even accept it over the phone,” says the LA coordinator.

Children are abducted in two other cases. One of them: for the purpose of ransom - here the kidnappers get in touch themselves.

The second case is that people with mental illnesses are kidnapped. They take the child for themselves, they want the child to become their child. In this case, external pressure is triggered. This requires orientation, media work, and notification, for example, at railway stations. The child must look at the kidnapper from all walls. In this case, the child is released.

“We have a provision in the Criminal Code that presupposes a situation where if a kidnapper releases a child voluntarily, then charges under the article of kidnapping will not be brought against him,” says Irina Vorobyova. “It looks monstrous, but it saves the lives of children.”

Aircraft search history: Perm region. A mentally ill woman kidnapped a boy from kindergarten. She just came to the group and took the child. We have pasted thousands of landmarks. Everything was sealed almost in one day. The next day, the woman took the boy to the bus stop and called a taxi for him. The boy's driver found out and called the police.

According to LA statistics, 90% of missing children are found, of which 80% are found alive. A very large percentage of children return home on their own: the phone died, they were with friends, they missed their parents.

Courtesy of the Lisa Alert search and rescue team

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"

“Children are practically not kidnapped in Moscow. Here we do not take into account abduction by a parent from a parent. This is not our case,” says the LA coordinator. “This practically does not happen in big cities. Moscow does not freeze at night, there are a lot of cameras. The most terrible "The kidnappings are outside the city. Mostly in the regions."

LA search history: In the city of Dyatkovo, Bryansk region, we were looking for a fifth-grader Lera U. There were several cameras throughout the city, but even one of them filmed the girl approaching the car. It was not visible whether she got into the car, but a witness was visible. We never found him. A briefcase was found outside the city, with a name written on the notebooks. A body was found spiraling away from him.

In all the years of the existence of the LA detachment, there has not been a case where the volunteers did not find a child from Moscow. There are unfound teenagers, small children, all found.

Current photos, trackers, bright clothes

LA volunteers advise parents to buy their children bright clothes that will be visible in a crowd, take more photographs of their children, and purchase GPS trackers.

History of the search for LA: A girl disappeared; she had a very noticeable bright hat. The volunteers handed out directions to it to the employees of one of the stations and left. After some time, a girl came out to the same station and was recognized by her hat.

According to LA volunteers, they have never been contacted by parents whose children wear trackers. Trackers can be different shapes, for example, in the form of watches, bracelets, toys, reflectors.

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"Courtesy of the Lisa Alert search and rescue team

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"

Child in trouble

If you see a child and it seems to you that he is lost, approach him and do not touch him. Ask “Are you lost?”, “Where is your mom?” Most likely, the child will answer you. If it's a shopping center, call security.

They must announce the baby over the loudspeaker. If the parents do not come, the security must call the police. You can find out which department the child will be taken to.

"If you think a child is being taken away against his will, go and ask the child and an adult what is going on. If it is the kidnapper, then most likely he will leave the child. He does not need any extra interest on your part. You paid attention, that means , you remember it,” says the LA coordinator.

Search history for aircraft: Naberezhnye Chelny. Eight-year-old Vasilisa G. disappeared. The girl was kidnapped by a maniac, while he was taking Vasilisa away, his car got stuck. A tractor driver helped pull out the car. He asked what kind of child was locked in the car. The girl had a mark on her face from the beating, and she was crying. The kidnapper replied that the daughter had a fight at school and was crying. The tractor driver did not realize that the man who introduces himself as the girl’s father is dark-haired and dark-skinned, and Vasilisa is blonde. The man pulled out the car and let them go. Thanks to his testimony, it was possible to find the criminal. Vasilisa died.

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"

"Society has changed. A missing child appears on the news.

The more effort you and I make, the less “not” there is before verbs, and the more attempts we make to pass, do, achieve, the more children, and even adults, will return home. So you set yourself the task of not retreating. After all, life is behind you, what you do! And I will put it, and together we will make it out of hopelessness - “Found. Alive.” - says Grigory Sergeev, head of the Lisa Alert detachment.

The search never ends.

Every day up to 150 minors are wanted

Here are just the latest: Matvey Ivanov, 1.5 months, Dedovsk, Moscow Region. Vitya Kats, 3 years old, Sverdlovsk region. Vika Vylegzhanina, 3 years old, Tomsk.

Matvey has not yet been found. Vika and Vitya were found dead.

Gone, gone, gone. Messages are blowing up the Internet with eerie regularity. The police are searching, and volunteers from the Lisa Alert squad and the Search for Missing Children association are joining in.

Last year, 54,487 people were put on the wanted list in Russia, of which every fifth was a minor. The statistics for this year will be even worse.

Some “lost items” are searched for years and are not found. Neither alive nor dead. They become ghosts.

The Moscow Youth Parliament has put forward a bill that could oblige the police to begin searching for missing children within three hours of their disappearance.

“He’ll take a walk and come!”

Artem Davdyan, born in 2009, disappeared on the night of July 6-7, 2012 (Krymsk, Krasnodar Territory). Location unknown.

Katya Chetina, born in 2005, disappeared on June 12, 2010 (Perm region). Location unknown.

Sasha Tselykh, born in 2003, disappeared on August 5, 2012 near the beach (Rostov region). Location unknown.

Maxim Korolev, born in 2006, disappeared on December 8, 2010 (Volgograd region). Location unknown.

These children disappeared without a trace. It was as if they had disappeared into thin air. Today, there are 1,315 minors on such long lists of missing persons, 469 of them minors.

MK Help

In the USA and many European countries, a lightning alert system for missing children has been created. When information about a missing child is received, the relevant services are put on full alert within 30 minutes, volunteers and the army, coast guard and security services are raised. Information passes along tickers in supermarkets and is displayed on information boards. The most famous child search program in the world is called AMBER Alert. The point of this system is to notify as many people as possible about the loss as soon as possible. The AMBER Alert audience numbers tens of thousands of concerned citizens. Over 17 years, thanks to the work of this program, almost 600 children were found in the United States.

“The chances that they are alive, unfortunately, are minimal,” says police colonel Andrei Shchurov, head of the search department for persons of the Main Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. “Of course, miracles happen, like with one thirteen-year-old boy who left home due to a conflict with his parents. The family, by the way, is prosperous. After the disappearance, a criminal case was opened, but the search led nowhere. And three years later he returned. We had the following dialogue with him: “Misha, where have you been?” - “Walked around the world!” - “Well, how about without documents?” - “Why without documents? I took my birth certificate with me!” - “So here it is!” - “No, Andrey Viktorovich, this is a color photocopy, but I have the original!”

My interlocutor is skeptical about the bill that the search for missing children should begin within three hours after their disappearance.

The colonel believes that the search should be included immediately - and no regulations are needed here. By the end of the year, a unified information database of missing persons will be launched in Russia, which will combine information on all citizens who have disappeared without a trace.

— When we really see signs of a criminal disappearance, we blow all the trumpets! Do you remember the last case in Moscow, when a former nanny took a nine-year-old boy Vanya away from school? A criminal case was immediately opened, and the Investigative Committee became involved. About 150 people were involved in the search, and the child was found alive and healthy within 24 hours. Or a recent case in the Saratov region, when a six-year-old boy left the yard and disappeared. The search took a day. How much effort and money was spent! The police, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, internal troops, volunteers, and fellow villagers took part. The helicopter has been lifted! Many thanks to the track linemen who found the preschooler 8 kilometers from home.

When do the police start searching? Many people sincerely believe that three days should pass from the moment a person is reported missing. Today the law does not prescribe specific deadlines. In some places they start searching 24 hours after filing a disappearance report, and in others they are in no hurry at all, convincing parents to wait until the morning, or even three days, repeating like a mantra: “he’ll have some fun and come!” “Sticks” for a criminal case solved and sent to court have not been cancelled. An unnecessary statement for careless police officers is a headache.

It’s good if nothing happens to the child during this time. But sometimes life counts in hours.

These notorious three days are actually a myth. Such a requirement is not contained in any regulatory legal act. A missing child report must be received and registered immediately.

Every day in Russia up to 150 minors are put on the wanted list. The majority, according to police, are teenagers aged 12 to 18 who leave due to conflict in the family or in a boarding home. Fortunately, 98 percent of “lost” cases are found within 3-10 days. But the rest are in real trouble.

If the initial investigative measures: checks, interviews, searches did not yield anything and within 10 days the child is still not found, a search case is opened. A criminal case is initiated if signs of forced disappearance are revealed. When there are no such signs, but within a month the child has still not been found, the investigation still initiates a criminal case.

“I understand that volunteers from Lisa Alert and Search for Missing Children need to post hot information on social media feeds, but sometimes it’s better for the media and volunteers to shut up,” says Colonel Shchurov. - Let us first deal with the circumstances. Now they are trumpeting about the missing boys in Bashkiria. And the boys there are not easy, they are 16 years old. One took 200 euros from his mother, the other took the documents for the car and the keys. And they cut across Ufa. They are seen in one place or another. Of course, there are questions for the police, because the car is wanted. Of course they were found.

Our society reacts violently to the disappearance of children, especially when it comes to babies. We have not yet developed immunity to indifference in these cases. A story about the disappearance of another child is shown on all television channels, and enormous activity is developing on social networks.

The whole city rushed to search for nine-month-old Anechka Shkaptsova, who had disappeared from her stroller. Every resident of Bryansk knew by heart the signs of the baby in the pink jumpsuit. The hope that the girl was alive glimmered until the last. The reality turned out to be shocking: the parents themselves killed Anya and staged her abduction.

Actual child abductions are rare and are always an emergency. In such cases, a criminal case is immediately initiated under Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Kidnapping”) and all personnel are put on alert. Much more often the subjects of these stories are parents who cannot share their child. When everything is obvious and we are talking about non-execution of a court decision, the bailiff service is involved in the search. But there are also crime stories. There was a case where a father secretly kidnapped his child and killed him, and then committed suicide. Another victim of family squabbles suffered severe emotional shock and is still being treated in a psychiatric hospital.

It would seem that kidnapping young brides is exotic. But in April of this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Yaroslavl region received a statement about the search for a sixteen-year-old girl, who was taken away by three men in an unknown direction. The fugitive left a note to her family that she wanted to throw in her lot with her chosen one and asked not to interfere with her. The story ended relatively happily: after the first wedding night, the girl returned to her father's house.

Show me a psychic

We are already accustomed to the fact that volunteers are involved in the search for missing people. They work closely with the police and take on a huge part of the work. The trigger for the activation of volunteers was the tragedy in the Moscow region town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, when in September 2010 five-year-old Liza Fomkina was lost in the forest along with her aunt. The girl's remains were found on the tenth day. The child died from hypothermia. The volunteers were a day late. Then the “Lisa Alert” detachment was formed and the ranks of the association of volunteer organizations “Search for Missing Children” expanded, uniting about 8 thousand people and several hundred thousand subscribers.

— Over four years of active work, we took part in the search for over 2 thousand children who were found. They distributed orientations, conducted a survey of the population, and combed the areas. Our guys found 220 people directly,” says Dmitry Vtorov, head of the association.

Not long ago, volunteers conducted searches in the Yaroslavl region. We were looking for a 16-year-old girl who did not return home after her prom. She left early and disappeared.

“The police treated the disappearance negligently, considering that it was most likely an unauthorized departure,” recalls Dmitry. “The application was accepted, but they were in no hurry to begin search activities. But we know that within 15 minutes after the disappearance there can be a crime. Our guys got involved in the search and managed to localize the area where the girl and an unidentified person were last seen. And in the forest belt they found her, half-dead, raped, terribly beaten, unconscious. She spent a week in intensive care. Doctors did not give any prognosis. If we had been a little late, there would have been a dead body. The girl survived and the criminal was apprehended. He has already been convicted.

Dmitry tells stories, each more terrible than the other. About a couple of teenagers in love who left home, and 2 weeks later they were found in a holiday village with multiple stab wounds. The case is not yet solved. About a nine-year-old girl from the Vologda region who was found raped and dead. I had to tell the terrible news to her father, who also participated in the search for his daughter.

Volunteer burnout often occurs in such dramas. When you search for a child for several weeks, and then find a corpse. During this time, the guys grow into the “lost” one. They already know the parents of the missing person, his teachers, friends, and remember all the routes he took. And they continue to search even when the active search has long been completed.

Maxim Korolev from the Volgograd region and Katya Chetina from the Perm region, who disappeared 4 years ago, are still being searched for. Of course, not with the same passion as in hot pursuit. Every children's birthday is a reason to intensify the search. Katya is now 9, Maxim is 8.

“Last year we received a witness statement: a woman saw a girl very similar to Katya,” says Dmitry Vtorov. — We conducted an investigation together with the police, and found it like two peas in a pod! But not Katya...

Volunteers periodically use an age progression system. Liza Tishkina, who disappeared without a trace on March 7, 2009 after a festive concert at a school in the closed city of Sarova (Nizhny Novgorod region), was 11 years old. What does she look like today, at sixteen?

Lisa's mother greets every new day with the hope that her daughter is alive.

The search for a beautiful girl with blond hair and green eyes did not bring any results, and then the inconsolable mother began to seek help from psychics. She can be understood, because despair makes her clutch at any straw. Each time, the unfortunate woman paid money for the revelations of the “clairvoyants.” Even police officers fell for the tricks of psychics, who in vain, at the direction of psychics known throughout the country, crawled all the hard-to-reach places.

- These are good psychologists. Young employees sometimes buy into this and believe in these fairy tales. “This has never happened in my practice,” admits Andrey Shchurov. - If they show me a psychic who, after looking at a photograph and talking with relatives, tells me to dig here or go into this house and I go with a group and find either living or dead there, I agree to give half the salary and keep this wizard with me.

“We need to call the police!”

“He left home and never returned” - most stories begin the same way. For some reason, it is believed that this does not happen to good boys and girls from prosperous families.

“It is important to understand that any child is at risk,” says Dmitry Vtorov. — Children prone to vagrancy sometimes leave home 20 times. And everyone gets used to it: both in the police and at home. There was a tragic case where a twelve-year-old boy disappeared after running away from home fourteen times. We looked for him, but were too late: he went into the boiler room to warm up and suffocated with carbon monoxide. Many children fall into open hatches and die. No one is responsible for this. We have prepared a petition regarding this matter.

There are generally paradoxical stories. In Moscow, a 9-year-old boy left home. The child grabbed food, things, a flashlight and a compass. The parents reported to the police and notified the volunteers. The child was found in Bitsevsky Park - he came out into the light of the lights. It turned out that the guy was involved in orienteering, but he wasn’t very good at it. Deciding that he was not worthy of his successful father, he gave himself a survival test.

There are more and more cases of missing children. One child is found and another disappears. Police note an increase in crime stories. Last year, 32 children became victims of crimes and were searched for as missing. Over 6 months of this year, 15 “lost” victims died.

Volunteers began another search. Photo: POISKDETEI.RU

From time to time, terrible rumors circulate that several small children disappear every day in Moscow. Horror stories appear about a gang that steals babies and disassembles them for organs. These stories, fortunately, were not confirmed.

“But today we are forced to state a lot of facts of depraved acts with children,” says Colonel Shchurov. — The worst thing is that this often happens in families, even prosperous ones. There seems to be no reason to leave home, and then it turns out that the children are running away from violence. When psychologists start working with them, it becomes truly scary.

How long does it take to find a missing child alive?

“There’s no time at all,” Dmitry Vtorov answers without hesitation. “Sometimes, even five minutes is enough for the worst to happen.” The first days are especially important. Because during this 24-hour period we can still find witnesses who saw the child last in order to localize the search area. During the day, people still remember who they met on the street, what attracted their attention. And then the impressions of the new day are superimposed, and it becomes almost impossible to remember the boy in the blue jacket or the girl in the green coat.

Many parents themselves hesitate to report to the police. Some people do not want to cause panic, others are afraid that repressive measures will be taken against them by the guardianship authorities. Someone asks for help on the volunteer forum, but volunteers join the search when there is a police report.

If your child was supposed to come home half an hour ago, but he is still not there and the phone is not answering, you need to call the police! Let him return in 2 hours - you can always hang up.

Start calling everyone: school, teachers, classmates, neighbors, friends. Raise the alarm! Because there are situations when you need to save not tomorrow, not in three hours, but now!

If the police refuse to accept a statement, call the helpline that hangs on the wall in each territorial department. In the end, write to the email address of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, and your message will reach Colonel Shchurov in a few hours.

While you were reading this text, one child disappeared in Russia. Right now. God grant that he returns alive.

The Prosecutor General's Office has sounded the alarm: every fifth person missing in the country is a minor. Totally agree last year About 18 thousand minors went missing, more than five thousand of them were minors.

Worst of all, search rates have fallen by 11% over the past ten years. Not least of all, this is due to the red tape that accompanies any search case. Paperwork is complicated to such an extent that there is a common belief that a report of a missing child is accepted only on the third day after his disappearance. In reality, this is not entirely true: law enforcement officers are obliged to accept the application in any case, but a criminal case, indeed, is most often initiated, if initiated at all, only on the third day.

At the suggestion of deputies from United Russia, during the autumn session the State Duma will review the current scheme for searching for children. In particular, according to the proposed amendments, law enforcement agencies will be required to initiate a criminal case regarding the disappearance of a child on the day of the relatives’ complaint.

Nowadays, not only investigative agencies are engaged in the search for missing children - in a growing last years In the wake of a wave of civil initiatives, a volunteer movement began to actively operate, providing assistance in search activities. Dmitry Viktorovich Vtorov, secretary of the Association of Voluntary Organizations “Search for Missing Children” poiskdetei.ru, talks with a PRAVMIR correspondent about the new bill, the work of volunteers, the reasons for the disappearance of children and ways to keep them safe.

Disappearance of children: risk factors

-At what age do children most often disappear?

Mostly in transition. Children grow up twice. Hormonal maturation of a child occurs somewhere between 11 and 13 years of age (then girls change especially, but boys too). The next period is 15-16 years. These are probably the most dangerous ages, when children do not find understanding among their parents and want more independence.

-What do statistics say: in what situations do children most often disappear?

The vast majority of cases are children running away from home.

Our cases were completely different. For example, a recent case in Moscow. A boy disappeared, they were looking for him, but as it turned out, he left home only because he was involved in orienteering and he couldn’t work with a compass. He took a compass, flashlights, a packed lunch of glazed cheese curds and went into the forest in Kuzminki, for some reason deciding to practice orienteering at night and in the forest.

The boy was quickly found and returned home.

There were very strange cases when parents forced a child to eat semolina porridge, but he categorically did not want to, he perceived the situation very seriously, although there were no assaults or any special scandals. And so he, upset that he is being forced to eat semolina, takes it and runs away. They also looked for him for a long time.

There are quite a lot of such cases.

As a rule, when they say: “A child ran away from home,” they imagine some inveterate hooligan who skips school, does not study well, his parents offend him, an asocial family. Not at all. As practice shows, children often disappear in very prosperous families. Everything seems normal on the outside, but something happens...

Cases where parents are directly to blame for the disappearance of children are, as a rule, asocial. The parents went to a cafe, drank, walked, talked, the child was left to his own devices - and then disappeared.

There was an egregious case when a drunken father lost his five-year-old child on the street and discovered that he was not at home, only after oversleeping.

From September 2010 to May of this year, our Association handled about five hundred cases of missing children. Of these, about fifty died for one reason or another. Of these, it has been reliably established that twenty-five were killed or raped and killed. There are about thirty criminal cases in total. Total: about seven percent of criminal cases.

In addition, some children are not found at all - for one to three years, and there is no information whether they are alive or well. As a rule, such children are irretrievably lost; we do not know what happened to them. Were they stolen? Were they taken out of the country? Or did they die and the traces of the crime were hidden? Unknown.

Rare happy ending

-Have there been cases when, after a fairly long period of time, children were still found?

We work within International Center We also work in Ukraine to search for missing children. We had such a case: we found information from ten years ago about a missing child. And suddenly, after a while, it turned out that the child had been found. The girl, already a teenager, was found ten years later.

It turned out that the girl was kidnapped by unknown persons for unknown purposes. Somehow she ended up in a gypsy camp and was raised there. She always felt like an outcast in some sense because she was not a gypsy.

One day, after running away, she ended up in a shelter. They became interested in this story, began to find out, and interviewed the gypsies. They willingly made contact and told about the girl: how and where they found her, at what age.

They pulled up file cabinets, identified the children who were missing at that time, and, using DNA analysis, identified the parents - the mother of this girl.

This is such an amazing story. So, as practice shows, stories that have a long statute of limitations also sometimes end well, albeit in isolated cases.

How to protect a child?

-How to protect a child from harm? Are there any simple rules?

A crime story always happens differently. There is a website - ours information Agency poiskdetei.info, it covers events in the life of volunteer organizations and search events. And in the process we did large selection recommendations for parents - what to do.

As practice shows, the most important thing is to instill in your child not to talk to strangers on the street and to always inform your parents that you are going somewhere. It should bounce off your teeth. If even a good, famous, normal neighbor invited you, if he calls: “Come to my place, I’ll show you some stamps,” it is imperative that the child call and say: “Mom, I’m going to my neighbor, Uncle Vita.” There are often cases when crimes are committed by close associates and even relatives.

It is necessary to give children the right guidelines: family is dad, mom, grandma, grandpa - that’s it, that’s where the family ends. Next are the people you should always inform your parents about, wherever you go. Unfortunately, we live in such troubling times.

You don't have to go far. In the Vologda region, a young girl was raped and killed - a man who had previously invited another girl to look at a hamster near a pet store invited her to look at the parrots... The second girl refused. Thanks to the fact that the child told her parents that her uncle had approached her and offered to look at the hamsters, the criminal was identified and arrested.

One more problem - a large number of children die in the sewer system. We were looking for a seven-year-old boy - he fell into a sewer hatch and choked on sewage. We have now begun to actively work, have prepared a petition, an appeal to government bodies regarding the system of drains and sewer hatches, which are often open.

Therefore, children should be told as often as possible: if you are walking, be careful! You cannot step on hatches, you cannot jump on them, you must generally go around them.

Have confidential conversations with your children and always participate in their lives.

New bill: confrontation with red tape

-How often do they refuse to accept applications on the first day after a child goes missing?

Since we established working relations with the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation, we personally have not recorded such cases where they were offered to contact us in three days. But, of course, there may still be similar incidents somewhere on the ground.

After filing an application, a search case is now initiated, but a criminal case may not be initiated at all - for this there are certain procedural rules, the basis for initiating it under Article 105 (murder).

However, if the investigative authorities understand that this is not the child who has already run away from home several times, but this is an unexpected disappearance, there is reason to believe that this may be an abduction or the child is in a situation where his life may be in danger, then They meet us halfway and immediately initiate a case under Article 105.

-What, in this case, does the new bill provide?

Discussions on it have now begun in the State Duma, and working group. The first meeting was recently held under the chairmanship of Deputy Vasilyev.

Firstly, the new amendments will give more rights and opportunities directly to the investigative authorities themselves. Now, in order for the investigative authorities to carry out and do the same billing (collection of information about the use of telephone services) or carry out direction finding (find where the phone is located) at the location mobile phone, it is necessary to comply with certain procedural norms: obtain permission from the head of the department, after that - permission from the court.

This is a lot of red tape with many steps. And if a case is opened under Article 105 (murder), the possibilities expand, and measures can be carried out more quickly.

Article 105: selective approach

Plus, the case itself under Article 105 falls under special control: a simple search case and a case under the article “murder” have different order procedural conduct, and the attention of investigative authorities to them also differ.

We cannot oblige the investigative authorities to always initiate cases under Section 105 in the event of a child’s disappearance. Imagine, we are looking for a child who runs away for the twentieth time orphanage(such cases happen). If all such cases are prosecuted for murder, a number of problems will arise. Imagine a department with a dozen similar cases. All services will be focused exclusively on them.

For this reason, a selective approach is necessary here.

We are of the opinion that there must be a certain algorithm: if a child under the age of fourteen years has disappeared, it is advisable to initiate a case under Section 105. Children aged twelve or ten years rarely run away from the same orphanages on their own, much less repeatedly.

In addition, for a child under fourteen years of age, being on the street poses a greater danger than for a sixteen-year-old teenager (although he also risks life and health).

Volunteers: when the police are powerless

-In what cases do you turn to volunteers for help?

Parents of missing children often contact us in cases in which the police were, for some reason, powerless. In 2009, in the city of Sarov - this is the Nizhny Novgorod region - Liza Tishkina disappeared, we are still looking for her. The police are also looking very actively, periodically information about this case appears in the media - but, unfortunately, we have had no results for the third year now.

How is search work generally carried out? What is the difference between how volunteers and law enforcement agencies conduct search operations?

Our Association of Volunteer Organizations unites 35 organizations. According to our estimates, there are about forty of them operating in Russia. Now volunteer organizations are actually outside the legal field. We are not participants in operational search activities.

We are not bound by anything - we can take any action within the framework of the law, unlike investigative authorities.

What is meant by “any action”? For example, we know that a child has gone missing on the edge of a neighboring area. Then we can promptly notify police posts directly near railways, large cities, involve volunteer organizations working there and report the results of their work to the local police.

It is more difficult for investigative authorities located on the borders of regions. If, for example, a child disappeared in the Vladimir region on the border with the Moscow region, it is necessary to make a request, generate a special paper, obtain permission for it, and send it directly to the Moscow region. She should arrive there and be taken down to the territorial departments.

All this takes time: a day, two, three.

We work much more quickly.

We cannot conduct an interrogation, but we can find a witness and refer him to the investigative authorities.

But, on the other hand, if we are dealing with clearly criminal crimes, where a child is threatened by some criminal, then, of course, we work exclusively under the supervision of the investigative authorities, guided only by their recommendations.

Experts note the high efficiency of volunteers’ actions, and in connection with this, the need for teamwork.

Here you need to understand: volunteers in no case replace or substitute for investigative authorities, they only provide assistance and assistance, in some cases very effectively.

Interviewed by Maria Senchukova

Nineteen out of twenty children will voluntarily go with a stranger. Such an experiment was carried out by volunteers of the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert" (hereinafter referred to as LA - author's note). Children have a certain stereotype regarding the appearance and behavior of kidnappers. What we parents tell our children: you can’t talk to suspicious people. Suspicious - what kind?

Kidnapped by "ordinary" people

“You don’t go anywhere with bad uncles,” parents say. Children go away with ordinary uncles and ordinary aunties, who in children’s heads have nothing to do with evil,” says Irina Vorobyova, coordinator of “Liza Alert”, director of the search system development fund missing people "Method Center".

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"

What must be explained to a child - never to an adult won't ask children for help. Under no circumstances will a normal adult go to the playground and ask for help catching a kitten, making a movie, or carrying bags. The child must firmly know this and say “no.”

“We conducted an experiment during classes with children at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. We showed the children a film, by agreement with the parents, one of the volunteers took the child out of the makeshift hall, allegedly at the request of the mother. The parents warned that the child should not go anywhere,” says the LA coordinator. “Adults” watched from the sidelines, almost everyone was sure that their child would under no circumstances leave with a stranger: 19 out of 20 children left.”

The parents' task is to prevent their child from leaving with strangers. Surveillance video shows the children leaving completely voluntarily with their captors.

A child should only respond to people he knows. This is your close family circle: mom, dad, teacher, teacher, grandparents.

He should know that if a stranger suddenly takes you by the hand, shoulder, or briefcase, you don’t need to ask, you need to shout. Questions and phrases will take time. In LA they say that if the child is not confused, you need to shout: “Who are you? I don’t know you!”

This will attract the attention of other adults.

He ran away and won't return

Lisa Alert volunteers use US statistics and analytics regarding the time available to rescue a kidnapped child. There is a certain formula. If a child is abducted for the purpose of sexual violence, according to the analysis of American services, the child has three hours. According to LA, the situation in Russia looks the same.

Parents must react immediately. There is no need to panic. If you realize that the child did not return home on time, got lost in the park, went to training, and has been gone for half an hour, then you need to call the police and LA immediately.

Hotline number "Lisa Alert" 8 -800 -700-54-52.

“Parents, this is important! Yes, there is a psychological barrier “that I will call, and he will come home now.” The time here is the time of your child’s life,” they say in LA.

LA Stories: In Moscow we had a 14-year-old runner girl. At some point the police refused to look for her, she ran away so often. The girl lived on the street and died in one of the abandoned buildings. Accident.

The myth that ran away and will return on his own - just a myth. Children on the street are in danger.

History of the search for an aircraft: a woman calls, speaks Russian poorly, a five-year-old child has disappeared. He disappeared two days ago. She was afraid to go to the police. I thought that I could submit an application only on the third day. We are still struggling with the 72 hour myth. He's gone! The child was found in one of the children's hospitals.

“Demand that your application be accepted. They can even accept it over the phone,” says the LA coordinator.

Children are abducted in two other cases. One of them: for the purpose of ransom - here the kidnappers get in touch themselves.

The second case is that people with mental illnesses are kidnapped. They take the child for themselves, they want the child to become their child. In this case, external pressure is triggered. This requires orientation, media work, and notification, for example, at railway stations. The child must look at the kidnapper from all walls. In this case, the child is released.

“We have a provision in the Criminal Code that presupposes a situation where if a kidnapper releases a child voluntarily, then charges under the article of kidnapping will not be brought against him,” says Irina Vorobyova. “It looks monstrous, but it saves the lives of children.”

Aircraft search history: Perm region. A mentally ill woman kidnapped a boy from a kindergarten. She just came to the group and took the child. We have pasted thousands of landmarks. Everything was sealed almost in one day. The next day, the woman took the boy to the bus stop and called a taxi for him. The boy's driver found out and called the police.

According to LA statistics, 90% of missing children are found, of which 80% are found alive. A very large percentage of children return home on their own: the phone died, they were with friends, they missed their parents.

Courtesy of the Lisa Alert search and rescue team

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"

“Children are practically not kidnapped in Moscow. Here we do not take into account abduction by a parent from a parent. This is not our case,” says the LA coordinator. “This practically does not happen in big cities. Moscow does not freeze at night, there are a lot of cameras. The most terrible "The kidnappings are outside the city. Mostly in the regions."

LA search history: In the city of Dyatkovo, Bryansk region, we were looking for a fifth-grader Lera U. There were several cameras throughout the city, but even one of them filmed the girl approaching the car. It was not visible whether she got into the car, but a witness was visible. We never found him. A briefcase was found outside the city, with a name written on the notebooks. A body was found spiraling away from him.

In all the years of the existence of the LA detachment, there has not been a case where the volunteers did not find a child from Moscow. There are unfound teenagers, small children, all found.

Current photos, trackers, bright clothes

LA volunteers advise parents to buy their children bright clothes that will be visible in a crowd, take more photographs of their children, and purchase GPS trackers.

History of the search for LA: A girl disappeared; she had a very noticeable bright hat. The volunteers handed out directions to it to the employees of one of the stations and left. After some time, a girl came out to the same station and was recognized by her hat.

According to LA volunteers, they have never been contacted by parents whose children wear trackers. Trackers can be of different shapes, for example, in the form of watches, bracelets, toys, reflectors.

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"Courtesy of the Lisa Alert search and rescue team

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"

Child in trouble

If you see a child and it seems to you that he is lost, approach him and do not touch him. Ask “Are you lost?”, “Where is your mom?” Most likely, the child will answer you. If it's a shopping center, call security.

They must announce the baby over the loudspeaker. If the parents do not come, the security must call the police. You can find out which department the child will be taken to.

"If you think a child is being taken away against his will, go and ask the child and an adult what is going on. If it is the kidnapper, then most likely he will leave the child. He does not need any extra interest on your part. You paid attention, that means , you remember it,” says the LA coordinator.

Search history for aircraft: Naberezhnye Chelny. Eight-year-old Vasilisa G. disappeared. The girl was kidnapped by a maniac, while he was taking Vasilisa away, his car got stuck. A tractor driver helped pull out the car. He asked what kind of child was locked in the car. The girl had a mark on her face from the beating, and she was crying. The kidnapper replied that the daughter had a fight at school and was crying. The tractor driver did not realize that the man who introduces himself as the girl’s father is dark-haired and dark-skinned, and Vasilisa is blonde. The man pulled out the car and let them go. Thanks to his testimony, it was possible to find the criminal. Vasilisa died.

© Photo: provided by the search and rescue team "Lisa Alert"

"Society has changed. A missing child appears on the news.

The more effort you and I make, the less “not” there is before verbs, and the more attempts we make to pass, do, achieve, the more children, and even adults, will return home. So you set yourself the task of not retreating. After all, life is behind you, what you do! And I will put it, and together we will make it out of hopelessness - “Found. Alive.” - says Grigory Sergeev, head of the Lisa Alert detachment.

The search never ends.