None of the homeless people would say how he ended up with them.
Mom drove away in a car
Tolik knew his full name, but didn't know where he lived. "Mom left in a car, but she's coming back to pick me up and she's going to buy me a bike," he said.
Both the local police and the national police said they had not received an APB. Svetly Put (SP) contacted the three TV channels in Bishkek and asked if they could show Tolik and another child in the hope of finding relatives or others who could provide information.
Only one channel would do it for free, and on November 3, both children were featured in two newscasts.
No one has responded to the second child, but late that night a crying woman came to SP.
Tolik's mother is a prostitute
Tolik threw himself into her arms and there was no doubt that they knew each other. The woman said she was an older sister of Tolik's mother. At 4am, a neighbor had come running to her shouting, "Little "Tolja" is on TV". They had to wait until the 7pm news to find out where he was. She told them that Tolik's mother is a prostitute and that she and Tolik had gone missing two months earlier. When she hadn't seen her sister for a week, she started looking.
A "colleague" told her that Tolja's mother had been picked up by a car in the city center and that she had asked another "colleague" to look after Tolik. "I'll be back soon," she said.
Tolik's aunt could not find out who had been asked to look after him and reported both missing to the police. A prostitute and her child are obviously not worth registering, since the SP social workers did not find Tolik in the missing persons register.
Tolik is doing well with his aunt
Her aunt wanted to take Tolik with her that evening, and it was difficult for her to accept that she would have to come back the next day with a passport to prove that she was who she said she was. Early the next morning, she also brought Tolik's mother's passport. Tolik was not publicly registered. Today, "his" social worker, together with a social worker from the city government, made a home visit to Tolik at his aunt's house. He is doing very well. The aunt is an exception in her family. Her mother and five siblings are all alcoholics, but she is married to a man from a strong and healthy family and they are able to take care of Tolik. Tolik's mother called from abroad two days ago and said she had no money to come home... and the passport is here... Now the aunt and her family are afraid that the mother wants Tolik back. Both the local authorities and the SP will help them in the process of getting custody of him. It's children like Tolik who need the help of the Svetly Put shelter.
