Disabled Russians to Finally Get Mobility

IN SERPUKHOV, RUSSIA , are revolution is happening. cubes on wheels, half the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, are suddenly appearing. Infact, these cubes are cars. 50 miles south of Moscow , the Seyaz auto plant is creating tiny Oka cars, leaving new hope for thousands of disabled Russians. It is such a phenomenon, orders are backlogged!
These cars are custom-designed for handicapped drivers, with special gears, pedals, and steering devices, and each one has been paid for in advance by the Russian government.
"We are a kind of barometer of official concern for the disabled, and it has never looked stronger than it does now," says plant manager Gennady Bykov.
The plant was established in 1950 to build cars for disabled World War II veterans, but only made 10,000 units annually. And at the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, it almost stopped completely. This year, 19,000 of the special Okas drove out the factory gates; next year, Mr. Bykov says they will make at least 20,000. The total demand may be as high as 100,000 per year, he adds.
There are 11 million disabled people in Russia, and these little cars are a symbol of the social integration pledged by the Kremlin for more than half a century but only partially delivered. As I have said before in my other article on disabled russians, during communism most people with severe disabilities were hidden away at home or in institutions expect for war veterans. Yet it still carries on today, with tens of thousands of handicapped citizens still subsist as beggars. Infact, in 1980 the Soviet Union refused to participate in the Paralympic Games because officially, no one in the country was disabled!
"Disabled people have been treated like outcasts, and they respond by withdrawing into themselves," says Yevgeny Lilyin, a specialist with the Russian Health Ministry. "It's very hard for a person to adapt to a society that rejects them." Indeed, the pavements/ sidewalks in russia don't even have drop-down curbing to allow wheelchairs ease to cross the streets.
Until recently, no Kremlin leader had ever spoken out about the problems of disabled people. But, in November 2001, then President Vladimir Putin was personally embarrassed when several disabled groups' representatives, invited to attend a government-sponsored assembly of public organizations, were nearly turned away because their wheelchairs wouldn't fit through turnstiles at the Kremlin gates. "Shame on us," Mr. Putin told the meeting. "The policies of the past made it impossible to integrate the disabled into society, even in the smallest ways. We need to make a complete overhaul of our attitudes and approaches."
At the Kremlin meeting, Putin pledged to consult regularly with disabled groups, and promised large increases in pensions and other funding for new programs to facilitate adaptation. "We know this is not just talk, because we have seen the changes already," Mr. Klepikov says. "It makes such a difference to see the president publicly acknowledge our struggle." Yet, hundreds of factories originally built to provide work for Soviet war veterans are technically bankrupt!
Indeed, the best sign of change is the proliferation of grass-roots groups pressing for disabled peoples' rights. There are five really large ones, and hundreds of small ones, and so political power has started to listen, causing attitudes in the street to change.
(source: Fred Wier, The Christian Science Monitor) Last summer in Serpukhov, the Seyaz plant sponsored Russia's first-ever disabled car rally. Dozens of special vehicles competed in a 900-mile race from Moscow to Volgograd." It was a lot of fun, and it was very well received by everyone along the route," says Valery Svistunov, the factory's deputy director. "It was great publicity for a very good cause, and for our products too. We're going to make it an annual event."