‘Everything they earn by killing, they throw away on prostitutes’ How Russian soldiers returning from Ukraine are reshaping St. Petersburg’s sex trade
St. Petersburg’s sex trade has changed dramatically since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Women in the industry say that, until recently, soldiers returning from the front made up around half the clientele in illegal brothels. Sex workers are among the most vulnerable groups in Russian society, and violence at the hands of soldiers has become especially difficult to guard against. The St. Petersburg outlet Bumaga spoke with two women working in underground brothels who, over the past three years, have encountered dozens of men who fought in Ukraine. Meduza shares a translation of their stories.
For safety reasons, some details about the women have been withheld.
Veronika
Veronika was born in St. Petersburg and has a college degree. She’s about 35 and used to play in a band. Now she’s raising two children on her own while also caring for her mother, who suffers from a chronic illness.
I’ve been working for seven years. Unlike when I first started, most brothels now only work off-site — in recent years, the police have been conducting regular raids and shutting them down en masse. These days, we [usually] go to clients’ homes or to saunas.
But the police aren’t the biggest problem — the SVOshniks [a slang term for veterans of Russia’s war in Ukraine] cause far more trouble. Until recently, about half of our clients were from the war — every other man. I think it was because they got large payouts and the money seemed to burn a hole in their pockets. Last September, a soldier came in with no arms or legs. He blew through three million rubles [over $35,000], then borrowed money from me to buy a ticket back home to Volgograd. But lately, for some reason, the share of SVOshniks among our clients has fallen.
Many of them behave horribly, always fucking harping on about how they’re heroes, and so on. The more reasonable ones will book girls for longer stretches, drink with them, sing songs. In general, the SVOshniks drink heavily and use a lot of drugs. Probably trying to forget [the war], though I think that doesn’t help — it only makes things worse. They drink too much or snort too much and completely lose their mind. They all have psychological issues now [to some degree]. You can tell, even when a soldier speaks normally and seems fine on the surface.
It seems to me that prosecutors are trying not to open criminal cases against SVOshniks these days, like they’ve given them free rein. Recently, two other women and I went on a call to some soldiers. One of them suddenly turned on us, started swearing, and at one point shouted: “I cut the heads off Ukes, you think I won’t cut yours off?” Another SVOshnik stepped in to defend us, and they ended up fighting while we ran. At another job, a soldier chased one of the girls around the apartment with a knife, yelling: “I’m used to killing.” Luckily she managed to escape. I wasn’t so lucky once — an SVOshnik grabbed me by the hair and tore the skin on my scalp. I needed stitches.
A friend told me that in her brothel in [St. Petersburg’s] Primorsky District, one soldier got angry about something and opened fire. How do you stop someone like that? The brothel closed after the shooting. One of our drivers, Yegor, bought a pepper spray canister, but no one else followed his lead. And really, what can a driver do if a soldier loses his shit or goes delirious? When there’s a real threat [to your life] from a client, the only option is calling the police. We all have pretty much the same cover story: we met a man on the street or at a café, went up with him just for tea or coffee, and then he started acting aggressively. And how could [the client] prove otherwise?
Nobody likes taking calls from SVOshniks — word of their behavior has spread, and most women are afraid of them. You never know what they’ll be like, whether they’re sane in the head, or what they might do. We’re allowed to refuse a job if we arrive and see that the client is unstable. You just say, “No, I’m not staying,” and leave. Some brothels are stricter about this, I’ve heard, but ours doesn’t punish anyone — the administrator also doesn’t want to sit there by the phone worrying.
[At the same time,] one of the girls who worked with us went around trying to recruit everyone to go to Luhansk [in occupied Ukraine] — I guess she was getting a cut. She said an hour there goes for 70,000 rubles [$835], half of which goes to the girls. Sex workers from all over Russia, she said, are heading there for the good money. One of our girls got drunk and agreed to go. I asked her, “Are you crazy? Don’t you understand what’ll happen there?” Our driver Yegor is from Donetsk — he moved to St. Petersburg years ago, has a wife and kids here. He told her that if a girl makes one wrong move there, they’ll just shoot her. He urged her to stay put, and luckily, he managed to talk her out of it.
Most of the SVOshniks I’ve met at work are contract soldiers — they went to the war for money. Over the whole time, I’ve only seen two or three draftees, and that was a long time ago. Now it feels like almost none of the guys who were mobilized are even alive anymore. I’ve also met soldiers who said things like, “We’re in the right,” that everyone [in Ukraine] should be “brought to their knees,” but those hardcore “patriots” are maybe 30–35 percent of them. There were also men who just wanted out of prison — serve a year at the front and then go back to a normal life. They usually said they wished they’d just finished their sentences.
A lot of these clients are in wheelchairs. On a few calls, we had to help re-bandage their wounds — it was scary, but what can you do? Once, I spoke with a contract soldier lying on the bed. All he had left was a single finger on one hand; he’d lost both legs and the other arm. I asked if the money was worth it. Of course, he said no.
The worst case was a man who had once given up his young son to an orphanage, then just before the boy turned 18 restored his parental rights and brought him home. Then the war started, and the father wanted his son to sign a contract. The boy, only just 18, ended up at the front, while the father was spending his enlistment bonus on us.
You might remember how the streets used to be covered with ads listing women’s names and phone numbers. That was how the cheap brothels advertised — rates from 800 to 1,500 rubles [$9 to $18] an hour. At some point, the police shut those brothels down and the ads disappeared. But then law enforcement started closing not just the cheap places, but all brothels. Most people in the industry believe the order came from the very top — supposedly someone appealed to the president to “clean up” the city.
Just recently in the Primorsky District, a large network of brothels was raided, with owners and administrators taken to the police. I see stories like that constantly in our group chats. Judging by the pace of these closures, soon there will be only three or four left — that the police themselves will take over. Many of the girls, seeing what’s happening, are planning to leave the business: some have retrained as nail technicians, some are planning to get married. Others will try working as independently. But I don’t think working without security or support is a good idea.
I also completed a lash technician course and hope to leave soon. When the war ends, the SVOshniks will all come back, and that will be terrifying for this work. Half of them will have weapons, they’re used to getting 200,000 rubles [$2,386] a month — who among them is going to take a factory job now? But they themselves don’t talk about the war ending. I’ve asked some when they think it will be over, and they say it’s going to last a very long time.
Natalia
Natalia is in her mid-thirties. She isn’t married and doesn’t have children. For the past several years, she’s been trying to leave the sex trade but hasn’t been able to, weighed down by debts her parents accumulated. In St. Petersburg, women in sex work typically earn far above the city’s average salary.
I’ve been working since 2010. Right now I’m on a break — the last time I took a shift was a couple of months ago.
Ten or 15 years ago, the main danger came from thugs. Now it’s from the SVOshniks. They’re not great clients — sure, they pay well enough, but their minds are broken. How am I supposed to feel about them, when in Rostov they once cornered my friend and some other girls in a sauna and beat them half to death? I’ve been lucky so far.
With many of them, it’s dangerous even to talk, let alone joke — they might take something the wrong way, and then you’re facing a knife at your throat. I don’t understand how anyone can imagine building a relationship or family with men like that. They could easily kill their wife and kids. They can’t live without the war in civilian life, so they take it out on women. I hated going to them — if I heard “SVO,” I’d just say, “I’m not going.” I try to erase any encounters with them from my memory as quickly as I can. Some of the girls don’t mind them, though — they like that they have money.
From what I’ve seen, hardly any of the SVOshniks actually wanted to go to war. Many said they were forced, and some even spoke out against it. I never met any true believers. Most went for the money, and it would seem they get it easily. Or maybe they just don’t value it — I don’t know. But everything they earn by killing, they throw away here on nothing: not on family, not on the future, just on prostitutes, alcohol, and drugs. There’s nothing to talk about with them. I don’t see any future in their eyes.
Many are disabled now — what plans can they possibly make? I went to see soldiers who’d lost their arms, or their legs. They want [to have sex], but it’s difficult for them — what kind of sex can you even have when you don’t have any legs? It’s not the most pleasant sight.
The police have always tried to squeeze as much money out of us as possible, but now all the focus is on the SVO. They’ve been given completely free rein — they act like kings. To me, this whole [so-called fight against prostitution] looks like nothing more than internal turf wars. And yet it’s the women who pay the price. The police beat us to intimidate the brothel owners into shutting down. They don’t even talk to us like human beings: “Move it, now,” and maybe a kick in the ass as well. Some brothels they’ve trashed and set on fire, while certain saunas outside the city go on operating quietly under police protection.
The brothels that are still taking clients have been putting on more and more security because of the SVOshniks — sometimes even armed guards. This business has survived and will keep on surviving. It doesn’t matter whether the war ends or continues, or what measures the state takes. Maybe it will evolve, though — maybe only fortified buildings will remain, like prisons, with guards and dogs.
I worked steadily in the trade for 12 of the past 15 years. Then I finally started thinking more clearly. I can’t say whether I’ll stay in it. Life always seems to throw something at me that pulls me back in, even though I don’t want to return. In a crisis, the trade can keep you afloat. But it’s something you have to leave.
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