Disabled in the Dark Ages of Modern Russia

In today's multicultural, tolerant society, all of us expect to encounter people from all walks of life. Here in Britain, our doors are open to Europeans, Americans, Arabs, Russians, even Icelanders. And today, we don't cescriminate anyone, regardlyess of gender, race nor even disability. At least I though so.
In Russia, people with disabilities are literally almost invisible. They live isolated, in homes, special schools and sheltered workshops. I was shocked to see on BBC news last month, a Wheelchair bound man having to fend for himself outside his apartment by a terrifying assailant. It's a rarity to see a person in a wheelchair or a blind person or someone with Down syndrome out and about on the streets of a Russian city.
The authorities are trying, butattempts to encourage the employment of the disabled by setting quotas for businesses have faltered. Most employers preferred to pay the low fines for failing to meet quotas rather than actually hire disabled people, according to advocates for people with disabilities.
Long after the West began heavy efforts to make disabled the norm in both education and employment, Russia is only beginning to seriously explore the task.
"This is an issue we did not talk about at all for a long time," President Dmitry Medvedev said last month at a meeting with government ministers and advocates for the disabled. "We have the . . . task of providing disabled people with comfortable living conditions and creating a developed rehabilitation system so that they can take a full part in life."
Yet, even getting a ramp built can often prove impossible. "They said they don't have the technical expertise," said one person.
I was amazed to learn that only some of the buses that serve the country are wheelchair-accessible. The city's subway system is off-limits, as are any number of theatres and museums. The local schools, like almost all Russian schools, are completely out of reach. Indeed, the pavements/ sidewalks don't even have drop-down curbing to allow wheelchairs ease to cross the streets. This reminded me of our own transport system, of which just about every bus caters for wheelchair users, not to mention push chairs. And since Boris Johnson is getting rid of most of our bendy buses with such features, why not ship them over to Moscow? Granted, they drive on the other side, but its nothing a few tweaks can't sort! It's the perfect solution! Ive mentioned the fate of the bendy bus several times before of AC!
"There are norms for accessibility of schools for children," said Alexander Lomakin-Rumyantsev, head of the All-Russia Society of People With Disabilities and a member of parliament, noting that all new schools and schools undergoing reconstruction work are supposed to be made accessible. "But they're not doing it."
About 50,000 disabled children study at home and another 70,000 are in special day and boarding schools. But according to Oleg Smolin, a member of parliament on the Committee for Science and Education, 200,000 disabled children in Russia receive no education at all.
"Some of these children are in boarding schools where they get care but no education," said Smolin, who is blind. "And some of these children are simply at home."
Medvedev urged officials last month to explore the possibility of connecting the homes of all disabled Russian children to the Internet. That's follows Moscow, funding a school, called the i-school, where teachers use the Internet to work individually with disabled children across the city.
"I think distance learning is vital because no other infrastructure in Russia is developed," Samykina said. "It at least allows a person to get a good education and eventually study at the university level." Samykina also said her i-school teachers have high expectations for her, unlike her old in-house tutors, who seemed content when she completed the most basic of tasks.
The distance-learning approach is being greeted cautiously by advocates for the disabled.
"Some of the discussion of distance learning is that it's the solution for everything," said Denise Roza, director of Perspektiva, a nongovernmental organization that champions the full integration of the disabled. "That's not getting people into the community. It's just high-cost exclusion."
And Lomakin-Rumyantsev, who has used a wheelchair since an accident in 1980, cautioned Medvedev that distance learning is a stopgap measure. He would like to see schools be refurbishd, have retraining of teachers, and the education of parents, both of the disabled and abled, to prepare the system.
"Distance learning is a good thing today when schools are not ready to take disabled children," he told Medvedev in a recent meeting. "But you said quite rightly that people should be able to take a full part in life. And this means that children should be able to grow up and go to school together with their peers."
"This has to be done carefully because we don't want to discredit the idea of integration by trying to get everyone into the general school system immediately," he said. "The school system is not ready. But it's important not just for the disabled but for all of society that we begin to change."