The US teen literally sent to SIBERIA for her bad behavior begs to come home after her father 'beat her'

Sofia Petrova was 15 when her mother sent her to Siberia for 3 weeks to meet her father - but she was not allowed to come home

She and her parents say she was misbehaved at home, where she stole money and disobeyed her mother's rules

Her mom says she can only return when she has shown she has changed



Sofia, who insists she has changed, says her father beat her and she tried to commit suicide while in a children's center in Siberia



She now lives in a hotel where she works 60 hours a week

Miserable: Sofia Petrova, 17, has begged her mother to let her return to the U.S. from Siberia

A disruptive teen whose mother sent her - literally - to Siberia is begging to come home to America after claiming she was beaten by her father and was so miserable she tried to commit suicide.



Two years ago Natalia Roberts, 36, from Virginia dispatched her daughter Sofia Petrova, then 15, on a one-way trip to cold eastern Russia after a succession of arguments over her behavior.

Sofia, then a typical American teenager attending Chantilly High School, was born in Siberia and has a Siberian father - but she hadn't lived there since she was two and did not speak any Russian.

Despite this, she was packed off almost 6,000 miles to meet her birth father Igor - who spoke no English - as an apparent punishment for her teenage transgressions.



Originally she was told she would stay three weeks, but once in Siberia, her mother - who is a US citizen - told her that it would be much longer, and she is now well into her third year in Russia.

Since arriving there in March 2011, she revealed how she was forced to quit her father's home because he beat her and was often drunk.



In a children's center, with the possibility of being consigned to a grim orphanage, she tried to take her own life before going back to her father - because she thought if she did so her mother would allow her back to America.

Her appeals to the US embassy and Vladimir Putin's ombudsman for children, Pavel Astakhov, have all met with no response, she says.



Plea: She has written yet another letter (pictured) to her mother, who lives in Virginia, but she said that she is not helping to speed up her return. She claims she has been beaten by her Siberian father

Today she was tracked down by The Siberian Times to a Novosibirsk hostel where she lives and works a 60 hour week, including nights, to earn her keep and pay for her studies.



Now 17, she penned a new heartfelt letter to her mother in her latest desperate bid to be allowed back from Siberia where she says she has few friends and feels an outsider.

'Mom - With all that is going on I really hope that our relationship could improve rather than be completely destroyed to shreds,' she wrote. 'I love you so much and I miss you and Maria (her half-sister). I want to come home. To come back to you.



'I ask you one more time, please take me back. Please find it in your heart to forgive my mistakes that I made as a pre-teen. You are the only family that I have. I need you. With love, Sofia.'



Fallout: Her mother Natalia Roberts said she will happily allow her daughter to return if she shows she's changed

Her step-father James Roberts is an immigration attorney who has said her behavior as a teen was 'uncontrollable', including inviting boys home without permission.



'The behavior was becoming worse and we saw no solution. Worse, it was affecting the other children in the house, especially the outbursts that would last until 2am,' he told WUSA9 in an email.

Sofia is convinced he was behind her Siberian punishment, and that without him, he mother would not have sent her into exile.

Natalia added: 'Sending Sofia to her father, grandparents, uncle, aunt, and cousin was not an easy choice that we had to make, but it was the right choice.'

In fact, she no longer lives with her father and has hardly seen these other relatives, she said.

Sofia confessed that her behavior was poor before she was sent away - she once stole more than $1000 in cash, but she denies she ever took drugs and believes she has more than paid the price for any adolescent excesses.



'I was 14 years old. I made many mistakes,' she admitted.

Desperate: She said that she was forced to live in a children's home and tried to commit suicide

'The one big mistake I made, I did take money. It was not preplanned. I entered into the room and just saw it. I don't know why, I just took the money.



'And then my mother asked me, where I got this money from and I panicked and I told her that I sold drugs. It was biggest mistake of my life.



'I never did drugs, I never sold drugs. I told her later, that it was not true, that I stole the money. She told me - do you understand, you said that you sold drugs and it is too late now.

'I was already here, when I told her. Because after that day, I was on the plane two days later. It was one week after my 15th birthday.'

She was put into a Russian school in the Siberian outpost of Berdsk and only a friendly English language teacher helped her survive, she said.



Later she was helped to find a job in Novosibirsk, Siberia's largest city where she works 60 hours a week.



New home: Sofia, who spoke no Russian when she moved to Siberia, now lives in a hostel in Novosibirsk

'I pay for my school. I study via the Internet. I study in American high school. I want to graduate in an American school. And I just hope it is not a scam,' she said.



More than anything, her dream is to be home - in America - for Christmas.



Her mother has not closed the door on her but nor is she doing anything to fast-track Sofia's return.



'I begged her millions of times. Take me home. I said, "I want my Mom. I need my Mom. I need my home. I don't have anything here'," she said.



Her case has been publicized in the US thanks to the heroic action of her school friends like Michaela Bennett and Robert Buttaro who cannot bear the cruelty she is suffering.



Yet it is far from certain she will return to the US.

