My name is Mario Rafael. I’m 31, born in Ukraine, and I work as an instructional designer in Turkey. I’m asking for help because after four years I’ve run out of ways to fix this alone.
How it started
When the war started in 2022 I was living in Russia. I left. My first two flights to Armenia were cancelled and the refunds sat in processing for months, so I took a loan and moved to Turkey.
The house I grew up in, my grandparents’ place in Ukraine, was destroyed in the war. I have photos from before and after. There is nothing to go back to.
What my mother did
Our family owned an apartment in Moscow worth $180,000. We agreed to split the sale three ways, between me, my sister, and my mother. My share was $60,000.
After I moved to Turkey, my mother asked me to take my name off the apartment registration so she could handle the sale. I trusted her. In November 2022 I signed the papers at the Russian consulate in Antalya and gave my wife power of attorney to file them.
She sold the apartment. My sister got her share. Then my mother came to Turkey with the money. Bank records show a cash deposit of $140,000 into her Turkish account in January 2023. At least $80,000 of it went into an apartment she bought for herself in Meydankavağı, central Antalya. That is the figure in the official documents; the real price was probably higher, since property values are commonly underreported in Turkey. She withdrew another $24,600 in cash. I got nothing.
When I pushed back, she threatened me. She gave my phone number to strangers in Turkey who called me with threats. I spent months trying to settle it quietly, then stopped speaking to my own mother to keep myself safe.
I kept the paperwork: the deregistration I signed, the bank receipts for her deposits and the purchase, the title deed in her name, and recordings of her talking about the money.
How I fought back
In Turkey foreigners pay a full year of rent upfront. For the first year I borrowed from every friend and relative who could lend. For the second I worked three jobs at once, almost without days off, and paid back most of the debt.
The work itself went well and my employers were satisfied. The cost showed up elsewhere. My depression, which I had managed for years, got worse. Then, inside a few months:
• one job cut me in a downsizing round
• I left the second because I was burned out
• the third lost its funding and closed
None of it was about performance. I have documentation from all three.
What followed
After the income stopped, my wife left. Six months passed without stable work. I fell behind on loan payments, and a friend lent me the money to file for bankruptcy, which was the only way to stop the debt from growing.
Where I am now
My Turkish tourist residence permit expires at the end of this year. Renewing it requires a new rental contract, and that again means a year of rent paid upfront. I have no savings, and I still owe the friends who kept me going.
I’m building a learning management system and I have a working prototype. It is hard to build anything while I don’t know if I will have an address in January.
What I need
I’m asking for 580,000 TRY (about $12,100 at today’s rate):
• 400,000 TRY (about $8,400) for one year of rent, paid upfront as Turkey requires of foreigners, which also lets me renew my residence permit
• 180,000 TRY (about $3,800) to repay the friends who lent me money when I had none
With that I can stay in the country, clear my debts to the people who trusted me, and go back to work.
Evidence
Everything below is uploaded. The originals are in Russian and Turkish, with English descriptions under each one.
• Deregistration request: my signed application to remove my name from the Moscow apartment, notarized at the Russian Consulate in Antalya, dated November 24, 2022
• Power of attorney: notarized document giving my wife authority to file the deregistration, dated December 6, 2022
• Birth certificate: my Ukrainian birth certificate from Kharkiv, naming Tatiana Bessonova as my mother
• Bank receipts: VakıfBank records of the $140,000 cash deposit, the $80,000 exchanged into lira, and the property purchase in Antalya, January and February 2023
• Title deed (Tapu): Turkish deed for the apartment in Meydankavağı, Antalya, registered to Tatiana Bessonova, bought on February 3, 2023 for 1,505,944 TL (about $80,000)
• Before and after photos: my grandparents’ house in Ukraine, where I grew up, before the war and after it was destroyed
• Voice recording: my mother discussing the apartment money, in Russian
• Bankruptcy court decision: ruling of the Moscow Regional Arbitration Court (case №A41-44820/2025, October 24, 2025) declaring me bankrupt with debts over 500,000 rubles (about $5,000). The case is public at https://kad.arbitr.ru/Card/faeee2d4-d073-4b2a-9d9f-c2001d437e54
• Employment records: pay stubs from the three jobs I worked at the same time in Turkey
In her own words
Here is a translated excerpt from a recorded conversation with my mother, where I ask whether I can get to my own money. “Ahmed” is an acquaintance who helped her move the cash to Turkey and was holding part of it.
Me: Please, just tell me, yes or no. If I tell Ahmed, “I want to withdraw all of my money,” will he let me?
Mother: Why would you want to withdraw all of it?
Me: Because it’s my money. I do whatever I want with it. They’re my money, right? They’re not being held hostage by you. So I should be able to do whatever I want with them. I want to hear from Ahmed that I can do this.
Mother: We’ll sit down, all three of us, and talk, Rafael.
Me: Talk about what?
Mother: About what we just discussed.
Me: About the fact that it’s my money and I can withdraw it? Just say yes or no.
She never said yes. She never gave me the money. She kept asking why I wanted it and promising a conversation that never happened.
In another recording I lay out what I planned to do with the $20,000 Ahmed was holding: pay rent, or close a loan early to save on interest, while my wife and I each worked two jobs. My mother recorded those conversations herself. She kept the money anyway.
A final note
I have started over twice since 2022. I would rather do it a third time than keep sinking. Whatever you can give goes to rent and to the people who lent me money when nobody else would. Thank you for reading this far.
