Maria's Story

by Robin Barratt

  Maria still has to beg to support herself and her son. She has little choice. As a disabled person she receives little support from the government in Russia and it is impossible for her to find work. Sadly Russia is not like the UK - there are virtually no provisions for the disabled.

  Our aim is to give Maria and her son a better life, through education and support. Our long-term goal is to get Maria and her son a home of their own, and help Maria to get work. One day we would like to set up a small charity, helping others like Maria (we have an idea that Maria could do this with us).

  Please feel free to contact us at any time. You are also more than welcome to visit us and to hear Maria’s story in more detail or we can come to see you.

  Thank you for your time

  Kindest regards

  Robin and Inna Barratt

  A few weeks later, Inna and I had decided to take an afternoon nap. We had worked stayed up late the previous night and had both woken early the following day, so by mid afternoon we were both feeling tired, and a little lazy, and decided to have a kip. As we started to fall asleep, the phone rang. I thought about letting it ring, but something compelled me to fight my initial impulse to lay there until it silenced, and I got up off the bed and staggered over to the phone; we didn’t receive many calls and I thought it was either someone that wanted to question us after receiving a leaflet through their letterbox or a double-glazing salesman - and then I would be really annoyed.

  “Hello,” I said sleepily.

  “Hello, this is [the person we wrote to]”

  I was suddenly wide awake, saying, and as loud as I could to get Inna’s attention “Oh Hello [the person we wrote to]”

  It was only after a few minutes chatting to her that Inna also sat upright, attentive, inquisitive and very excited.

  Miraculously she had received our letter. We spoke for quite a long time, we told her about Maria, how we met her and what had happened so far. She asked if Maria had ever had limbs? We told her she did but they were so old and uncomfortable she never wore them. She promised that she would help and initially discussed bringing Maria to the UK where she could receive some really good artificial legs and cosmesis - the silicone cosmetic covering that made prosthetic limbs so life-like. The legs, she said, would cost about £5000, the cosmetic covering about another £5000. Our new benefactor promised me there and then she would also provide all the medical support needed get Maria walking again, and told us about her own charities for the disabled she was supporting. She also said that she would personally support and help Maria solely from her own finances and not via any of her charities. I asked her if this was 100% definite and could we talk to Maria about it? Maria had been through enough in her short hard life to have such wonderful promises made to her, only to have them taken away. The benefactor confirmed everything; that she would definitely bring Maria to England and pay for brand new legs and yes, we could tell her. She gave me her personal mobile number, telling me to call her once Inna had seen Maria and then everything could then be planned.

  We were ecstatic. That afternoon we couldn’t stop smiling. With the celebrity’s wife’s help we could, quite literally, change Maria’s life. With legs Maria could walk and then maybe find a job and finally be the mother she so desperately wants to be.

  ***

  We had been inclined to leaflet-drop near to where we lived; Trafford Road, Grove Road and various smaller roads off Ipswich road, but on the last Sunday before Inna was due to fly back to Moscow we decided to leaflet along Newmarket Road and all the very wealthy adjoining roads. Altogether we had raised almost £450 from average income households, we felt absolutely sure that we would raise even more money by targeting the some of the biggest and wealthiest houses in Norwich. And so, that Sunday we walked for almost three hours and dropped leaflets through as many doors as we could. We went to Newmarket Road, Judges Walk, Mile End Rd, Mount Pleasant and almost all of Eaton. We had a week before Inna was due to fly to Moscow and hoped that we would get at least another £200. We waited, every day looking forward to the sound of letters hitting the doormat. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday passed. Nothing. Not even £1. Normally, and almost religiously, we would get at least two donations in the week following a day of leafleting. Letters would usually arrive on a Tuesday or Wednesday, or personally popped through our letterbox. Thursday’s postman came and went, nothing, Friday arrived, again nothing. We were devastated. We already had some money for Maria but we had our hearts set on giving her more along with the wonderful news from our benefactor. We had spent twice as long as normal, going to bigger houses, but nobody from any of these houses gave us a single penny. They say the rich stay rich because they don’t give, and on that day we certainly found that to be true. A little old lady living in a small one-bedroom apartment round the corner from us personally came round with £5, all she had spare that week, while we were told to bugger off from the owner of one big house on Newmarket Road with a top of the range Mercedes and BMW smugly sitting in the drive. The cost of one tank of petrol for both those two vehicles would have given Maria a month’s income.

  Inna told me it was the same in Russia. It was the poor that helped the poor, the rich guarded their own wealth; they didn’t know what it was like to be poor, and therefore didn’t really care. The poor understood what it was like to be hungry, to be cold, to have nowhere to stay, to be afraid and lonely. The rich knew little about these things and therefore generally cared little; keeping within the sanctuary of their own sheltered, secure environment. I could not imagine that someone on Newmarket Road would ever consider spending their Sundays walking through the rain and the snow popping leaflets through their neighbour’s letterbox in the hope of receiving a few pounds for someone they cared for and thought about and wanted to help. If the rich gave, they seemed to give reluctantly and without feeling. Throughout our appeal we even had visitors who had carefully bundled boxes of gifts; books, pencils, pens, school things for Maria’s son, or a nice blouse, some toiletries, a warm scarf for Maria. I could never imagine the rich spending their time over the kitchen table pondering what would be the best thing to buy. During the first six weeks we spent soliciting for donations, people who contacted us really cared, they cared for Maria and her son; two people they didn’t know, had never met, and in a country 1500 miles away. This was incredible.

  ***

  With the gifts we had been given for Maria, a few things we had bought for her ourselves, and the money we had raised, I drove Inna to Heathrow on the 28 February 2004. I had been booked to instruct on a Bodyguard training course in Iceland a few days later, and we had decided that, while I was in Iceland, rather than stay on her own in Norwich, Inna might as well go back home to see both her family and Maria again, as well as renewing her visa. It had been a while since we had last been in contact with Maria and we felt sure she had forgotten us, putting us alongside all the other so-called ‘do-gooders’ that go back on their promises.

  Like many Russian families, Inna and her family were close and she hadn’t seen any of them since she left Moscow in October, so she was looking forward to going home. She missed them all; her mother’s warmth and kindness, her father’s sometimes idiosyncratic ways, her brother and his wife’s constant bickering, her grandmother’s occasional nagging, her grandfather’s serenity, but most importantly she missed her dog. Inna loved animals; big or small, ugly or beautiful, she thought more for animals than she did for most people. Inna’s favourite British television programme was Rolf Harris’s ‘Animal Hospital.’ She would sit through most of it in tears. When she was just ten or eleven, to the horror of her parents, she turned up on the doorstep of her apartment clutching the most appallingly ugly and disheveled dog she had found nearby scavenging for food. She felt sorry for it and wanted to feed and look after it, and was distraught for days when her parents wouldn’t allow that dirty, smelly thing into the house.

  February
in Moscow would be mid-winter, the snow would be heavy and it would be minus 15, possibly lower. As far as we knew, Maria was still begging and so we were both looking forward to knowing that she was all right. The day before Inna flew to Moscow I called our benefactor for the first time on the mobile number she had given us.

  “Hello, sorry to bother you,” I said, “It is Robin here, we spoke last week regarding Maria. Just confirming everything is all right, as Inna is off to Moscow tomorrow and will be meeting up Maria.” I just wanted to verify that she hadn’t changed her mind, that everything was still alright and that she was still going to provide Maria with new legs. She confirmed everything and yes we could tell Maria this wonderful, wonderful news.

  I would be flying to Iceland from Stansted the day after Inna left for Moscow, as I had a bodyguard training course to teach on. After saying my farewells I drove back from Heathrow, had a few hours sleep and left bright and early the very next day. I had intended to catch the coach to Stansted, as it would have been a lot easier and far cheaper than driving and parking, but when I checked the times on the internet taking the coach meant I had a three hour wait at the airport, which I didn’t fancy, so I found a reasonably priced airport car park nearby.

  Bodyguard training courses are always tough. They are tough for the students and even tougher for the instructors; we have to be seen to be able to do more, go further and for longer than the students. When the students are tucked up in bed exhausted from the day’s training, the instructors are generally planning the next day in detail. We then have to be up before everyone else. I was actually teaching on a 19 day instructor’s course, but I had agreed to only do ten days but felt that even those ten days were going to be a struggle. We were teaching hardened, experienced bodyguards and those fresh from the armed services, and I wasn’t as fit as I used to be, or as tough, or as strong willed. Bodyguard training was sometimes extreme because of the extreme conditions many of the guys would eventually be working in, and so it was essential to get them as prepared and as equipped as possible, even though it almost killed the poor instructors.

  At the best of times, Iceland wasn’t the warmest of places; with summer temperatures rarely exceeding 18 to 20 degrees. I once remembered going to Iceland in September, thinking of all the gorgeous blond Icelandic women dressed in their skimpy summer dresses. It hailed almost all week. I wasn’t impressed and vowed never to return, but I had. This trip was going to be my fourth or fifth.

  As I arrived at Keflavik airport, about 40 miles west of Reykjavik, I looked through the aircraft window at the bleak volcanic landscape of southern Iceland. It wasn’t white, which I had expected, but it was sleeting heavily and the place looked miserable and depressed. They say that Iceland has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and, looking around, I could understand. The whole place looked bleak and unwelcoming, very little grows on the barren, volcanic terrain; an occasionally stunted tree, a few artificially cultivated bushes. The centre of Iceland and all along its northern coast is said to be quite spectacular. Although I promised myself over and over again that I would take some time off to travel around the country, I never did, and this visit was to be no exception. I was scheduled to return to the UK the day before Inna returned from Moscow.

  Although a tough climate, I have always found the Icelandics extremely hospitable and very friendly, and Reykjavik on a Friday and Saturday night puts even the most hardened party-animal to shame. All the pent-up frustration and boredom of living in such a bleak and inhospitable country manifests itself every weekend, and Reykjavik city centre, from about 3am to 5am is like no other city centre in the world; it’s crazy and Norwich at midnight pales into insignificance compared to the streets of Reykjavik.

  A few days into the course we had given the students some tasks and a project and, while the students did their research and preparation, Dan Sommer, Head of International Operations for the company, and I had some free time and headed for Reykjavik. As we were travelling into the town centre I told Dan about Maria.

  “We make some of the best legs in the world,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “Sorry?” I replied, not really knowing what on earth he was talking about.

  “Never heard of Össur?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied

  “Össur is one of the biggest companies in Iceland and they make some of the best artificial limbs in the world. Let me call them, they might be interested in helping.”

  We swung off the road onto a side street and screeched to a halt, almost bumping into a huge 4x4, who had also decided to use his mobile phone. As Dan dialed Össur and spoke in Icelandic, I stared up at the 4x4 parked next to us. Our little clapped out Ford looked tiny in comparison. When I first visited Iceland I wondered why many of the vehicles had their suspensions raised and were fitted with monstrous tyres. I thought everyone in Iceland had come from Essex and were on steroids and actually laughed when I saw the first few jacked up, beefed up 4x4 and pickups, until an elderly man with his equally elderly wife got out from one and sauntered over to an ATM machine. And then it slowly dawned on me, it was the terrain that the vehicles were modified for, not some 18 year-old’s inflated ego. Without the jacked up suspension and huge tyres, much of Iceland would be inaccessible. I looked up at the driver and saw it was indeed an 18 year old. He looked down at me, nodded as though to confirm what I had been thinking all along, and sped off.

  Dan finished his conversation. Normally, in most languages, it’s possible for me to understand at least a few words here and there, but not with Icelandic. The only thing I understood was the name of the celebrity’s wife. Even in Russia I could identify and recognize a few words here and there, but Icelandic hasn’t changed much since the 9 Century when the Norwegians settled for the first time on this small, cold, wet island and I didn’t understand a word.

  “Tomorrow morning, 10am, we have an appointment with one of the Directors.”

  We had already been promised help and completely this promise and were really looking forward to what was going to develop, but I somehow felt that if Össur could help as well it would give us a second option, just in case. In case of what? I didn’t really know, but, having worked in the security industry for most of my life, I always taught my students to ask “what if?” and have a second plan as backup should the first in any way be compromised and with Össur’s help as well, our objectives and ambitions for Maria would certainly be a lot more achievable.

  The students didn’t have much of my attention that afternoon as my thoughts were pre- occupied with Össur and what I was going to tell them. I wanted to impress them with both the plight of Maria, but also with an idea of the problems and difficulties other disabled experience in Russia. Iceland seems even more advanced than England when looking after its disabled, but the provisions the Russian government makes for its infirm must seem to come from the dark ages; in fact there are virtually no facilities for the disabled at all. Even getting out of most apartments for most disabled people was virtually impossible. Looking back, I don’t think I ever saw one person in a wheelchair on the streets of Moscow, not once. If you were disabled and if it was possible to get out of your apartment with a wheelchair, most pavements were potholed, rutted, worn out and extremely dangerous. The attitude in Russia was that if you broke your leg falling down a hole in the path it was your fault for not looking, and not the government’s fault for allowing the path to in such an awful state of disrepair. And even if you did manage to overcome the obstacles of dilapidated paths, you could never cross the road; no one would stop for you, not ever. I have seen little old ladies barely able to walk forced to dash across roads to the sounds of screeching, blaring horns. Vehicles don’t stop or slow down for anyone; the most Russian drivers, being in the road means being in the way. And, if by some miracle as someone disabled you indeed managed to get across the road, you could never get into the shops anyway. Firstly there are al
most always steps leading up into most stores, and then the isles and checkout are so tiny there is little space for humans let alone wheelchairs, and no one would ever dream of helping you. Customer service in most Russian shops is still almost non-existent; retailers still take the old communist attitude that you are in their shop because you need something from them and not the other way round. They still cannot get round the idea that you are the customer and they need you, and so Shop Assistants are generally very unhelpful, rude and abrupt and most seem to think they can treat you exactly as they want. This is slowly changing, especially in the international stores in the centre of Moscow, but out in the poorer provinces where most of the disabled live, customer service simply does not exist. And lastly, if you happen to be able enough to leave your wheelchair outside and walk round the supermarket, your chair definitely would not be there when you returned. It would have been stolen the minute you turned your back.

  Years ago, under communism, there were lots of government agencies working with, and helping, the disabled. By the end of the 1950s cooperatives of disabled people existed and more than 4000 factories across all of Russia employed over 200,000 disabled workers. However in 1956 the Communist Party nationalized most of these businesses and in 1960 the rest were disbanded. Ordinary disabled veterans, who lost their arms and legs on the battlefield, were sent to isolated places where no one could see them. After the fall of communism, and the race for prosperity and wealth, little regard was given to providing for the disabled. It was seen as simply a waste of money to build a ramp or other facilities for disabled access and most of the money allocated to rebuilding and renovating roads and paths quickly disappeared before it reached those in need. I thought about the article I read in the Moscow Times a couple of years previously. It detailed a team of auditors sent in to audit money allocated from the government to services for the poor. It found that ninety five percent of the money simply disappeared. It could not be found. Only five percent of all the money allocated to services for the poor made its way to those that needed it the most. Most of it simply disappeared into the pockets of the government officials who allocated it in the first place. And because there was and still is no accountability, bribery and corruption is extreme. Even if an official was caught and found guilty, he would have probably siphoned away enough money to last a lifetime, and certainly more than enough to bribe any judge should he ever get taken to court.