Life UNDER The Streets

The "Sewer Children" of Romania.

By kilgore9012

Published 10 years ago

The "Sewer Children" of Romania.

1
Half naked, Lee's arms and legs are covered in thick chains and padlocks, his leather waistcoat covered in key rings, broaches and medals. His arms and stomach, a patchwork of tattoos and scarring from a lifetime of self-harm.

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Bruce Lee, his minder a man called Alex, and about 15 dogs make the trip across Bucharest Above ground to meet a woman called Raluca who has set up an informal shelter for the people of the sewers. Above ground, Lee gets nervous, pumping hard on the Aurolac bag.Under the trees in her back yard Raluca is brutal when asked about Bruce Lee's drug dealing: 'I would like to kill him, to punish him. But for the sake of the street people, I can't. They depend on him'.
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Most of the people here are from the orphanages. Lee says "I tried to organize them. We want to prove that we are not like what they believe, the scum of society, rats or prisoners, or whatever. The system doesn't look after them. They come to me, for food, warmth, parental advice, understanding. We are a family, we want to be a family here, and that's what we are."

5
There is a twisted order to Bruce Lees underground fiefdom. He pays protection money to a local gang. Also, addicts are less likely to die down there because he offers them a sort of safety and a warm place to sleep. There are pictures on the walls in some rooms, one has a television with a chintzy china cat on top, another has artificial grass. During the winter months this place is full, but otherwise it's just a few couples, lying on the 'grass' holding on to each other.
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Last year Nico contracted full blown AIDS and nearly died in hospital. When Nico's parents separated, his father brought him to live on a rubbish pile outside Bucharest. He spent his days picking through the rubbish trying to find things to sell while his father drank. He eventually ran away, started taking drugs and living on the streets. Bruce Lee won't let him inject anymore but the silver streaks of Aurolac mark him out. Nico desperately needs anti-viral treatment but the state hospital can't treat him while he is still sniffing paint.
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On the cabinet where Lee keeps the drugs, there's a photo of a little boy. Lee states - 'He's my child, I adopted him off the streets. He had many problems, drugs, you name it,' he says. 'I banned him from using syringes, only Aurolac. But I did that too late.'The little boy, Nico pictured, who looks about twelve, is in fact seventeen but his development has been stunted by the drug abuse.

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Lee was abandoned by his mom three days after birth at the hospital. 'The staff took me. I was brought up in orphanages, and when Ceausescu was toppled so was I. I've been living in the sewers since I was a child, with many others that are now dead.' - Lee
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There is a twisted order to Bruce Lee's underground fiefdom. Social workers say he tries to protect the young ones from sexual predators.
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When Ceausescu fell there were tens of thousands of children in orphanages and in state 'care' in Romania. But in 1990 a series of reports revealed what a nightmarish misnomer that was. Scenes of neglect and cruelty on our televisions, reminiscent of the concentration camps. So what happened to those children? We've been told that some moved into the tunnels underneath Bucharest, drug addiction is rife, some had had children of their own.

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Beginning outside Bucharest's Gara de Nord, you need an 'invitation' from Bruce Lee standing to be let in.
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A resident inspects a needle containing a synthetic drug similar to methadone.
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The place is full of dogs - there's just enough room in the tunnel to let a group of puppies scamper passed. Most of these dogs and puppies have never seen the light of day.

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The whole place is wired with electricity and there's a stereo system pumping out dance music.
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They're all on their way to 'the counter' to see Bruce Lee. Half naked, his arms and legs are covered in thick chains and padlocks. He doles out Aurolac for the equivalent of 1 dollar a hit. The man behind the counter, Bruce Lee, runs the place and got this name from his street fighting days.
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The entrance to this underworld is a hole in the pavement on a traffic island in front of the station. By late afternoon they start to wake up, clambering up out of the ground like the undead. This underworld, we're told, has an overlord and you only get to go down by invitation.

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Here, everyone is HIV-positive and a quarter have TB, yet they are left to rot in the darkness, huddling against heating pipes and sniffing glue to stay warm. The smell of a metallic paint called Aurolac, snorted by the addicts from small black bags, is overpowering.
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Beneath Bucharest's mansions and iconic squares lies a second city that no tourist gets to see - an underground kingdom of outcasts and drug addicts living in the city's vast network of sewers.