In a hostel in Oslo in the same room with me was a Russian man Igor, who went to Norway to work. In order to somehow adapt to the difficult conditions in the new environment in one of the most expensive countries in the world, he tries to look for various ways of social assistance from charitable organizations. He was just about to visit one of these offices the next day, and I immediately agreed to keep him company.According to him, only a passport was needed with him. I did not have any urgent need for humanitarian assistance, as I call it, but curiosity and new experience made me go without hesitation. At the entrance, we were asked if we were the first time, and after that we took a ticket from the electronic queue machine. At that time we were the only visitors. We were asked to wait, and we, not embarrassed at all, began to argue in a loud voice how ethical it is in our situation to take away food, perhaps from very poor people who really need it. Then a girl came up to us and in pure Russian invited us to follow her.
Showing our ordinary passports, we were told that they did not provide assistance to tourists and shrugged. But we were able to easily convince that the prices in Norway are terrible, I generally travel by motorcycle and my food supplies have already come to an end, and Igor lives here and is trying to find a job, which is actually a big problem. Then the girl agreed to just give me one-time products, specifying that she would not give perishable ones, since I was on a motorcycle. And Igor wrote in a journal and promised support in the future, not only with products. In general, according to the passport, products can be received once a month.We spent almost half an hour in communication with the girl, and during this time people came, received food and left. Among them were a young girl, and a guy of about thirty, and a granny.Igor, like everyone else, was given two bags of food, and I was given one. By that time, thermoses with tea / coffee and buns were still put up in the lobby. In Norway, one such bun as on a tray costs 15-20 kroons in a regular supermarket. That is about 150 rubles for our money. So we also had breakfast.Such an organization is not alone, and Igor was going to go intelligence then to others. You can also find clothes and household appliances. He also talked about cases when he was walking down the street, and food was handed out there just like that. Perhaps this is due to the fact that at first glance there are more refugees in the city than indigenous people, otherwise for whom are these products distributed? To some extent, this looks unusual, but there are such organizations in Russia, so it would be strange to be surprised at such a social benefit, but in any case, it is much more developed there. At first, I was so excited about free products that I was going to do it all the way down the road. The girl even looked at the address of the Salvation Army office in Stockholm, and Igor advised that next time he should speak less, tell stories that I was looking for a job and in no case say that I am a simple tourist, but it’s better to pretend to be dumb or say, that my native language is Kabardino-Bulgarian :)
However, I no longer went to the offices of this organization and did not deceive anyone. Some friends have generally condemned me, saying that I take food from the poor, although I do not think so. But in any case, this is a good example of the fact that when you find yourself in a difficult situation abroad and even in Russia, there is a place where you can turn, where people can help at the first stage and even just give food.
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