Ignat's third funeral: the life and death of an illegal from Uzbekistan in New York

Just a few months ago, the body of a native of the city of Chirchik, Tashkent region, Ignat Smolsky, who died in New York back in September 2010, was delivered to the Brooklyn department of the forensic examination. In the spring of 2018, his body was exhumed, and until Ignat’s mother Olga Vitalievna raises money to cremate her son and deliver the urn to his homeland in Uzbekistan, it will lie in the refrigerator. And then the funeral will take place - the third for Ignat in the last eight years, but the first at which he will finally be mourned. The next phrase will sound ridiculous, but it is absolutely true - Ignat’s relatives are very lucky because they have something to bury. This is the rarest case in the history of New York when we are talking about a lonely and unwanted illegal immigrant.

Ignat Smolsky. Photos from the personal archive

The story of Ignat Smolsky is one of those that literally fell upon me in 2017. It was then that I began to look for people from the former USSR who went missing in the United States, it was then that I found many and very quickly realized that if I had known from the beginning what kind of burden I was shouldering, I would never have taken it on in my life. After all, I became not just a journalist who conducted an investigation and found out how, where and why hundreds of immigrants from the former USSR disappeared in the USA, I not only made a documentary about it, but also turned into a part-time messenger of death... It was I who had to call, write and communicate with relatives and friends of those who died in the United States. I looked for them in a variety of ways - through social networks, through familiar editors of the “Wait for Me” program, simply through all sorts of telephone databases...

I found Ignat’s mother, Olga Vitalievna Panina, on the Odnoklassniki website. She became the first on my list of mothers to whom I had to inform that her only son has not written to her for seven years from the USA, not because he is busy, or not because he does not want to, but because he is no longer alive. I still remember my message to her about this. I also remember her optimistic answers - Olga did not believe me for a whole year, with this feeling she flew to New York, with the same feeling we went with her to the identification, where she came out from, sobbing and unable to talk. We sat together in a beautiful room, I hugged her and more than anything in the world at that moment I wanted only one thing - to rewind time back and not write her that very first message. Let him just disappear, but with the hope that he is alive. But Olga suddenly stopped crying, looked at me carefully and said: “Thank you, if it weren’t for you, I probably would have gone crazy. Thank you for finding it for me.”

Did the mother of your only son ever thank you for telling her that he was dead? I am now yes ... I don’t know if experience is worse than this one when it comes to peace journalism, journalism outside of war.

For a better life

Today, Ignat Smolsky’s whole life can be defined with just a few dates:

Born in 1980 year.

In 2001, flew to the USA.

In 2010, he died in New York in an accident.

He was buried in a mass grave for unclaimed in 2012 year.

Reburied in a mass grave for unclaimed in 2014 year.

Will be buried in Chirchik in 2018 year.

That's probably all. With Ignat, the Smolsky line ended. His parents have no more children. But once upon a time this family was very happy. Everyone envied them - a beautiful mother, a sensible father and a son - a successful athlete and handsome. And then everything went downhill. First, the marriage of Olga and Vadim fell apart. The scandalous divorce left no chance for communication after. And then Olga decided that Ignat had to leave them and live in the USA. And there was nothing left of the family at all.

— Ignat studied in Tashkent at RUOR (Republican School of Olympic Reserve). He had a very strong coach - Sherif-akya, who considered my son not just talented, but a brilliant athlete, loved him very much,” says my mother. — Ignat passed the master of sports standards in a short time and in training he was already lifting the weight of an international athlete. And then he took first place in Uzbekistan in his weight category and was sent to the World Junior Championships in New York, and with him two more boys,” Olga tells me. “Money was allocated for our boys, but at the last moment the sports committee of Uzbekistan did not give it to them, they said that there were some problems with the bank. By that time, the guys had already received American visas... And they decided to go later, on their own, to seek happiness in foreign lands. Now, I’m sure that if they had been given that money for the competition then, then the fates of all three would have turned out completely differently... After all, they were promised heavenly conditions, the main one of which was legal status in the USA, they say, after participating in such competitions you can stay It is legal to train in the country. And they promised money for the first time, and to pay for tickets, and so on. As a result, the other two boys got scared just before the trip and stayed home. And I told my son - fly! It was I who literally pushed him to the USA. And he was not afraid and flew away. But then he was only 21 years old, a child...

Ignat chose New York because his friends from Chirchik lived there; he had been friends with some of them for a very long time - they played sports together. At first I decided to stay in the country for six months. At first, everyone was waiting for the sports committee of Uzbekistan to transfer the promised money and help me obtain a visa with which I could work in the country. But I waited in vain. No one was going to help him.

He constantly called his mother. He knew that she was alone, her father went on a drinking binge after the divorce and did not communicate with his former family at all. He sometimes sent small amounts of money, although he himself was far from luxurious. And Olga tried not to burden her son with her problems - as before, she worked as a teacher at a local art school, taught children to play the piano, and hoped that someday she would hug her son again. She hoped in vain.

Waiting for you

He lived in the USA for nine years. And I was almost happy all this time. “Almost” because he couldn’t get legalized in any way, America was like that elbow for him - here it is, and it’s not to be grabbed, not to be grabbed... Ignat was angry, worried, nervous and could not change anything.

“He, you know, liked to behave ostentatiously, somehow deliberately, aggressively or something,” says Ignat’s friend, Denis B. “No, it’s not that he was trying to fight with someone, he could just walk down the street like, say, with an aggressive gait, an unbuttoned shirt on a pumped-up body and an expression on his face that says, “What will you do to me?” And all because he’s alone, there’s no one, no one needs him, his mother is there... Yes, there are friends, but you all have families, work, we live here stably, and what about him? And he is nobody. He was lost.

Denis was one of those who sounded the alarm when Ignat disappeared. But he couldn't do much - at that time he lived with his family in Florida. The former policeman himself searched as best he could through former colleagues. And then he resigned himself. Seven years have passed since Ignat disappeared, and I called him. Denis spent a long time clarifying, he didn’t believe it, because he looked for it himself and couldn’t find it, but Ignat turned out to be very close - and he died not far from the place where he lived, and then lay unclaimed in the Brooklyn morgue for another two years.

Ignat and Denis. Photos from the personal archive

Not only Denis, all Ignat’s friends and acquaintances were amazed by the news of his death.

- Well, if he didn’t write or call, he left everything at home, documents too, well, where else could he be, except at the cemetery? - I asked his amazed friends over and over again.

- In prison! - they answered me. - After all, he was already there.

Ignat was not a criminal, but he did spend several months in an immigration prison for illegal immigrants in Texas. He was arrested with dozens of others at a factory in New York State. Ignat stayed in prison longer than others - he was sent to the punishment cell several times for fighting, and defended himself.

America did not accept Ignat into its embrace; rather, on the contrary, it pushed him away. He was released from a Texas prison with an order to leave the country within 48 hours, but he did not do so. Who knows, maybe I would have left then and still be alive?

- Marina, he might be glad to leave, but he had to return to Uzbekistan, where he could be imprisoned for living in the USA illegally! - Olya told me when we were discussing how Ignat ended up in prison, and I was amazed out loud:

— Why should I imprison you?

- For treason! That's why. Why are you surprised, you live in a different reality, and you have never lived here with us... After all, when I realized that he was missing, I went to our medical centerD. There, in the lobby, some officer asked me why I had come. I explained, and he told me as if in secret that filing documents for the search was not just not necessary, but even dangerous. Because if he lived in another country illegally and after that he was found and returned, then in Uzbekistan he will be in big trouble, right up to the article about treason ... And in general, they say, it’s expensive to look for a long time, there are no guarantees and who will do it ?

I really never lived in Uzbekistan, and I do not know the features, laws and orders of this country. But I know that Olga, realizing that her son was missing, did everything she could. And what could an middle-aged woman do if she lost her health due to constant thoughts about her son, who literally earned a penny and from which 90-year-old mom was dependent? She left four applications on the website of the “Wait for me” program, constantly called her son’s friends, pulled them, asked them to search, and then, in despair, went to clairvoyants, whom she eventually believed.

It took me a lot of effort to break through the “truth” that the “clairvoyants” told my poor mother. I am especially “grateful” to a certain Miassar from Tashkent. Both she and the others simply took money from a poor music teacher who wanted only one thing - to find out what happened to her son.

First, Miassar told Olga that Ignat in Mexico, somewhere in 50-60 kilometers from the capital, he is in the village, without communication, wounded, unable to walk. The seer spoke with a confident voice, and Olya believed, believed and believed, and therefore drove her the last, just to find out the “news” about her son. And when I wrote to her, she first rushed to the very fortuneteller.

“I visited the clairvoyant Miassar yesterday in Tashkent. It was difficult to get in, because people have been lining up to see her since four in the morning. She said that Ignat is alive. That she looked at the situation more deeply, saw that he had previously traveled to Mexico and was thinking about the option of getting out of the United States through Mexico. But then he returned to New York and was attacked there for money. Some imaginary friends are involved. Ignat is now in one of some closed clinics in New York, and I can find him there when I arrive. She said he was bedridden, shot in the head and had amnesia. She described a very difficult picture, but said that she needed serious treatment and then there would definitely be some improvements. Then she said that the guy who was found dead was Ignat’s friend and had Ignat’s documents with him, and most likely he was hit by a car. They are the same age as Ignat, very similar in appearance, and worked together,” she wrote to me in Odnoklassniki after returning.

I got lost. Ignat was not identified by documents; he did not have them with him at the time of his death. He was identified by fingerprints, which, of course, you cannot lend to another person... I was angry and painfully selected the words, typing another message for Olya. For some reason, I really wanted that, contrary to the statistics according to which 99% of illegal immigrants in New York are buried in mass graves after death without notifying their relatives and friends, she would still come to us here and take his body, albeit in the form of ashes. I don't know why I needed this. Either an innate sense of justice, or because I decided that this story, if brought to the end, or, more precisely, to the funeral and complaints about the situation to the appropriate authority, could change the attitude of the authorities towards this problem. After all, they are not looking properly for relatives of foreign citizens. And don’t tell me “Nobody asked them to become illegal immigrants here!” After all, they often don’t look for the relatives of even those single people who lived in the United States legally. Here they are namesakes on social networks, here is the base of the “Wait for me” program, here they are Russian-language media and here they are Russian-speaking police officers, employees of the forensic bureau, FBI (by the way, Ignat’s case was transferred from the police to this department, for a reason that I have not yet I don’t know, but I’m about to find out). But they are not looking. Although in some cases this search takes a couple of minutes. And by law it must be implemented. But they are not looking. They are not looking... They are not looking!!! It is believed that it is the relatives who must look for the one who has disappeared. And they are given two weeks to do this, after which the body becomes the property of the city. And there either medical students, or straight away a mass grave - there aren’t many options.

Record of the death of 29-year-old Ignatius

“Thank you,” the beautiful Russian-speaking doctor told me when she brought Olya, swollen from tears, out after the identification. “Without you and your work, it would be difficult for us to find his mother.”

I just grinned. What does “difficult” mean if you weren’t looking for anyone? I leaf through Ignat’s personal file - it contains all the information from the moment his body was discovered. There is a good phrase that I borrowed from my actor friends, which perfectly describes this hefty pile of papers - a lot of work has been done, difficult, but in vain.

Ignat’s body was endlessly taken from morgue to morgue, thus trying to figure out who it was. The absurdity of some actions cannot but amaze. So, during one of the procedures, part of his collarbones and ribs was removed in order to determine from them how old his body was. After some time, his body was taken for x-rays to look for old fractures. They also took DNA from him. Moreover, immediately after the body was found, his fingerprints were taken. As a result, the information that the corpse was supposedly 25-35 years old came a couple of days earlier than the information that the person was identified by fingerprints. Why was all this expensive fuss necessary? Why DNA analysis? Ignat’s face is recognizable from the photograph, there was no need for it, as well as to conduct research on his bones to establish his age, which, by the way, did not give anything - Ignat died two weeks before his 30th birthday. His identity was established, it was entered into his personal file and nothing more. Should I notify my relatives? Why all these expensive procedures if in the end he was buried as a rootless person in a mass grave?

Further more. Information about Ignat someone clearly involved in the investigation submitted for discussion on the site Websleuths. This site was created by ordinary Americans to help the police investigate and even identify bodies for which no one came. Today it has almost one hundred thirty thousand members, some of them are active police officers, and also private detectives, forensic scientists and many others. On the page devoted to Ignat, they discuss the details of his business, call his name, and, moreover, discuss that they are looking for him on the website “Wait for me”. And none of those who expressed their opinion there sent a short note to the same program “Wait for me” to inform Olya that Ignat is dead. No, instead, participants put forward theories and talk about nonsense. However, many of them have access to closed photos of the site. NamUs, where you can find information about the missing and found throughout the United States, that is, are professionals in their field.

For two years after his death, Ignat’s body served as a benefit for medical school students. Such bodies are worth their weight in gold in New York - young, healthy, organs not damaged by alcohol or drugs. After two years as a teaching tool, it was finally buried. Then they exhumed him to again carry out strange and unnecessary procedures, and then buried him again. And then they exhumed me again, but only because I came to the medical examiner’s office. This happened a year ago. I told him that Ignat Smolsky’s mother was looking for her, gave her phone numbers, and at the same time copies of Ignat’s birth certificate and his mother’s passport to prove that we were not crooks. They immediately called Olga. They expressed their condolences, which Olya accepted very reservedly - for her, he was still alive. She then told them that if it was him, then she would do everything to take him and bury him. At the same time, Olga did not give a specific date of arrival, because at that time she did not even have an American visa.

In fact, the second exhumation is a kind of miracle and incredible luck. After all, the forensic medical examiner's office took care of this on its own, without waiting for Olga's arrival and not even knowing whether they would give her a visa or not. So that you understand how difficult it is, a small digression. At the end of 2017, my the story of Vladimir Kondratenko, a native of Gomel, who was looking for four years. He was legal, died in April 2003, near a supermarket on Brighton Beach. His relatives have been waiting for news from him for fifteen years. Nobody notified them either. So, the process of exhumation and the subsequent dispatch of an urn in Gomel from Volodya's family took almost a year. First, the documents were incorrectly drawn up, then some other difficulties arose, then another ... At some point, Oksana, Vladimir's cousin, wrote to me with despair that she no longer believed that they would receive his body. I asked for patience, because I understood that this is not the easiest process, and it takes a lot of time. Imagine now my amazement, when a couple of weeks ago I dialed the bureau number to inform them that Olga had flown in and is ready to identify her son, and heard: “His body is already with us, if she recognizes him, he can agree on cremation, even though same day. ” Not hiding surprise, I clarified, they say, and if she can not pick it up now?

“Everything is fine,” Aden, the employee with whom I had been communicating all this time, answered me. “He can stay with us as long as necessary.” We have already done everything, she just needs to prepare for the funeral.

I did not experience a feeling of gratitude at that moment - it was this system that ignored the need to inform Ignat’s relatives that he was dead, and it was “thanks” to them that he was buried as “unclaimed.” Now they have only tried to correct the mistake that they themselves made earlier.

For the sake of justice in recent years, the news is still better. A relatively good site works where you can find information about found, but unclaimed or unidentified bodies throughout the United States. But it is today. And I'm still trying to help the relatives of those who died in the same New York some five or seven years ago. And while I was drowning in the ocean of grief and tears, the relatives of those who disappeared for their own without a trace, just because he died and was buried without warning as unnecessary to no one. There are so many that sometimes give up.

Ignat. Photos from the personal archive

Native, beloved and unclaimed

How did it happen that Ignat was buried as unclaimed even after his employer Vladimir and friend Denis contacted the police about his disappearance? The thing is that in the police base Ignat went by the names Vadimov and Vadimovich, the latter was actually his patronymic. And here again one cannot help but be indignant - this is a personal matter, where next to Ignat’s last name, his first name and patronymic there are notes - what is what. And here it is, the police report that I received at the police department closest to the place where Ignat’s body was found. There I introduced myself as Ignat’s cousin, which is probably not entirely correct, said that I was looking for some additional information for my mother, which was precisely the truth, and asked for help. The dear employee searched for Ignat by the last name Smolsky for a long time and found nothing.

“As of this date, there is only one corpse that matches yours, but under the name Vadimovich,” she finally told me. And I confirmed that it was him. Then the employee printed out a report on the discovery of the body for me, then took me out to the porch and handed me there, saying that she had never given me anything, and that this was for my beautiful eyes. This is how a paper appeared in my possession about the discovery of the body of Ignat, who was initially recorded as “unknown.” It also contained information that he was accidentally discovered by a passing Mexican who walked into the bushes because he really wanted to go to the toilet...

Ignat was lying on his back with his eyes open, and there were some dark spots on his face. By the way, this is exactly what Olya then emphasized when she came to her senses after the identification - it looks like he, but it seems like it’s not him, you can’t understand, because her face is blue... The forensic medical examiners, without further ado, took her saliva for DNA analysis - her mother has the right be sure that she buries her child. There is no result yet, but his body can already be taken away - the saliva was taken only so that Olga would not doubt even one percent that it was him. When, after all this horror, she and I walked out of the morgue into the street, flooded with bright sunlight, she paused and said:

- So I was left alone... And all these clairvoyants and all these fortune tellers lied to me... They saw that I was in despair and took money. There is nothing to pull from me, Marina, I am a poor, sick woman. Since Ignat disappeared, I haven’t slept a single night—I couldn’t. I kept listening to them and then thought and thought and thought that I couldn’t help my child. And they pulled and pulled and pulled, how? How is this possible? Even after a whole year of communicating with you, I believed that my boy was alive and that we would definitely build a big house, because he had learned so much how to do as a builder. Every day I talked to his photograph, every day I told him all my events, conferred with him and hugged him...

I had nothing to say to her. To fly to New York, Olya got into incredible debts that she still does not know how she will give. Now she needs to find money somewhere to cremate Ignat and take him home, because there is no one else to do this, again she wanted to do a DNA analysis.

At the same time, despite all this horror that she is now going through, she is incredibly lucky, if, of course, it is appropriate to use this word here. But that's how it is. Firstly, Ignat was not buried as unidentified; he was still given a name, albeit with an error. Secondly, he has already been exhumed and Olya and I will not have to go through this long and difficult process. Thirdly, Olya was given a visa to the USA, but they might not have given it, which is what happened with the sister of one of the other missing persons, Madina R. For certain reasons, I cannot yet disclose the name of her brother. A young handsome guy lived in New York for nothing, then won a hundred thousand dollars in the lottery, and after a short time disappeared without a trace. The last time he contacted his family was in mid-April 2007, and since then they have not heard anything from him again. I got on his trail last summer and immediately contacted my family. And after listening to me, they immediately rushed to the American embassy in Tashkent for a visa and were immediately refused - they were not believed. Then I literally bombarded the embassy with letters with evidence that the story about the found brother was true, and Madina went for a visa again, and heard from the officer: “And if he is dead, then what next? Exhumation is an expensive business, you don’t have that much money!” And she was denied a second time... At the same time, Olga, who was telling a similar story at the same time and literally in the next window, was issued a visa immediately and without problems.

The officer who refused Madina is completely unaware of the situation. Indeed, exhumation is not a cheap process, but if we are talking about a person who was buried as unclaimed or unidentified, then it is carried out free of charge for relatives, at the expense of the city budget. By the way, when I came with Olya to identify Ignat, I once again reminded the forensic medical examiner that Madina could not come because she was not given a visa and once again asked them for help, namely: to confirm that the whole story was true, that the process is free and that the removal of remains from the grave is only possible for a certain number of years, and time passes, which reduces the chances of reburial...

- We're trying! But so far it hasn’t worked out, they don’t make contact,” they answered me, and I cursed under my breath. Getting in touch with the US Embassy in Tashkent is not just easy, but very easy. There are phone numbers, emails, and pages on social networks in the public domain... They answered my letters almost immediately. It seems to me that this does not characterize the bureau in the most flattering way and answers some questions...

Olya, by the way, wanted to get a visa even when Ignat was alive. She understood that she was unlikely to be given her, because her son stayed in the country illegally, and therefore she began to look for someone from whom she could enlist help. And she almost succeeded.

— I told Ignat that I want to move to live in the USA. We made plans with him that I could get married there, I could open my own music school or a school for disabled children, where they would study music, various types of art, and play sports,” Olya told me. “Then I realized that it was not so simple, but Ignat pressed me - get a visa, get a visa. And I thought - to hell with the fact that I’m not destined to live there, at least I’ll go and see my son! And through friends I came across Mark Weil, a famous theater director and artistic director of the Ilkhom Theater. At that time he was already working on stages in the USA and I hoped to leave as a member of his troupe. And he said - yes, I will try to help you get a visa, please call me on Friday morning at the theater. And I called the theater at ten in the morning on Friday. I remember well how I introduced myself and said that Mark Yakovlevich was waiting for my call and heard at the other end of the line: “But he can’t answer you... he died...”. This was my only attempt to get a visa during Ignat’s lifetime. I didn’t try anymore, I understood that the salary was small, my son was there illegally - they wouldn’t have given it to me... But they gave it to me easily now...

Ignat. Photos from the personal archive

Remembering crying

Olga Vitalievna Panina is now in New York, living with casual acquaintances. Together with her, we are trying to find funds for Ignat’s cremation. His closest friends can help at a minimum - everyone has their own problems, their own lives, and this is understandable. Although there is good news, again, if this phrase is appropriate in this case, Olga was able to sleep for the first time in eight years. It also turned out that the mother of one of Ignat’s friends kept his icon and cross - these are the only things that remained after him in New York. Everything else disappeared without a trace.

Olya resigned to the fact that her son is no more. And although the DNA result is not ready yet, now she mentally says goodbye to him every day, and does not wait for a meeting.

— The last time we spoke was in August 2010. I went to Russia, to Pereslavl, then my dad was still alive and he and my mother lived there. And she didn’t get in touch with her son for a long time. Finally we got on the phone, Ignat said that he had sent me three hundred dollars - one hundred for my grandparents, and two hundred for me on the road. My caring boy... And he told how he filled out the documents to send money, and he always sent it on behalf of his friend Denis, he was afraid that since he was illegal, he couldn’t do it on his own. He handed the papers to the girl operator, and she started looking at him and smiling, and he decided that she liked him. And when I had to leave, I saw that instead of “Denis” I wrote “Penis”. He and I laughed so hard on the phone... I’m crying just as hard now, remembering this particular incident...

There is a tiny fragment in my film - Ignat stands near the Hilton Hotel near Times Square, and then gradually disappears. The place is the same, cars and people are also in a hurry, but he is not there, he has simply disappeared. Almost like in the video - disappeared without a trace... I walked around there. Then I visited the place where his body was found. I also visited the cemetery where he and others who were useless or unclaimed were buried - this is a completely different story, which I will definitely share later. She, like this one, is sad. It, like this one, will be written to change something.

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