Strong people

On March 11, in Moscow, the large -scale festival “Unlimited: body, society, culture” , dedicated to the Paralympics. It is organized by the social project "Forture", which is involved in the problems of perception of disability in society. According to the organizers, the meaning of this festival is to attract as many people as possible to an open, intellectual conversation about body and disability in the modern world. The festival has a large -scale program : a unique photo exhibition “Acropolis: how I found my body” , showing the beauty of the “other” body in roll call with the beauty of the basming altar bas -reliefs; a cycle of open lectures on the perception of the body by modern society (among lecturers - Boris Dubin, Raisa Kirsanova, Valery Panyushkin, Olga Weinstein and others); Vorkshop on the creation of clothes ; Special order at the Fashion Week; Finally, the joint project of the Fighting and Colta festival . Ru called "strong people."

“Strong people” is a project that collects and publishes personal stories of people with the characteristics of the structure of the body. We open the project by the publication of five amazing monologues: our interlocutors are athletes, experts, professionals, parents, travelers. It seems to us that a strong person in the context of a conversation about disability is not necessarily a paralympic, or an outstanding entrepreneur, or one who reaches amazing heights in professional activities. For us, strong people are all who, despite the disability, do not give up and lives the life that he would like to live. We offer everyone who has encountered the topic of disability, send us stories about ourselves and our friends to the address Press@acropolis-now.org . We will gradually publish the best of these stories in the following issues of the project, and we will read out excerpts on March 11 at the opening of the festival “Fighting: Body, Society, Culture” .

P.​ S .: Our experience shows that sometimes such a small story is written easier if you ask your neighbor (or yourself) these questions - but, of course, you can do without them.

1. What happened? How and under what circumstances your body changed?
2. What until this point was the main thing in your life?
3. What happened inside you, in your mind, when you realized that the situation has changed forever?
4. What did your loved ones do?
5. How did you start collecting yourself back?
6. How did you have to change my life?
7. How did you come to what you are doing now?
8. What people - any people - should understand about their body?

Elena Leontyeva

Age : 53 years old
What happened : spinal fracture
What is doing: an expert on an affordable environment

In the 88th year I broke the spine. At that moment, I studied in graduate school and prepared to defend the dissertation, taught at the institute. When all this happened ... I really wanted to commit suicide. Imagine an energetic person who paralyzed. You, like a log, are turned over every two hours, so that it is not more pressure sore. It seems that life will always be like that. When I asked how long I will be in the hospital, they told me: "Two months." I thought: "How can you lie in bed for two months?" It turned out not two, but nine. But at the same time, I began to understand how always I was lucky for friends: for example, they donated blood for transfusion, they painted a schedule and was on duty in the hospital in the early days until parents came from another city. Patients around me were constantly changing - along with the next patient with a spinal injury, which was brought by an ambulance, I had to re -survive the whole nightmare of the situation each time. But once a girl was received for a second operation. She was in a wheelchair, but she did everything herself, without someone’s help: she cooked food, washed, and helped the bedridden. And she always smiled. It turned out that she has a husband and two children. Suddenly, looking at her, I realized that you could live in a stroller.

Having discharged from the hospital, she began to look for people like me. Few people knew about the disabled then. There was no Internet, the necessary information, everyone survived. Just at that time, the All -Russian Society of Disabled Persons was created. I called and through them I began to get acquainted with people in a similar state. Every day she was engaged in recovery physical education, read books about disability, which at that time were very few - and all the time dreamed of an independent life. I was sure that this is impossible, that I have a wonderful past, but there is no future. However, soon at the local rehabilitation center I met my future husband - and we decided to live ourselves, in the room of a communal apartment. It took a year to adapt to an independent life. It was very helpful that the husband, although he used a wheelchair, could walk around the apartment on crutches. For example, he could reach the upper shelves of the cabinet. When we had street strollers, we began to leave the house and make marching runs around the city, each time leaving farther and farther from the house. Then they handed over to the rights, the “Zaporozhets” appeared in the family, we got out of the communal apartment. When in the ninety -third year we moved to a separate one -room apartment, I told my husband: "The family cannot be without children." I gave birth to a son, he will soon be 20 years old.

Once they called me from the institute and asked for a brief biography - they say, what have you achieved in life? And I sit and think: nothing special. But on the other hand, I break the stereotypes about disability with my usual life - why not benefit this, do this with my mission? I decided to start creating an affordable environment in the city. For example, she collected a signature for installing a ramp near the nearest grocery store. Just at this moment, the municipal program "Disabled" was launched. I united the boat children, said: “Let's go to communicate with the authorities. We and they need it. ” We took the text of the program, read and said: “Here in this paragraph, in this and in this we can work together.” They started working. And we work.

You need to understand that God created man, but did not create spare parts for him. Now, for example, I do not understand people involved in extreme sports. If you are ready to break your spine, this is your right, but you have to think about how much grief this will bring to your loved ones.

Alena Volokhova

Age : 36 years old
What happened : lost her arms and legs
What is doing : the mother of two children, the founder and vice president of the Full Life charity fund, assistant to the chairman of the board of ROOI Equal Citizen, model

I had an accident in 2011 in July and lost my hand and leg. She quickly came to her senses and after six months she was already walking along the catwalk like a real model. After that, she took part in the photo exhibition organized by the Society for the Support of Parents with Disabilities and the members of their Katyusha families. I constantly have some projects.

Before the accident, I, like everyone else, was engaged in a house, a plot, a garden, a family, raised two children. And everything was somehow boring-I seemed to lead an unnecessary life to anyone. After the accident, the relatives were so helpless, they clearly did not understand how to do with me and how to help me, what I myself decided: I have no right to give up. It is already difficult for them. I had to pull myself together. For example, I began to engage in yoga, inventing for myself asanas and Kriya, which would suit people with amputations. She began to meditate, saw the world with different eyes. Yoga gave me calm and balance. When I finally realized that I was different from others, ”I decided to turn this difference in my favor. She said to herself: "I am not just a beauty, but a special beauty." I began to walk in a prosthesis without a cosmetic cover and not shy about it, but on the contrary - I want as many people as possible, that there are people like me.

Every day brings another victory. First, I learned to crawl up the stairs from the second floor - and turned it into a game with children. I walked like a hill, and everyone was fun. Then she learned to cook with one hand, wash the floors. Now I want to learn to braid with my daughter a braid with one hand or at least tails! This will be a victory.

Mike Krutyansky

Age : 26 years old
What happened : a long -standing non -healing fracture, forced to use crutches
What is doing : a skipper on a yacht, Properian

In 2010, we went to Freiraid competitions by car. The car was brought, and some kind of metal design on the side of the road was smashed to smithereens my lower leg. Prior to this, the main thing in my life was skiing - more precisely, embedded skiing (freeride) on skiing. In the summer - Kayaking, in the offseason - climbing. For two years I did not believe that the situation had changed forever - in the end, it was "just a fracture." Of course, I was shitty, but I worked with all my might to recover. Then a relapse happened: due to the severity of the fracture and the nightmarish first operation at the scene of the accident, the bone did not grow together even half-and was not going to. From this moment on, the process of refusing that I was, in fact, had a life, launched from this moment. The skis were for me both the profession, and the key to socialization and personal life, and most importantly - they gave me a taste for life in general. My loved ones helped and help me with all their might and means. But what can they actually do? It all depends on whether you yourself can regain your taste for life and accept new circumstances.

I decided to start making money lying in bed. Money will never hurt. But for me to earn is one of the most boring and depressed activities, it does not even bring the simplest satisfaction. Then I began to study. Spanish, French. I had to change my whole life. I don’t even remember anything that would not have to be changed dramatically. For example, I had to change the house: I used to live either with a girl in her apartment, or on trips - in tents, rented apartments in Europe. Together with the girl, I had to move to my parents so that they could all take turns helping with everyday life. And then I was tired of the endless medical traction, from Moscow, from the bed. And he decided to change everything completely, to leave alone to Israel and try to forget about the old. What to be afraid of if you live half -heartedly? I gathered the X -rays in the backpack (I could not roll the suitcase - my hands are busy with crutches), a couple of replaceable linen, the computer - and flew away. And as soon as it was possible to go more or less normally, I went to travel. He settled in a tent in the Eilat mountains, took up diving. When I realized that in the diving there is nowhere to grow, until the doctor allowed to put on the gear on the sore leg, I went to Europe to study at the skipper (yacht captain). I can’t say that this is my new supervision, but this is such a cool feeling-to learn something new, study, travel. And I almost inferior to the completely healthy team members in terms of working on a yacht.

The main part of our body is still a brain. With the help of this conditionally motionless component, you can move mountains, the main thing is to understand in which direction.

Mikhail Zhitlovsky

Age: 60 years
What happened: lost his foot
What is doing: an entrepreneur, athlete, international master of sports in sambo, master of sports in judo

I am a professional athlete, for many years I played at a high level in sambo and judo. As a result of some factors, I developed a chronic disease that led to amputation of my right leg. When all this happened, I immediately began to think about what to live on. I am married, I have children, sons. How to make it so that I have them, and not they provided me? My wife was nearby all the time, she was very young then, but she had a very strong character, which helped to cope with what happened to me and her. But I had to assemble myself very quickly.

I tried to find work in different areas. Before that, I worked as a coach for many years, my colleagues invited me to be a coach in disabled sports, but this is rather managerial work, I was not interested. Wealthy friends offered me work as an assistant, driver, I myself was ready to glue at least boxes if it gave income. But as a result, I told them “thank you” and decided that I would try myself. I began to create a workplace for myself: I video in the library where my wife worked, the sale of publishing systems, then work with real estate. I have been engaged in auto business for almost 15 years, and my company for a long time was one of the leaders in the automobile market in its segment. Now I am building a certain new business model again.

They promised me that in a couple of years they would amputated in a couple of years. I understood that then everything would become more difficult. After amputation, I gained a lot of weight, my heart began to make itself felt, and I decided to make an attempt to return, oddly enough, almost to the way of life that I led when I was in my best shape. I started with swimming to restore the cardiovascular system, then I added exercises with weights, then-table tennis, and then, when my wife and son decided to ski, I decided to join. Without a prosthesis. I drove 10 meters for the first time and fell, drove 15 meters for the second time and fell. Then he found a beautiful coach and learned to ride very well, even began to perform in competitions: at the stages of the World Cup, the Cup of Europe, at the Paralympic Games. Then it became interesting: if I ride mountain skiing, should water? It turned out. And the ski slamm turned out: I participate in competitions among two -legged people and among the one -legged.

Every person living about two hands, about two legs and with a healthy spine, must understand that this can change at any time at any moment. But one should not be afraid at all: a person with a changed body can do such that ordinary people never dreamed.

Pavel Landuh

Age: -
What happened : Born blind
What is doing : business trainer, athlete

I was born blind. Of course, since childhood I understood that my situation has been different from the situation of other people. A very important factor for me was that my loved ones never treated me as if I had any features: they raised me in the same way as my sighted brother. In high school, I began to decide what to do in life: I always had any hobbies. Sports, music, reading - I was very interested in a lot. Thanks to this, I constantly got acquainted with very different people and got involved in what they were doing. As a result, today I work as a business trainer of “dialogues in the dark”, and work is my main thing.

I have a pedagogical education, my academic degree is also in pedagogy, so I have always been related to the learning process: even before the “dialogs”, in other organizations, I was engaged in the development of trainings, mostly social. Two years ago, one of my very good acquaintances said that he was recruiting people in a new company, and suggested that I do not go social, but business training. I told myself: “This is another experience, another life experiment” - and decided to try to apply my knowledge and skills in this area. Trainings in the dark - they are, of course, special, but darkness is just a tool that we use. The entire training is the transfer of knowledge, experience, analysis skills.

I still really like to read and still be fond of sports: I ride mountain skiing, I have three prolonged jumps with a parachute, in the summer I go to many days on kayaks. The danger in my understanding is a rather conditional thing. Precautions and safety measures that I take in some of my classes may sometimes differ from those that sighted people accept. But if the kayak rolls over, both me and the sighted member of the crew will save our ability to swim. There is no difference here.

Anyone must love himself. Someone once said that taking themselves badly stupid: in the world there are already so many people who are bad to treat you, why do you also do it yourself? You need to be in a normal relationship with yourself, and the body in this sense is no exception.

You can send your stories about strong people at the address Press@acropolis-now.org .

The charity festival “Unlimited: body, society, culture” starts on May 11 at 19:00.
All details are on the festival website : Acropolis-now.org .