Talk to me

How to fry the cutlets, escape in an emergency and find friends of a blind man? The answers to all these questions for fifteen years have been giving its readers a unique magazine “Your Interlocutor”. The only publication in the entire huge post -Soviet space for people with simultaneous visual impairments and hearing. About what adventures the magazine was created with - "such matters" said the poetess Elena Volokh

Where does it come from?

In crackling January frost

Suddenly the May morning will burst

With exciting freshness grew.

After meeting with the author of these lines, I do not cease to torment the question, where does the endless optimism and vitality come from, which I want to become infected as an incurable virus. At the first moment of meeting Elena, I feel confusion. A miniature, with a touching smile and radiant, attentive eyes - a complete feeling that she sees you. And I want to wave my hand, smile in response and assent during the story, asking new questions. But you have to communicate through a translator. Elena does not see and does not hear well.

Deceptive lightness

When you come to visit Elena, it seems that a person who is passionate about ballet lives in this apartment. At the front door, in the hallway, in the room - everywhere handrails. It is very similar to a ballet machine, but this is for another - they help Elena to retain her balance. Every day at this “machine”, she makes exercises according to the Feldenkrais method. And she dreams of going to heal to Israel on the Dead Sea.

Home at Elena Volokh photo: Margot Ovcharenko for TD

Lena was born an ordinary healthy girl, an active curious curly navel - like from the cover of the magazine. And at a year and a half, she picked up a strong flu. Several months of struggle for life in the hospital, complications, severe antibiotics. Mom brought Lena a helpless disabled person home. The girl stopped walking, did not sit and struggled her head. For several years, mother, Anna Mikhailovna, fought for Lena’s health: endless doctors, massages, gymnastics. And at five, Lena went again. Unsecute shaky gait. Coordination violations did not work. The gait remained with a shaky for life. And before the school it turned out that the girl sees very poorly. I had to go to study at a boarding school for the visually impaired. After another cold, she lost her hearing.

But Lena could not occupy stubbornness and determination. After school, she first graduated from a library college, and then a library ̆ faculty of the Moscow Institute of Culture. She studied on a common basis, along with everyone. In the evenings, together with her mother, I rewrote the notes of classmates. I studied. Finding a job after the institute was not easy. The libraries dismissed a girl with disabilities, did not believe in her possibilities. Lena and her mother were very missing the support of her father - the famous Soviet climber Vladimir Volokh died in the mountains when her daughter was 16 years old. But the bureaucratic wall still managed to break through, and Elena Volokh worked in libraries for 20 years. And after a fateful acquaintance in the library with Natalya Kremenva - the future permanent editor -in -chief and ideologist of the magazine, and “Your interlocutor” appeared.

Bobik visiting Barbos

The girls immediately made friends and chatted for hours, tapping each other with a dactile on the palms. Natalia has Josher's syndrome, and she does not see and does not hear at all. When Natalya found out that the magazines were published especially for blind men abroad, she caught fire to create such a magazine in Russia. In our country there are several publications on Brail, for the blind. But the blind men have their own characteristics, and many of them do not know the font of Braille, so these magazines are not available to them.

The publication of such a magazine at the beginning of the zero seemed almost impossible history, and yet Natalya immediately involved her friend Elena Volokh into her. “We were like two crutches,” Elena smiles. - I have a shaky gait, but I saw. And Natasha did not see, but she could support me. And so, holding on to each other, we moved around Moscow. ” The first numbers of the magazine were invented and made in the kitchen, at home by Natalia. And each time they arranged a small commotion. They dropped something, scattered, poured it. Once, after such another kitchen editorial board, Nathan Brother noticed that all this resembles a cartoon about Bobik visiting Barbos. So they have been calling each other since then: Bobik - Lena, Barbos - Natasha.

Home at Elena Volokh photo: Margot Ovcharenko for TD

When the first numbers of “your interlocutor” came out, terrorist attacks rattled in Russia. Nord-Ost, a terrorist attack at the wings festival in Tushin, explosions in Russian cities, gaped completely fresh wounds. And in one of the numbers they decided to discuss what to do if the blind man was in the epicenter of the attack. Then, for such discussions, they came up with a separate section “How to be, if ...”-and for fifteen years now, different life situations have been disassembled in it and remind you that we should not be shy about turning around people around, point to their ears and eyes-so that someone would definitely understand and help.

Previously, the magazine was done manually. Elena with a magnifying glass could read the usual sighted text and translated it to Brylevsky. Glavred Natalya Kremneva read Braille already and brought her edits. Then everyone reprinted everything again. We discussed each section for hours, edited every phrase. They added, rewritten, argued, did not agree with each other. Together they decided how best. The inaudible, but the sighted girlfriend of Nina Solovtsova helped them. And the volunteers who turned the articles and helped to publish a magazine.

In recent years, Elena Volokh has moved away from work on the magazine. It is more difficult to leave the house, but it is not yet possible to master the computer. But each number is waiting with a special trepidation and reads each material. All the "interlocutors" with a thick solid pile nesting on a locker near the beloved chair in the living room. “The magazine gives me a feed and incentive to live, work and fight,” says Elena. - Lights from the inside and makes you act. It is hard to have a bad thing, and you read the magazine - and it becomes easier. ”

Now reading and extensive correspondence are its main activity. Elena says that he likes to read about life most of all. Books like "bury me behind the plinth." And Daria Dontsova - for the vitality. Literature and poetry occupy a special place in the life of Elena Volokh. She wrote her first, still very childish and naive poem at five. She became a laureate of several contests, published in collections and dozens of different magazines. And a couple of years ago, Diana Gurtskaya read her poems from the scene of the book festival on Red Square.

Now Elena Volokh’s poem, written in memory of her mother, is participating in the competition of the radio station of the All -Russian Society of the Blind.

Mommy, darling, hold on!
Like an ogari fading life ...

I was in the hospital more than once
But I could not help you.

Honey, I don't believe, I don't want to!
And I scream from pain inwardly.

Ice, white face ...
And the friends of participation is a ring ...

I will not forget your look of your blue
Feelings experienced with you.

If you offended something, I'm sorry
And let go on your way.

If you liked it, you can vote for Elena and her poem on the Radio website .

Mom, Anna Mikhailovna, left two years ago. She was very afraid of how Lena would live without her. And on the years I imposed cozy woolen sweaters, vests, scarves and socks. But Elena is not alone. Nearby is still a sister, friends, volunteers accompanying and-a new number of “your interlocutor”.

Elena Volokh at work photo: Margot Ovcharenko for TD

For subscribers, your interlocutor magazine has always been free. At first, each number was handed manually by mail. And the circulation was only about a hundred copies. Now the circulation is already 1700 copies, and another 100 copies are printed in Braille. For thousands of blind people in Russia, this magazine is the only bridge to the world closed to many of them, a sip of information and the opportunity to find new friends.

Please, let's help not destroy this bridge together. The magazine "You Interlocutor" is the only publication for blind people in the entire space of the CIS and Russia. It helps to go beyond the limits of eternal silence and dusk. Any small donation, and especially monthly subscription will help people with simultaneous hearing and vision violations and make their life a little easier.

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