#Ibelong Story: After decades in the shadows, Nina begins her new life

“By acquiring a passport, I also got the opportunity for a new life” said 67-year-old Nina Maškarina Kaurinović, whose life received a positive epilogue last year after years spent in legal uncertainty.

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After years of legal battle, Nina received a positive decision on the acquisition of BiH citizenship based on facilitated naturalization in April 2020.

“Living without citizenship is like not existing. You can’t go to the doctor, you can’t get a job, you can’t travel, I was even afraid to move around,” Nina begins her confession.

The hard life and legal uncertainty

Nina was born in Yalta, in the former Soviet Union. In Yalta, her life was not easy. She grew up in an orphanage with no known relatives.

At the age of 17, she met her future husband Miloje at the Livadia Palace, one of the locations of the famous Yalta Conference, where she worked as a waitress.

After the wedding in 1979, she moved to Zagreb, where she lived with her family until 1994. When the war in the former Yugoslavia started, she took refuge in Doboj, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the meantime, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Nina’s passport expired. Nina contacted the embassies of Ukraine and the Russian Federation to get a new passport, but with no success. The response of the embassies was the same – she was not registered as a citizen.

Her husband died in 2002. Until the day of his death, she did not manage to regulate her stay in BiH.

The hard life and uncertainty due to the lack of documents left a mark on her health. She started seeking her documents in 2009 when she met a Dutch woman, Marlies van Hoffen, who gave her shelter in “Prijateljska kuca” in the City of Doboj.

Marlies van Hoffen or Aunt Marlies, as the children call her, has been caring for children without parents for two decades in the accommodation “Prijateljska kuca” in Doboj, which she founded 21 years ago with the help of Dutch humanitarians.

“Aunt Marlies helped me with everything; in fact, she saved my life. I was more tired of life, and I didn’t know who to ask to gain documents. Marlies gave me a home and she helped me in this fight to get documents”, Nina says.

“I contacted the embassies in Moscow, Kiev, Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo and Banja Luka, all the places that had connections with Ukraine and Russia. Her biggest problem was the citizenship certificate that she didn’t have,” Marlies says.

Beginning of the new life chapter with the support of UNHCR’s partner

Marlies also requested help from UNHCR’s partner, the Association Vaša Prava BiH, who helped her get a humanitarian stay in BiH in 2014 as a stateless person.

“If it weren’t for Goran from Vasa Prava, we would surely wait another ten years for the case to be closed. He even helped me to get my husband’s pension”, Nina emphasizes.

Thus, one long life of legal uncertainty has ended in a positive way. Nina now lives in her own apartment, but she and Marlies still take care of the children in “Prijateljska kuca”.

“I grew up in an orphanage, where the conditions were completely different. My life path led me to have the opportunity to give these children everything I didn’t have.  If I only had such love and knowledge as these children have, I would be a lawyer”, Nina Kaurinović concludes her story.

 

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