Grisha Rogozhkin - ROOF graduate 2004

Background:
Until I was 10 I was brought up and educated in orphanage # 3. Then I was in put in an orphanage for disabled children when I wasted a great deal of time. I currently serve at an orthodox church. I've been studying at ROOF since 2000. I am also a qualified joiner.

Likes:
I like going for a long cycle rides. I can cycle through the whole of Moscow. I am studying the Bible.

Grigoriy Rogozhkin has studied at ROOF for three years, and is now working on the tenth grade curriculum. He wants to complete high school and continue his studies. He is very serious and responsible in regard to his studies.

Grisha recently received an apartment in Yuzhnoye Butovo. For a long time I've wanted to have a look at the kind of apartments our students receive, and so I asked Grigoriy to invite me to his housewarming. He took the question of invitations very seriously and wanted to invite many people who periodically couldn't come, and so the trip to his house kept getting put off. Finally the day came when Grisha had finalized everything. I was invited. I was a bit puzzled by Grigori's request that I stop by his old orphanage to pick up his friends. Then I understood - his friends needed wheelchairs to get around.

At first I felt uneasy - I had never been in this kind of situation, dealing with people with physical disabilities. Then there was the simple task of getting all the passengers from wheelchairs into the car and all the wheelchairs into the trunk. After driving a few hundred meters, we had already done a fantastic job of getting to know each other - Grisha joked a lot, we all laughed, and my passengers found the street very interesting. It was easy and simple - these were very sharp and talented kids. Irina is a poet; she's published an anthology of her own poetry recently. Andrei and Svetlana paint pictures. It's just hard for them to move and sometimes difficult to talk.

The house in which Grisha was given a flat is a modern one. The entrance is equipped with a special lift for wheelchairs, although it doesn't really work - despite Grisha's pressurizing the government's apartment bureau to fix it that has not happened yet. It's clear that, apart from Grigoriy, no one is interested in this request.

Grisha's apartment is not large - one room. So far there's almost no furniture, but collecting furniture is a life-long process. For one lonely guy one room is totally normal. But Grisha wants to invite three of his friends to live with him for the summer. It is hoped that the lifts will be working by then so that his friends can go out. He understands that to live in the tiny rooms of the orphanage where there are fifty people per floor is intolerable. "What a nice, spacious room, and so few people", was Irina's first impressions of the apartment. As we waited for the other guests to arrive, we sat and talked, drinking tea (Grigoriy helped Andrey with his tea, and Sveta helped Irina). We looked at photos. Grisha joked. Overall he seemed a very happy, caring, and funny guy. And everyone laughed, especially Sveta. Irina and Grigoriy told me that at the orphanage Svetlana never laughed.

Then the other guests arrive - those kids from the orphanage who could move on their own, and their chaperone, Maksim, who also studies at ROOF. He has studied independently to become a plumber and works at the orphanage, where he services two five-floor buildings on his own. But he receives a miserly salary for this; the administration scrimps, citing Maksim's lack of a plumbing "diploma". There were also teachers among the guests. There were presents and congratulations. Everything was great fun, and again Grisha was at the center of it.

We parted with sadness and with hope that we'd meet again. I drove Grisha's friends back to the internat. This party, this company, this trip through Moscow streets was like a breath of fresh air to them.

Grigoriy is only just now putting together a normal life for himself. "It's so great that Grisha got out," Irina tells me. He keeps on studying, and is set on continuing, even though his studies are not going easily. But he doesn't forget the friends with whom he lived at the orphanage. He takes them to exhibitions (recently they went to the Tretyakov art gallery). He is prepared to share his tiny apartment with them so that life can be good for them even if only for a little while. He's prepared to support them, although money is certainly tight for him as well. This almost unthinkable goodness is simply astounding and quite inspiring. And believe me - despite all the difficulties this young man is winning, thanks to his persistency and goodness, and he will be happy.

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