ABOUT VISION

PEOPLE

According to the route known to him, Sergei walks without a stick. So, without a wand, he met me at the Skhodnenskaya metro station and took me to his house along the path on which I counted six blocks, three turns and four intersections of streets with intense ...

According to the route known to him, Sergei walks without a stick. So, without a wand, he met me at the Skhodnenskaya metro station and took me to his house along the path on which I counted six blocks, three turns and four intersections of streets with heavy traffic. Sergei's eyes are open, clear, and the fact that they do not see anything is not immediately understood, although some unusualness in his face is still noticeable: he blinks often. Sergey is a "totalist", as they say about people like him, distinguishing them from the visually impaired. He does not feel like a cripple, because he can do almost everything himself. For some reason, he says, people are usually surprised: look, a blind man, but he behaves like a normal one! It seems to them that since he is blind, it means that he is unfinished and has the wrong head.

Yes, blind. It's a pity of course. But overall, I'm healthy.

At home, he helps his mother with the housework, goes to the grocery store, takes out the trash. When mom is at work, she fries herself scrambled eggs, cooks dumplings, cleans up the apartment. With me, Sergey took a mobile phone from his girl friend, disassembled it, connected its internal contacts to his laptop and installed a new program. He did not get confused in the wires, confidently found the right terminals, his fingers quickly ran across the keyboard. The computer was beeping. And the mobile phone, after reconfiguring, spoke in a human voice. There was no need to put it to your ear: the device loudly voiced text messages, announced what time it was, how much money was in the account, and so on.

Sergey is 22 years old. Studying in the third year of the Faculty of Information Technology. Specialty - programming, computers. Lives in Moscow. He is fond of sports: football and judo wrestling. Recently I visited with a team of athletes at a competition abroad. They lost, but in Spain he understood what to do. He says that he saw how to train in order to win next time.

I first met Sergey in the gym. Imagine he was standing at the football goal, and the partner hit the ball in his direction. Sergei hit the ball with his foot. The partner hit again, Sergey repulsed. Then he drove the ball around the hall with his feet, circling the opponent. If the coaches had not prompted me, I would not have guessed that blind people play football. Sergey determines the movement of the ball by sound. Solid particles are poured inside the ball.

It should be said that the ball game for the blind is completely different and is not called football, but goalball. At the first meeting, I had a chance to see how Sergey and his friend were just warming up, chasing the ball with their feet in the same way as they do in real football.

When Sergei, a healthy, normal boy, was eight years old, he jumped to the ground from the front of the cart, and his hoof hit the bridge of the nose with a horse. He instantly and permanently lost his sight. Doctors told parents: be patient, a year will pass, and the child will see again. But the miracle that was expected did not happen. Another miracle happened. Sergey grew up as an independent person in all respects. Also smart and likable. He confidently strives for the goal: to become a specialist who knows how to work well and earn good money, and in general to become a harmoniously developed person. And let one of his physical flaws drown in the possibilities that he consciously and persistently develops in himself. That's what the institute is for, that's what the gym is for.

On a Saturday free from the institute, in addition to goalball, he also has judo. Before training, run. He runs around the perimeter of the huge sports hall. Runs at a distance of one meter from the wall, makes a turn at the corner and continues to run circle after circle. You look and you can't believe your sighted eyes.

In the hall, both the men's team and the women's team are engaged in wrestling at the same time. When the assistant head judo coach started talking about Sergei and I heard her call him garlic, I was confused. That's the fruit! Maybe he comes to training after eating garlic? And then I could not stand it and laughed with relief. The camera in my hands shook, I have to reshoot. Sergey is not garlic, she explained, but garlic, that is, an extremely honest and conscientious person. Female athletes came up and said that among themselves they call Sergey an angel and that they have an indisputable reason for this. They said he smelled like milk, like a newborn baby. All people are born angels, then they become uncles and aunts and smell of vodka or perfume, but Seryozha is still milk.