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Alexei Nalogin: The Quiet Revolutionary of Runet |
The Impossible May As Well Become Possible
Alexei Nalogin is 28.When he was twenty-one, this "quiet revolutionary of Runet" (as one Internet author termed him) created and launched his first project. It was this site, Help Us Save the Children, the one that you see on your computer screen. The first Web site of this kind not only for Alexei himself but also for Runet. It was the origin of Internet charity in Russia. Prior to this, the young self-made programmer had already become one of the leading Russian specialists in Internet advertizing, where he implemented many of his own know-hows. During the first year of our site, the Help Group of the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital managed to raise $150,000 through it and to save the lives of twelve children who had seemed hopelessly ill. This site is still successfully working, and Alexei Nalogin is still its administrator. The result is impressing: hundreds of saved children's lives, and several million dollars raised for the treatment. Alexei also participates in several other charity projects. He has created a charity banner network. He also cooperates with the Russian representative office of the British Charities Aid Foundation. Alexei's professional activity is still associated with the Internet: he has his own agency specializing in creation and support of Web sites. However, this charming young man is full of other new ideas. In the beginning of 2006, Alexei received a patent in the field of medical equipment: he created a novel orthopedic system 
called Dospekhi (Armor), which enables people with completely
paralyzed legs to stand up and move. Specialists, including leading
physicians of the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital, state that
Dospekhi (Armor) is the optimum orthopedic system for people who want to
have an active life in spite of their injury. Alexander V. Bystrov, M.D.,
who heads the Center of Microvascular Surgery at our hospital,
says, "This system is very simple to use, reliable, and much
cheaper than foreign analogs. We have never seen such convenient,
handy, and affordable constructions earlier. All other models of
orthopedic systems that allow verticalization of patients with
spinal injuries are bulky and not easily adaptable to needs of
one or another patient. At the same time, they are very expensive. Finally,
domestic systems have unsatisfactory quality of metallic parts.
Nalogin's orthopedic system enables us to use an individual
approach to every patient and to select constructional elements
needed for each specific case."In January 2006, the Armor system was manufactured for Sasha Karmanov, a 16-year-old patient of the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital, who was unable to walk after a spinal injury. Sasha Karmanov is telling: "When I stood up in ortheses for the first time, after 3.5 years in a wheelchair, I felt dizzy at first. It took several days to get used. Now I am feeling quite comfortable and fine. I put on these ortheses several times a day. First I learned to stand up and just stood for some time. Now I can even walk fairly long. I feel that this is the beginning of my new life. I have hope now. My legs are coming to life. I believe that I will be able to walk all by myself and even play football." Doctor Bystrov is tellling: "Nalogin's invention is very important for us. Children with spinal cord traumas are the most gravely ill patients at our department. The possibility to stand and walk by themselves is the key prerequisite for social adaptation and rehabilitation of such patients. Such children feel very different, and the quality of their life becomes incomparably higher. They can move by themselves, although some of them couldn't do anything like that for several years, and some have never been able to walk. Verticalization of patients with spinal injuries is also very important from the purely medical standpoint: the child becomes more mobile, the blood circulation is improved, the muscles receive due training. Thus, the use of the Armor system for some children gives us hope that they walk all by themselves some time." Three more of Bystrov's patients also need verticalization using the Armor system (Continued...). Alexei Nalogin says that each month he could help at least 15 disabled persons with getting the Armor system. This tireless inventor has been officially registered as a manufacturer and has concluded agreements with firms producing certain parts of the orthopedic system (the metal units are produced in Germany; the braces and other elements are made in Russia, e.g., by the orthopedic factory of the Moscow Central Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics). Alexei also participates in search for sponsors, since most disabled people with spinal injuries are far from rich and cannot pay for the orthopedic system themselves. Now the key problem is to inform the physicians and patients about the new system as widely as possible. 
Indeed, these are impressing achievements for a 28-year-old young man. One could feel
deep respect for Alexei even without knowing anything about his
personal destiny. And it is dramatic indeed. His ordeals might
easily break a weaker person. It is hard to imagine that this
energetic and optimistic young man, a traveller who has visited
many countries, a fan of fishing and driving, was doomed to be
bed-ridden from the age of thirteen. Alexei cannot even sit
without strong braces: his spine is broken in the lumbar part.This tragedy took place when Alexei was thirteen. He suddenly felt terrible pains in the spine, such that even the strongest analgesics didn't help. The doctors diagnosed sarcoma. There was a surgery, then radiation therapy. Months of recovery, regular check-ups. And finally it seemed that the worst was over. Instead of the dissected part of the spine, the surgeons implanted a bone graft. Alexei was learning to walk again and planning to go back to school. However, the physicians made a serious mistake. The boy was growing up, but the graft, of course, didn't grow. A year later, Alexei's spine and spinal cord were just ruptured, broken in two. And there was hardly any hope of recovery, because the risk of the reconstructive surgery is incomparably higher than the chance of success. What supported the boy during those hard times? 
Alexei always says, "I can't decide how long I will live. This is something
that doesn't depend on me. But only I can choose the way I will live."
Alexei had always been full of plans and dreams. Before his illness,
he had been interested in tourism and dreamed of becoming an alpinist. He
had to say good-bye to this dream. But he had also been interested in
modeling and design, including making ship models. He could
work with any instruments. Now he laughs when he recalls himself at the
age of four: once, when he was alone at home, he managed to take a gas
stove to pieces, up to the last screw, using a... spoon. His father
spent the whole night assembling it again -- of course, using
a screwdriver and a wrench.And so, while Alexei was lying on his back and there was little or no hope of getting up, he first decided to build a huge castle of matches. This well-built thing hasn't broken ever since, in 15 years. He spent half a year making it. He said that he had been going to build it anyway, irrespective of the illness, so why not now? Actually, this is his general principle: to do things irrespective of the illness, as far as it is possible. In the mid-1990s, Alexei's friends brought him an old PC. Now he confesses that at first he just spent two years playing computer games. At some moment, however, he becane tired of games and decided to learn something about MS Windows. This is how his future career began. It was in January 1998. Alexei mastered a new skill very fast, and in the middle of the same year he was already a well-known specialist in Internet advertizing. In December 1998, he launched his first Internet project, the one mentioned above. He learned the basics of HTML and the principles of Web administration just on the fly, after telephone consultations with his friends. When people ask Alexei how it came to his mind to help the children, he answers, "I had long wanted to do something important, but something that does not require the whole life, something that lets you see the results. 
My name is Alexei, and somebody told me that this name means
"he who protects children" (well, actually it means
simply "he who protects," but I learned this much later).
I heard this many times since childhood, and I wanted to justify this name.
It has something to do with the meaning of life, you know. I have always
wanted to say that I am Alexei, the one who protects children."And once Alexei saw an announcement about an ill child in an Internet mailing list. This child needed financial support. Alexei instantly phoned the Help Group of the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital and offered his assistance. This is how the idea of a charity Web site appeared. Many famous people supported it at once. The Vzglyad TV program made a report about the hospital. Anton Nossik, a well-known Runet activist and journalist, provided Web hosting for free. Artemiy Lebedev, one of the leading Russian Web designers, ensured that the banner of the new site was continuously shown in his two banner networks. Thousands of people learned about the site, and the fundraising campaign began. Nalogin's Web site was called the exemplary social Internet project. "We have created a perfect model of an instrument for humanitarian fundraising," says Alexei. The success of this project is due not only to technical solutions (the deti.msk.ru Web site automatically supports many types of banking transactions) and information content but also to the unblemished moral reputation of the project. Here we should explain: the deti.msk.ru project is the "virtual continuation" of the Help Group of the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital. This group was created in 1990 by Orthodox priest Alexander Men. After his tragic death, the work of the group has been inspired by Father Georgi Chistyakov, the hospital priest. It is the unselfish and devoted work of Christian volunteers that 
persuades the readers to believe the published information and
to trust the authors of the site in financial matters. "We have
three key principles: complete openness, complete reliability of
our information, and complete transfer of the whole sum from a sponsor to
a child," Nalogin says.And now the Armor project. As you have probably already guessed, Alexei first designed this system for himself. Then he made it with his own hands and spent five years improving and testing it: drove a car, flew planes, arranged business meetings and negotiations. Now he is willing to share the joy of standing and walking with everybody who can achieve it with this system. Alexei's project needs sponsors, who can provide money to buy ortheses for people who need them. Nalogin doesn't need profit himself, but the parts of the ortheses that are produced and assembled in Germany and in Russia cost money, and so expenses are inevitable. Nevertheless, just as ever, Alexei Nalogin is sure that help will arrive whenever it is really needed. And everybody will succeed if he or she really wants. After all, Alexei is the one who has the right to say such things. For further details concerning the Dospekhi (Armor) orthopedic system, see here [in Russian]. 2007 N E W S (February 2007)
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