Just Like You is a joint project of Real Stories Production and the United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark
RAN LIKE FORREST GUMP
Ruslan Rubel – technical director of Ukraine without Barriers center.
The room gets filled with steps.
Ruslan walks in – he wears stylish white clothes and glasses of vivid green color. He sits opposite me. Ruslan is blind. But when he talks, he often says “I see”. And he explains it: “You can see not only with your eyes. Although we usually say “see” when we mean seeing something that is visible. But I see too. I see when a person smiles in a conversation or sad about something. I see which of my friends are with me – dozens of factors intertwine: hearing, smelling, other feelings that don’t even have a name.”
Ruslan is the technical director of “Ukraine without Barriers center”, founded as a branch of the National Assembly of Persons with Disabilities. He and other workers make accessibility tools: He creates convenient navigation signs, the information on which is translated into braille, and he helps to arrange the space so that it would be comfortable for everyone. So that everybody including people in wheelchairs, and parents with prams, and tourists with suitcases on wheels could move around the city freely – in subway crossings, on playgrounds, in supermarkets.
The Center also makes books for people who are blind or with low vision. There is almost no fiction literature in braille in Ukraine. Ruslan created his own way of making illustrations for these books. The books created by “Ukraine without Barriers” have colorful covers, smooth to the touch paper, volumetric pictures.
“For some reason, people don’t usually pay attention to the appearance of the books printed in braille. Unfortunately, many of those books are made of paper of low quality, and of course, nobody thinks about colorful pages or pictures. While some people with vision impairment still have a residual vision – that means they can distinguish bright colors.
The idea of tactile pictures came to me in a dream. In my dream, I visited my friend’s photo exhibition, and the pictures in frames were volumetric, tactile, you could understand what was on them just following the lines. And when I woke up, I realized it was quite doable. I found teachers and artists who work with blind people and who were interested, and together we made a series of illustrations that were included into books for children.
Dreams of blind people are another story.
The dreams of those who can’t see since birth are full of sounds, volumetric tactile feelings.
And for those who lost the ability to see at some point in their life, dreams help to ‘remember’ the colors and also become more varied in abilities and feelings: Their plots are full of sounds, temperatures, surfaces they touch.
I’m having my second life now. The first one was when I could see – it reminds me of a race for something material. Work, meeting friends on weekends. Dreams about a new car, holidays. In the second life everything is different. Of course, here you also have work, and rest, and travels, and communication with your daughter – but everything has become more meaningful, saturated, and full.
I really love to travel, and many people with vision impairment often say that one of the most pleasant things is to discover new places. Everything is completely different. Visual perception sometimes takes so much attention and doesn’t let you feel: How smells mix in the city air, where does the wind blow from (the feeling of wind touching your skin is wonderful), how the city sounds – especially a city in which people speak another language! Everything creates a very volumetric pattern: As if you see it with your entire skin, you discover the world with every cell of yours.
Not so long ago, I with a team of blind and sighted people, climbed Hoverla mountain. Fantastic feelings! It’s interesting how the feeling of the ground under your feet changes while you climb – how the sound is perceived. The proximity of mountains causes a special echo: You feel you’re in a separate space, as if inside.
Most people with vision impairment, unfortunately, stick to a passive way of life. They don’t aspire to adapt and discover the world anew. That is why I’m very happy when they make their mind to do the Nordic walking, for instance.
Nordic walking in the format we have now is unique. Its essence is that a sighted person walks alongside a blind person. There is a so-called connection between them. It’s a rubber band that the people put above their elbow. This lets them go alongside each other, and there is no feeling that someone leads and the other lets himself be led. Even more, due to such relaxed walking, blind people adapt. They gradually get rid of the fear of exploring the city, they get confidence. Besides, a good company always inspires for new achievements and motivates.
I run marathons, I also swim. I started doing it when I lost my sight. Then I realized I needed to look for new ways of interaction with the world, with my body.
Perplexity and fear – are the feelings that destroy and don’t let you move on. I felt it when I lost my sight and realized that if I closed if I let my fear lead me, nothing would work. I had no answer as to what I should do, so I just started running like Forrest Gump. And surprisingly it helped. And still: In any unclear situation I jog. It helps to sort out my thoughts and understand what should be done.
Perplexity and fear – are the feelings that destroy and don’t let you move on. I felt it when I lost my sight and realized that if I closed if I let my fear lead me, nothing would work. I had no answer as to what I should do, so I just started running like Forrest Gump. And surprisingly it helped. And still: In any unclear situation I jog. It helps to sort out my thoughts and understand what should be done.
she-author: Oksana Hrushanska
photo: Ksenia Kravtsova, Vlad Nechyporenko, Dmytro Chaika
