In the three following years, the already existing crisis centers expanded their services and began larger campaigns to raise national attention regarding the issue of violence against women. By 1997, ANNA had conducted a pilot research project, had launched a (relatively unsuccessful) “Men’s Solidarity project” loosely modeled on U. S. batterer treatment programs, and had brought and won their first family violence legal case. By 1998, Syostri had received almost twenty thousand calls and was holding workshops and seminars for young people on the problems of sexual violence.7 These included programs targeted specifically for women, such as assertiveness training and self-defense programs. Activists also founded new crisis centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as in Western Siberia and the Far North.
This period is marked by the institutionalization of the women’s crisis center (krizisnyi tsentr), which quickly replaced other kinds of organizations as the repertoire for action against gender violence. For instance, in Saratov, the Interregional Association of Women Lawyers, founded within something akin to a Western law practice, was replaced by the Saratov Crisis Center that was modeled on ANNA.8 The Russian version of the crisis center is an organization led by
a few individuals (typically professionals receiving some compensation), a hotline staffed by volunteer counselors for several hours a day several days of the week, often some in-person counseling or support groups, and usually some sort of broader advocacy work. Volunteers would listen to callers’ concerns and try to help callers see new options. Often, because of the virtual collapse of the welfare system and social conditions, there is very little that they can do except try to empower the victim to feel entitled to a better life. When they can pay or cajole a lawyer to help out, crisis centers can provide some legal assistance. Historically, crisis centers have rarely helped women pursue legal action against their attackers because of victims’ wishes and the legal obstacles. More often, they provide support to a woman wanting to exit an abusive relationship or to move out of an apartment that, because of financial exigencies and housing law, she is forced to share with her abuser, even if divorced.
The strength of the model was its inexpensiveness; for the crisis center to open, all that was required was a phone line in a small office (preferably with access to a toilet and to water for tea) and some volunteers. The weakness was that the crisis centers could provide only minimal assistance because, for the most part, they could not provide even temporary shelter for women wishing to escape abusive relationships. Though many activists wanted to found shelters—including the optimistically named new center in Murmansk, Priiut (Shelter)—financial realities and oppressive post-Soviet regulations made providing long-term shelter impossible (Shtyleva 2003). To overcome these obstacles, activists in St. Petersburg sought and found government support for a short-term shelter, but this meant significant compromises about who could stay and for how long.9 Cultural proscriptions about leaving a husband because of abuse, especially when he was the father of one’s children, also meant that women tended to use the shelters as a temporary respite and then return to their abusive mates. The crisis centers’ inability to provide long-term shelter is an especially big problem in the new Russia, where affordable housing is scarce.
By the end of this period, there were at least eight robust crisis centers; seven of these were providing free legal assistance to women living with violence.10 Three other centers had joined the RACCW network, n and, according to a directory researched in 1997—98, there were twenty-four organizations that worked in the sphere of “prevention and elimination of violence against women” within the Russian Federation (Abubikirova, Klimenkova, Kotchkina, Regentova, and Troinova 1998, 9).