How rich people treat their servants. Being a Servant: Confessions of a Maid

During the crisis on Rublyovka, it became unfashionable to brag about wealth. But the life of the local inhabitants has not changed much. Despite the loss of millions of dollars, Rublyovka, as before, hires servants. And groans in the old fashioned way: they steal!

True, if earlier it was about the theft of diamonds and sapphires, today cunning housekeepers rob on trifles: shampoos, creams, lipsticks and socks.

Went to the store and didn't come back

"I was very lucky. My people - drivers, housekeeper - have been working for me for many years, - says writer Daria DONTSOVA. And then he adds terrible details: - But now it is so difficult to find good workers! I go to fitness in Zhukovka (an elite village on Rublyovka. - Ed.) and communicate with people there. Recently there was an outrageous incident. I knew this couple - the man is so handsome, the wife is pleasant ... They hired two people from neighboring countries - a husband and wife. For a year they lived in that family, worked on the housework. And recently, the daughter of the owners came home and found her mother and father killed. The servant is gone. At one writer's acquaintance, the driver, after working for two weeks, went to the salon supposedly to drive a new car. So it still runs. A friend found a housekeeper through an agency. The first day I asked her to go to the store. She took the money and did not return. Well, that's funny!

But many are not laughing. The crisis has greatly shaken up the servant market:

Housekeepers are much easier to find today mutual language. The crisis has tempered the ardor, - says Olga, a typical resident of Rublyovka, who asked not to indicate her last name. - People who come on the recommendation are spoiled to the point of horror: they were taken to work in the same place by car, they will not cook food, this should be done by a cook. Pay them vacation, sick leave. What am I, a government agency? One nanny quit before the crisis due to the fact that we took not her, but the second nanny with us to warm countries. She wouldn't waste her time like that now! The workers are full. But the main thing is to find decent ones. My friend fired her housekeeper the other day for stealing little things. At first, lipstick began to disappear, then creams. But you won’t go to the police because of such trifles.

Filipinos are perfect?

And such stories on Rublevka, and in other rich houses, are a dime a dozen.

My friends from Rublyovka complain about swindlers, - says Yana RUDKOVSKY, producer of Dima Bilan. - Previously, diamonds were stolen, but now they are dismantling the wardrobe “in a modest way”: one’s dress will be lost, one’s shoes, one’s handbags. One acquaintance from Rublyovka complained that socks were disappearing. Branded. Moreover, the owners do not immediately notice the loss - these Rublev ladies have large dressing rooms, you can get lost.

A special conversation about the Filipinos. The fashion for maids from this country appeared on Rublyovka five or six years ago. They say that the foundation for the secular trend was laid by the singer Alexander Malinin, who back in 1999 gave an exotic housekeeper to a familiar secular lady. And off we go. Several agencies took exotic servants to wealthy Russian homes in batches. Of the obvious advantages of Filipinas, modesty, cleanliness and ignorance of Russian are noted. And this means that at home you can discuss any issues - no one will take dirty linen out of the hut. However, the fashion for the exotic quickly passed. Filipino women began to be imported in industrial quantities, without checking their reputation. And they began to take everything out of the houses. And it's impossible to find them.

Who has a chance to get

Rublyovka does not like to work with relatives, even distant ones. This is the first rule.

Now people from the hinterland of Ukraine simply go to work in elite houses in droves, but they have very little chance. Muscovites enjoy the advantage.

There are a lot of overweight women. Nobody takes them for three reasons: a) unaesthetic; b) poor health; c) don't move well. Models, of course, also no one invites. Ideal parameters - up to the 48th size.

Victims share on blogs

Money and jewelry. This is the simplest thing you can take out of the house and still keep your job.

Clothes, handbags, shoes, socks.

Food (vegetables), alcohol, tea bags, nuts.

Detergents, shampoo.

WHAT HOW MUCH

During the crisis, Rublyovka agreed: “I want to pay not 40, but 35 thousand rubles!” - says the owner. The question of five thousand is now with us with every order, - says Mila KOSTENKO, a psychoanalyst at the Impeccable Personnel agency (selects employees exclusively for VIP clients). - The moment is fundamental: they pay less and are terribly satisfied. Rich people don't let themselves be controlled.

The average salary of workers on Rublyovka:

Gardener - 30 thousand per month (before the crisis - 35,000)

Housekeeper - from 30 to 40 thousand per month (before the crisis - 35,000 - 45,000)

Governess - 40 - 45 thousand (before the crisis - 35 - 40 thousand)

A good Italian chef earns several thousand euros.

There is a system of fines. For example, for the disclosure of family secrets, a fine is a monthly salary.

Standard staff: a security guard who looks after the territory of the house. Gardener. An individual who controls the heating and air conditioning system. Cook. Personnel manager. One or two governess nannies. At least two housekeepers. Total: 8 people. The scope of work is enormous average house on Rublyovka up to three thousand square meters.

Which of the stars suffered

The housemaids really got on my nerves! - complains TV presenter Lera Kudryavtseva. - Especially during the crisis they raged. Dishes, food disappear, I don’t talk about jewelry at all. For example, my housekeeper ruined an expensive white fur coat. I asked to clean the thing from street dirt and warned: you can’t wash it, just brush it. And she washed it! The fur coat stood up. And that's worse than stealing! Another housekeeper ruined the microwave: she scrubbed the silver-coated panel with a coarse brush!

Arseniy Borodin, the soloist of the Chelsea group, suffered from a swindler-housekeeper:

I needed an assistant who would wash, clean, cook. Friends advised a woman from Ryazan. Fifty years. Respectable age. And then I discovered that I had lost 80 thousand rubles, silver souvenirs that my friends brought from the USA. The housekeeper, of course, disappeared and turned off her cell phone.

Andrey Appolonov's housekeeper made a lot of noise. The soloist of "Ivanushki" caught the servants stealing and handed her over to the police. It turned out that the lady had long specialized in home theft. Singer Olga Orlova was robbed by a nanny. Larisa Dolina's housekeeper took out all the jewelry.

But Lada Dance insured itself against such a misfortune by opening a recruitment agency for elite houses and developing a whole strategy against dishonest assistants:

My houseworkers do not have access to money and jewelry. We ourselves introduce people into temptation when we scatter rings, clothes, - the singer is convinced. - A person himself can forget, lose. It will seem to him that the servant did it. I myself had a case when I thought that the ring had been stolen, and then I found it in my bag.

"Masters and Servants" is a look at the Russian elite, who was photographed along with hired servants. The photographer was interested in the "place" of the servants in the employer's house, the relationship between people.

“I had long conversations with people,” she said. "I asked what their relationship was like." These conversations helped Li-Mi-Yan decide how to organize the photos.

"For those who can afford it, it's common to hire an assistant," Li-Mi-Yan, the author of the project, told Business Insider. That's strange: the attendants are only our rich Pinocchio? What's in it? Is it really "unusual" for the rich in other countries?

According to Lee-Mi-Yang, it was not difficult to find people who wanted to act in films. “Mostly they were people I knew,” she said. "Most of them agreed to take part in my project with enthusiasm."

“In Russia, being a governess or a nanny is considered a low-skill job,” Li-Mi-Yang said. Some employees refused to be photographed, wanting to avoid being labeled "housekeeper".

Most people think they treat their servants with care and concern, but most servants still dream of saving up money and changing jobs.

These photographs really show the relationship between masters and servants.

An entertaining story of a housekeeper of one of the richest people in Ukraine (participant in the first hundred Ukrainian Forbes) about how sometimes people are mentally unprepared for the wealth that quickly fell on their heads.

For ordinary Ukrainians, how the richest 1% of the country's population live is a secret with seven seals. The intrigues and scandals that seep into the chronicles of social life are only a small fraction of the processes that are actually taking place. We decided to look behind a thick screen and try to find out what is on the minds of the rich today, who hide their treasures in bank safes, behind the high fences of elite cottage towns, and, of course, on numerous offshore accounts.

We met Lyubov P. (the heroine refused to give her last name) at the employment center, where she came to look for work after several unsuccessful attempts to get a job as a housekeeper in a rich house. We decided to reproduce half an hour of our conversation here in the form of a short interview, which expands our understanding of how wealthy families live and what kind of relationships they build among themselves. The interview took place in Surzhik, so for the convenience of the reader, we literally "humanized" it.

— By whom, for whom and for how long did you work?

— I worked for several years in a very rich family ( Lyuba gives her last name, but we will just say that this is a person from the top 100 Forbes, the owner of a large chain of stores - Ed.). Father, mother, two daughters. The eldest is a superstar, a model leading on the radio, she acts in clips, goes to Moscow, to the aggressor, so to speak ( laughs - Ed.). The youngest rides horses, takes part in the competition. They live outside the city, own their own equestrian club. The father is an accomplished experienced person, co-owner of a very large business, the mother is sitting at home or doing some kind of charity.

- What was unusual in the family and why did you quit?

- Everything was unusual - from the untold wealth that seemed to come out of your ears, to the relationship between people. Sometimes it seemed that this was not a family, but a madhouse in which everyone has their own personal reality, they occasionally intersect in a very strange way, a lot of secrets and secrets, a lot of distrust, meanness, lies. They treat workers like cattle, who silently have to plow on them. Usually they do not greet, but pretend that they do not see a person in front of them. I couldn't handle it, so I quit. And yet, despite the fact that they are very rich, they are terribly tight-fisted. The salary was not increased, but the work was increasing. This is despite the fact that there are more than 20 servants in the house.

— What surprised you the most?

- These, it seems, self-sufficient and very rich people are filled with envy, anger and meanness towards all their relatives and friends. It would seem that money flows like a river, you live for your own pleasure. But they want to devour, destroy each other. My former owner has two partners. They say the three of them have equal shares in the business. But my mistress Valentina Fedorovna constantly complained to her friends and family that her husband's partner found his wife in a grocery store, she worked as a saleswoman. She called her a spoon-washer, they say, it is not known who seduced her there ( Lyuba uses another, strong word - Ed.), and this one took her as his wife. And only this is considered the basis for her husband Gennady to deceive his partner out of the business. Luckily, he hasn't done it yet.

They washed the bones of the second partner with the whole family. The fact is that he is a Tajik by origin, and the attitude towards him, to put it mildly, is humiliating. Expressions such as "this comrade with gold teeth" is probably the most decent thing that they say about him behind his back. At the same time, both Valentina Fedorovna and Gennady Vladislavovich very often repeat that if it weren’t for them, then “this Tajik was still selling vegetables by the road.” Like, they brought him to the people, gave the first money for business. As they say, the only thing he is capable of is cooking delicious pilaf. But in his face they say something completely different, and sometimes you might even think that there is nothing dearer than them on the whole Earth.

- Is it just a personal dislike, or is there money behind such a negative attitude?

“They have so much money that it is impossible to spend even in a few lifetimes. But for every penny they are ready to strangle. For example, their trading network is constantly expanding and buying hundreds of new buildings and plots of land. All transactions are executed through notaries. So the director of their digging, it seems, “ratted” and executed transactions only through his own brother, putting part of the money in his pocket. When my master found out about this, he decided to make his daughter Anya a notary. After she failed the exam twice, he simply bought her a notary's certificate. Although within the law it would be impossible. I heard it myself, how they boasted. So everything is possible for the rich. Although Anna does not understand anything in legal matters.

When my owner insisted that transactions be processed only through his daughter, his partner's daughter Nina immediately wanted to become a notary herself, so that these transactions could be processed through her as well. My hostess Valya directly said that the partner's daughter "runs like a fried lynx" with this notarial crust, but she cannot attach herself anywhere. Although she is still closer to legal issues, because all her relatives are lawyers.

And the daughter of my owners, Anya, instead of actually working in a notary's office, or doing something else useful in life, besides visiting beauty salons, spends the rest of her time figuring out with her friends which of them is “cooler”, which next car she bought dad or in what new clip she was shot.

- How do the "fathers of families" react to this "rivalry"» ?

“They have a very complicated history. My former owner has a granddaughter. My daughter and son-in-law separated a few years ago - well, you never know, they didn’t share something in life. Before that, the parents had a relationship with their son-in-law - at least apply to the wound. Then the grandfather, as if off the chain, broke: they began to “bug” the guy. And they planted drugs and grenades on him to put him in jail. Once, a tree was nearly knocked down on a car. In general, everything to get rid of the son-in-law of the former. They dragged him through the courts, just to prevent him from seeing the child. To be honest, I think that this is already a “clinic”. He didn't do anything to them. Let you quarreled, but the girl must have a father. And so she only sees her grandfather and nannies. They don't even let her go to school. And she still calls her grandfather daddy. This is fine?

And this family war is even on TV, and the partners say that it is already starting to harm their common business. Everyone is already looking at Gennady, like an old man who has lost his mind. And two partners are persuading my former owner to finish his showdowns, because they want to quietly earn their billions. And then retire to spend them.

- And what, reacts?

— No, he tries even more to destroy his son-in-law. He sleeps badly, is nervous, yells at everyone. I don't understand why he does all this. People say he wanted a son, an heir. Then he hoped that his daughter would give a grandson to whom business management could be transferred. And now the son-in-law is also gone, and the daughters will waste their entire fortune in no time. This is where I went crazy. True, he and his wife and daughter are constantly “winding up”.

So he is less and less engaged in business affairs, and more and more with his crazy idea to put the former deputy son-in-law in jail and deprive him of parental rights.

- How do you think it will end?

— I'm not interested anymore. If people have no morals, and they get rich very quickly, a lot of money can turn them into real monsters. So now I'm looking for a simpler job so that I know less and sleep better. Because if at least a tenth of our rich people have such passions in their families, then I'm scared for the country.

The Village continues to find out how much people of different professions earn and what they spend money on. In the new issue - a housekeeper. Ten years ago, it was believed that only representatives of the upper middle class could afford an au pair, but now, despite the crisis, many people with average earnings have housekeepers. Their services no longer seem prohibitively expensive, but they save a lot of time and effort. An assistant to rich Muscovites told The Village how she lives, how much she earns and how much she spends.

PROFESSION

Housekeeper

SALARY

48 000 rubles

per month

Costs

20 000 RUBLES

providing for a son

400 RUBLES

phone payment

10 000 RUBLES

refueling and car repair

3 000 RUBLES

8 000 RUBLES

3 000 RUBLES

vitamins

1 000 RUBLES

2 000 RUBLES

cosmetics

600 RUBLES

transport

How to become a housekeeper

My name is Natalia, I am 51 years old. By education, I am a technologist of leather products, I worked in a leather haberdashery association, first as a seamstress, and then as a master. I didn’t even think about becoming a housekeeper until last year, when my son began to live in Moscow with his father, and I, a resident of Pushchino, wanted to be closer to him. Then I began to look for a job with accommodation in the capital.

I have always liked doing housework, so I decided to try myself in this area. Turning first to one agency, then to the second, I did not get a real result. Everywhere they took money, offered to undergo training, but there was no sense. Then I began to look for ads directly. After writing a response to the vacancy of a housekeeper and indicating in the questionnaire that I had no work experience, I immediately received a response with an invitation to an interview. This surprised me, because everyone is looking for people with experience. Subsequently, I learned that my employers, Alexander and Natalia, were impressed by the fact that I spoke in such detail and honestly about myself in the questionnaire.

It seems to me that a housekeeper is chosen based on intuition: the client either likes the candidate or not. In addition, employers give preference to women of Slavic appearance. Often they even write that Russian citizenship is required to get a job. As a rule, those who do not have enough money and have nowhere to live go to housekeepers. For them, such work is serving time. But if a person gets a job helping around the house only because he has no money, if it is difficult and unpleasant for him to do this work, the client will feel it.

Housekeeping is really interesting to me, and I went to work not because I needed money, but because I needed to occupy myself with something and, probably, feel needed. I lived for myself for so long that I wanted to become useful to other people. I consider myself an assistant: I help when a person has no time. Doing what I love, I also earn good money.

I, as a citizen of Russia, do not need a patent, it is necessary only for visitors from other countries. But I work unofficially, because for official registration you need to open an individual entrepreneur for the provision of services. Then I will pay taxes, and I will have seniority. But in order to open an individual entrepreneur, you need to find a person who understands accounting, because for me this is a distant area. My hosts are not against this payment format, but how else? I have never heard of housekeepers opening individual entrepreneurs, although in the future I would like to do this: in five years I am retiring, and seniority is important to me.

Features of work

When I first arrived at the four-story house that I am currently cleaning, the hostess Natalya told me about her cleaning preferences. The entire first floor of this mansion is reserved for an entrance hall and a garage, on the second floor there is a living room, a dining room and a kitchen, on the third floor there is a hall and three bedrooms, and on the fourth, attic, there is one large playroom for children. There are two adults and two children living in the house. Despite the fact that the structure has four levels, it is very compact. In the hall on the third floor there is a simulator, which the owners periodically work out on. When no one is at home and I want to take a break from cleaning, I also use it - Alexander and Natalya do not mind.
I live on the territory of the mansion in a separate guest house. This is a one-story building with a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, where I have a computer and a router.

Every day I clean only bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and stairs. Otherwise, my duties include cleaning one floor per day. I also have cooking, so I have enough to do. The beginning of my working day is not clearly defined in terms of time: if the owners need breakfast, I can come at 07:30. But since they rarely order breakfast, I usually start work at nine or ten in the morning by cleaning the kitchen after the family has already had breakfast. I work until two or three in the afternoon, then I go on a break, and at four or five in the evening I return to business, put things in order where necessary, and cook dinner. At 19:00 I go to my room and return only at 21:00 to clean the kitchen after dinner. This is where my work day ends. In my free time, I do what I want, surf the Internet, watch movies.

My employers do not consider themselves superior to those who help them. Perhaps we have such a relationship because they were not always rich: they used to live in an ordinary Moscow apartment, and when the owner began to earn good money, they bought this house. We are very similar in character to them, and we immediately established a trusting relationship, as if some kind of soul mate. I try not to interfere in the personal life of my owners. Alexander has some kind of business, he runs it from home. His wife does not work and devotes herself entirely to children.

Salary

When I first got a job, I was offered 25,000 rubles a month. I went for such a salary because I knew that I had no work experience, and without it they would not take anywhere. Two months later, Alexander raised my salary to 40 thousand. At first I worked six days a week, then I realized that it was a lot for me, and we agreed that I would work four days. For such a download, I get 24 thousand rubles a month.

I decided to use the weekend for a part-time job and found a family that needs cleaning once a week. Their house is located within the city, its owner is a high-ranking official, he is rarely at home, and his wife takes care of the children and does not work. They have their own security service there, and they checked me when I got a job.

The house itself is two-story, but very long. On the ground floor there is a gym and a sauna in one wing, and a large dining room and kitchen in the second. On the second floor in one wing - an adult bedroom and an office, and in the other - children's rooms and a nurse's room. I simply don’t have the opportunity to work out in the gym in this house: I clean up from morning to evening.

There is a lot of glass in this house, all the ramps and stairs are made of it. Cleaning there is actually washing several windows. It is difficult to put all this in order in a day, and I get very tired. When I came to them, they immediately told me: because of the amount of work, you will have a ten-hour working day. When I began to manage to do all this faster, they began to add work to me, not taking into account that, having removed everything that was supposed to, I was already tired. After such labor day I need another day to recover. Working in this house is hard for me not only physically, but also mentally. The owners do not have such trusting relationships with me as in the first family, and in their house I feel tense. But this part-time job brings me another 24 thousand rubles a month.

spending

Of course, costs change every month. My son is studying at the institute, I help him with money, so the lion's share of my budget (about half) goes to him.

I have a car. Now I ride it more than public transport. It takes about 10 thousand rubles a month to refuel and repair it, and about 600 rubles to travel by minibus and metro.

With clothes, everything is very simple for me, I'm not picky, and it takes an average of 3 thousand per month. It’s more difficult with food: I don’t always eat what my owners eat, I have my own preferences, so part of my budget goes to food - fruits, vegetables and dairy. Another part of the cost goes to vitamins: in our lifetime we can’t do without them.

I do not like decorative cosmetics, so I almost do not spend money on it.
Regular cosmetics that maintain skin tone cost 2-3 thousand rubles a month.

The owners pay for the Internet, and I only spend money on paying for a cell phone - only 300-400 rubles a month. I also enjoy reading business magazines. On average, they spend a thousand rubles a month.

On the whims of clients

I worked in many families, I had to meet with the quirks of rich people. In the house of a family of musicians in which I worked for about two months, the bathroom was decorated in the style of "golden toilets": white faience is covered with gilded drawings. In my opinion, a gilded toilet is an unnecessary show-off, because such a design is short-lived. Yes, and cleaning such places is much more difficult than ordinary bathrooms: on the one hand, everything is in gold, and on the other, in calcium stains from water.

Usually clients treat me with respect, but anything happened. In one family, for example, a lunch break was not provided for a housekeeper.
Where and how I will eat, they did not really care. There, standing in the laundry compartment, I was not very pleased.

Once I got a job in a family of lawyers - a lawyer and her daughter. They had two cats, and there was an incredible amount of wool in the house. It became unbearable for me to come in order to clean up after the cats, then I said to myself: I will not serve the cats. If a person gets a cat, this is his whim, not mine, and therefore the person must take care of him himself. I help people when they really need the help of a housekeeper, and when they just don't feel like doing it themselves, an internal protest arises in me. For this reason, I soon left this family.

There are many women in our country who love to do housework, but nevertheless they sit within four walls and do not know what to do with themselves. If at least twice a week they help someone, it will be useful for them both financially and in terms of realizing their usefulness. But more and more visitors from other cities and countries are becoming housekeepers, it is still difficult for our women to overcome their pride and become an au pair. Although there is nothing shameful in this work and I perceive it as mutual assistance: clients have the opportunity to help me financially, and I have the opportunity to help them with housekeeping. My own family does not require much attention from me now, so my home is the home of the families where I work.

illustrations: Dasha Koshkina

A couple of years ago in Western Europe published a book by the Polish maid Justina Polanski. For a long time she worked in the homes of respectable Germans, and she didn’t see or hear anything there. One fine day, when the next owner did not pay her the due salary, she wanted to speak out properly. She posted everything she knew. About rudeness, snobbery, dirty laundry, humiliation, harassment... The novel about the misadventures of a housekeeper became a bestseller.

In our country, the servant is still silent. With the possible exception of Lucy, Alla Pugacheva's housekeeper. Rather, the former housekeeper was fired for her revelations. Even Polina Stepanova, the former maid of the mixed martial arts fighter Alexander Emelianenko, who a year ago accused him of rape and imprisoned him for almost five years, categorically refuses to communicate with the press and, moreover, is not going to write a book about her misfortunes. And no arguments like: “You will warn other girls, they need recommendations on how to act in such situations” do not convince her.

But employers in Russia are very talkative. - a favorite topic. Last summer, Tatler magazine published a letter from the daughter of an oligarch. They were essentially instructions on how to use a servant, and they were widely discussed on the Internet. The lady advised the sisters, according to reason and condition, to keep the maids on a short leash and fire them without giving time for tears.

The housekeepers then did not answer anything - in the conditions of the crisis they did not want to lose their jobs. Today, as we understood from conversations with the heads of Moscow agencies, it is even more difficult for them. The middle class tries to save money and, above all, minimizes the cost of service personnel. There is no time for talking to the press. However, after much persuasion, Rjob found a volunteer.

Our heroine is a housekeeper with 9 years of experience. Previously, she washed the floors and cleaned the carpets in the cottage of a vodka magnate on Rublyovka, now she keeps order in the penthouse of a major official.

"We're still lucky"

“I could too, but I won’t. The former employer left the country, took his son away from his wife, sending her to trial for drugs. I've seen enough of the scandals, booze. I almost did not intersect with the owner, the hostess was enough for me. The one sober was not a gift, but with alcohol - just a nightmare. The matter was just going to a divorce, she constantly broke down on the maids and the governess. And yet, compared to other housekeepers, I was lucky. A good salary, a convenient schedule and a relatively painless parting.

You don't even know how our metropolitan businessmen deal with Filipino servants. Asians, they are quiet, submissive, that's why they suffer. For example, a year ago, one oligarch spent more than a million on his mistress, and when his wife discovered the loss, he accused a maid from Manila of stealing money. The girl ended up in a pre-trial detention center, where she contracted hepatitis. Then, of course, she was released, but there was no compensation for moral damage or payment for treatment. Another case - the owner of a recruitment agency set low salaries for Filipinos, and then one of the workers ran away. The hostess caught her, locked her in a rented apartment for several days, leaving only bread and water. This is not a movie, these are real Moscow stories. Try to do this with a Ukrainian housekeeper - she will fight back. And the Filipina will quietly gather her things and hide. In 2014, a servant ran away from a well-known Russian human rights activist while he was abroad...”

If they come to you

“Rape and attacks on housekeepers in Russia are extremely rare. But harassment is common. It's silly to complain to the owner - she'll fire you. It is necessary to immediately contact the head of the agency - let him understand. Formally, in our country we have article 133 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Compulsion to act of a sexual nature” and article 132 on violent actions. But how do you prove that you are being molested? Will you record it on a tape recorder or film it on a video camera? There will still be no trial.

The State Duma has been promising for a year now to adopt a law on harassment and punish harassment with fines and forced community service, but this document is useless in Russia. Men have molested women and will continue to molest. Without waiting for the passage of the law, housekeepers need to insist that their agencies invite psychologists, and they conduct a special course of protection or prevention. Recruitment companies are responsible for women workers, they should also be responsible for employers. If you don't want to, go to another agency.

My familiar maid, trying to calm the excessively frisky owner, went to his wife: so and so, direct his energy into a peaceful direction. The harassment stopped, but the number of complaints from the hostess increased: you put things in the closet incorrectly, you talk on the phone at the wrong time, you open the refrigerator with wet hands ... In the end, she changed the maid's work schedule. Instead of once a week, she ordered to come once every two weeks. Salary was halved, and a friend quit. At the same time, the hostess hinted to the agency about the unreliability of the staff. But I warned her: "Complain to the management."

Read the Criminal Code

“Ukrainian Polina Stepanova, who dared to report the athlete Emelianenko, in addition to rape, accused him of stealing her passport. Unfortunately, employers often practice this. Documents are taken away, allegedly so that domestic staff - immigrants from neighboring countries - do not hide with their money and jewelry. I advise maids and housekeepers to learn article 325 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: Theft, destruction, damage or concealment of official documents is punishable by a fine of up to 200,000 roubles, forced labor for a term of up to two years, or imprisonment for the same term. Quote this to the employer. He doesn't want to break the law.

Using slave labor I have never encountered. This does not happen in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Unless at construction sites or in trading companies. But with regard to domestic staff, Muscovites and St. Petersburg do not do this. Except for what I told you about the Filipino servants. But it all ended in a criminal case. The hostess was punished under article 127 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Use of slave labor." Slavery does not threaten the Russians.

And the last article in the legislation that must be remembered is 145 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. If you are not paid for more than two months, you have the right to go to court, and the employer can go to jail for a period of 2 to 5 years.

The most unpleasant thing about the work of domestic staff is the dependence on the mood, character and attitude of the employer. If he is a well-mannered, intelligent and tactful person, everything is fine. If a boor and a slob - and in Russia, as in other countries, there are plenty of such people among rich people - housekeepers, maids, governesses begin to have problems. It would be good for us to adopt some kind of law on education. It wouldn't hurt."

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