Incredible Facts

According to the World Health Organization, in 2013 there were 39 million blind people on our planet.

These are the people who wake up every day and look at life without the help of their eyes.

In truth, any blind person has an amazing story behind them, but there are such unique individuals with whom incredible things happen.

10 Blind Film Critic

By it's nature film is a visual medium.

One might assume that a form of art intended primarily for the eyes should not interest a blind person, but not in this case.

Not only does Tommy Edison love watching movies, he also reviews them on YouTube. Although he was born blind Edison always liked watching movies.

Since he started writing reviews three years ago, his videos have attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Edison watches a lot of different films, from The Hunger Games to Reservoir Dogs, but his approach to cinema totally different from how ordinary moviegoers see it.

"I'm not distracted by beautiful special effects and attractive people. I watch a movie to see the action", he once said. Due to the fact that he evaluates films only by what he hears, Edison is not attracted to blockbusters. Although he is a fan of Die Hard.

Even more exciting than his reviews is his second YouTube channel, where he answers interesting questions from his readers. For example, how a blind person learns to smile, can blind people understand the description of colors, and would Edison want to see if given the opportunity.

Edison's simple yet profound personal thoughts provide an amazing insight into the world of blind people.

9. A soldier who sees with his tongue

Craig Lundberg was a 24-year-old corporal serving in Bars, Iraq, when his life changed forever. In 2007, a young soldier was seriously injured, resulting in damage to the head, face and hands. Moreover, this accident left him completely blind.

Doctors were forced to remove his left eye, leaving the right eyeball, which also completely lost its function. Suddenly Craig was in total darkness..

Lundberg took a course on how to live by doing guide dogs when the Department of Defense selected him to test their fantastic new technology called brain port.

After putting on a pair of dark glasses equipped with a video camera, the images from the camera were converted into electrical impulses and sent to a special device located in the language of Lundberg.

Scientists aren’t entirely sure what actually started working in this case: the signals went through the tongue, either through the visual cortex, or through the somatosensory cortex (the part of the brain that processes touch). In any case, Lundberg can now see, in a certain sense of the word.

At that time, the sensations from the device on the tongue, according to the soldier himself, are similar for licking the battery, Lundberg can "see" two-dimensional images. He was able to identify simple shapes without having to make unnecessary movements.

Even more surprising is the fact that he can see letters which enables him to read. While the device is in further development, but promises to give Lundberg a new life. At the same time, the soldier himself says that he will never get rid of his faithful guide dog.

Source 8The explorer who conquered the South Pole

Former sailor of the Royal Navy Alan Lock (Alan Lock) always dreamed of becoming a submarine officer, but during training he lost his sight in just six weeks due to rapid macular degeneration.

Lok looks at the world through "frosted glass with white spots". However, he did not allow such a trifle as blindness to pull his life downhill. Inspired by his disability, Lok decided conquer the world.

Between 2003 and 2012, he competed in 18 marathons, climbed Mount Elbrus and became the first blind person to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. However, unsatisfied with this list of achievements, Lok decided to try something else.

With the help of two sighted friends and a guide, the 31-year-old went from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole. Pulling 60 kilograms of cargo behind them on a sleigh and fighting freezing winds, Lok and his comrades spent 39 days on a journey, covering 960 kilometers, eating dehydrated foods and pieces of butter along the way.

Not only that he became the first blind person to reach the South Pole, he has raised over $25,000 to help charities working for the blind.

Blind people: incredible features

Source 7The Blind Woman Who Sees Movement

In 2009, Milena Channing, 29, suffered a stroke that destroyed her primary visual cortex. It was supposed to make her completely blind, but Channing swore that she sees the rain falling on the ground.

She saw a car whistling past her house, she even sees her daughter running and playing. When the doctors analyzed the woman's brain, they thought that Milena was wrong.

It's neurologically impossible for her.: to see something more than a big void. They believed that perhaps the young Channing had developed Charles Bonnet syndrome, in which blind people suffer from hallucinations.

Convinced that these outbursts were real, Channing met with Gordon Dutton, the only doctor who believed her. The Glasgow ophthalmologist suspected that Channing was actually experiencing the Riddock phenomenon, a strange syndrome due to which people can only see moving figures and nothing else.

To test his theory, the doctor in conversation with Channing sat in a rocking chair and moved back and forth. Suddenly she saw his silhouette.

Five years after the stroke, a team of researchers confirmed that the part of Milena's brain that processed movement was intact. Instead of sending signals to the visual cortex, her eyes sent information to the part of the brain that interprets movement.

Fortunately, with the help of Dr. Dutton, the woman gradually learned to see things more clearly. She still can't make out people's faces, because the part of the brain responsible for this is beyond repair, but the fact that she can see anything at all is a miracle.

blind artist

6The Artist Who Can't See His Own Art

Esref Armagan was born in 1953 in Istanbul. However, during childbirth, he was seriously injured. Not only was the family very poor, but his eyes could not even be called eyes. One was the size of a small pea, and the second did not work at all.

Despite this, Armagan was a very curious kid. Wanting to explore the world, he began to touch everything that fell into his hands, and, in the end, began to paint. Starting at the age of six, he went from butterflies and crayons to portraits and oil paints.

Working in complete silence, Armagan renders the image and then sketches with the Braille stylus. He then checks the pencil sketch by examining it with his sensitive left hand.

After that, he uses his fingers and paint to draw a windmill, a villa, and even a Volvo.

In 2009 a Swedish car company hired Armagan to paint their new S60. After examining the contours of the car with his fingers, he hastily painted an impressive picture. Given the lack of sight in humans from birth, it's mesmerizing.

Armagan's paintings were exhibited in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the USA and China. He even appeared in an episode of the Discovery Channel show "Real Superhumans".

However, the strangest thing is Armagan has a very unusual brain. Harvard scientists asked the Turk to make some sketches, while they recorded information using an MRI scanner.

Scientists were shocked by what they saw. Typically, the visual cortex of a blind person is scanned as a black spot. This is exactly what Armagan's bark looked like when he was not drawing, but as soon as he picked up a pencil and began to create, his visual cortex lit up like a Christmas tree.

It looked like he was a normal sighted person. Scientists are still trying to unravel the mysterious brain of a man, and so far he transfers everything that happens in his head to paper.

5The Man Who Hacked The Phone System

Joe Engressia was a very unusual guy. He was born blind in 1949 and enjoyed playing with phones, dialing random numbers and listening to voices. It was the only way a boy could entertain himself in the 1950s.

He was also one of those children who really enjoyed whistling. The combination of these strange hobbies and led to the fact that Joe penetrated the secret world of the telephone system.

Joe was eight years old when he made the call and began to whistle, but then the tape suddenly cut off. He tried again and realized that whenever the strength of the whistle reached 2600 Hz, the message was interrupted.

Due to his singing abilities, he was able to fool the system, which "believed" that Joe was the operator. His possibilities were, in fact, endless. He could make free long-distance calls or chat with several people at the same time on a conference call.

After all, he was so well "trained" that sent a call to himself across the world, and received it on a separate receiver.

Obviously, his actions were illegal, so Engressia was arrested twice. Later, he found himself at the very center of a strange subculture. As it turns out, Joe wasn't the only one hacking into the phone lines.

In the 1970s, "phreaking" (the name given to what Joe and his ilk were doing) appeared everywhere, and Engressia became one of the leaders in this activity.

Some of the tech-savvy offspring of "phreaking" like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, let's move on. Engression, however, was not so lucky.

Despite the fact that he had an IQ of 172, an unsettled domestic life, as well as sexual abuse by a teacher in childhood, completely unsettled him. In his later life, Engressia changed his last name to Joybubbles and insisted that he is only 5 years old.

Joybubbles collected toys, talked to imaginary friends, and lived under the care of a welfare organization. Sadly, Joe died in 2007, leaving behind an impressive but depressing legacy.

4The Man Who Invented Cruise Control

Anyone who drives a car should be grateful to Ralph Teetor. In the 1940s, he invented one of the most useful features in a car - Cruise control. This is impressive considering that Ralph went blind at the age of five.

He lost his sight during an accident, however, this did not discourage him from inventing and making things.

In fact, blindness even gave him an advantage that many inventors lack. Not only was he able to concentrate better on his tasks, he was also not limited by what his eyes were telling him.

He was free to create what his mind saw, and he created quite a few interesting things in his time. In 1902, a 12-year-old inventor built a car from improvised means.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1912, he developed a new type of rod and reel for fishing, a locking mechanism, and also discovered a way to balance the rotors of steam turbines in destroyer torpedo boats.

Eventually, he opened his own corporation that specialized in piston rings. However, his greatest accomplishment came during World War II, when he was driving a car driven by his lawyer.

As the story goes, the lawyer couldn't talk and drive at the same time. Whenever he started talking, the car started to jerk. Then he stopped and stepped on the gas. From such driving, a blind passenger quickly began to feel sick.

Frustrated by his friend's inability to drive, Titor came up with the concept of cruise control. Ten years later, he decided to patent his invention, and shortly thereafter, this feature appeared in Chrysler vehicles.

Almost every car on the road today has this feature, thanks to a blind inventor and a bad driver.

The life of blind people

Have you ever heard of Laura Bridgman? There was a time when she was the most famous person on the planet. Born in 1829, Bridgman lost four of her five senses at the age of two after suffering from scarlet fever.

Left with only a sense of touch, the young girl graduated from the Peterson Institute in Boston, run by Samuel Gridley Howe. In essence, he was an unpleasant person, but Laura's case struck him very much, therefore, when the baby was seven years old, he decided to teach Laura how to communicate with the outside world.

Bridgman learned to form letters with her fingers, contacting the palm of the "interlocutor", slowly creating words and sentences. She also learned to read by feeling the raised letters with her fingers.

Thanks to the hard work she put in, as well as Howe's constant reporting, Bridgman became a celebrity. Thousands of fans came to her, asking for an autograph and a lock of hair.

Very often, people with good eyesight are interested in the question: what do the blind see. Many people think that they see black with an admixture of luminous spots (this is what we see when we close our eyes). However, this is not quite true. The picture of the world of a blind person depends largely on the age at which he lost his sight. If this happened in maturity, then he will think like a sighted person and perceive the sun as yellow and the grass as green. If a person was born blind, then he simply does not know what darkness or a golden glow looks like. Therefore, asking him about what he sees, most likely, he will answer: “Emptiness”, and will not lie.

Let's do a simple experiment and look at the world through the eyes of a blind person. To do this, you need to close one eye with your hand, and focus on some object with the other. Now answer the question: what does your closed eye see? That's right, he sees emptiness.

Dreams of the blind

Note that the situation is approximately the same with dreams. A person who lost his sight in adulthood will tell you that at first he had dreams with colorful pictures. Then all this disappeared, and the images were replaced by sounds, smells and tactile sensations. At the same time, a person who is blind from birth will see absolutely nothing in dreams.

Suppose we dream of a sandy beach. The sighted will be able to enjoy all the details of this place: the azure ocean, the white sand beach, the colorful hammock and the bright sun. Blind from birth, he will smell the sea water, the breath of the wind, the heat of the sun, hear the sound of the oncoming wave, feel the sand on his fingers. Blind since childhood, video blogger Tomi Edison describes his dreams as follows:

I dream the same as you. For example, I can sit at a football match and in a moment be at my birthday when I was seven years old.

Of course, he does not see any of the above. His dreams are made up of sounds, tastes, touches, and smells. It is these feelings that help Tomy Edison, like any other blind person, to navigate in space in reality and in a dream.

Can the blind see bright light?

For decades, scientists have wondered if blind people can see anything. In 1923, Harvard University graduate student Clyde Keeler discovered in a scientific experiment that they cannot see, but their pupils can react to bright light.

After 80 years, his colleagues at Harvard continued their research and found special light-sensitive cells ipRGCs in the eye. It turned out that they are located in the nerves that carry signals from the retina to the brain. Cells ipRGCs react to light, but do not affect vision in any way. Most people and animals have such cells, so even the completely blind can see bright light.

tunnel vision

In addition to the completely blind, there are also visually impaired. This category includes people with tunnel vision.

According to the Big Encyclopedic Dictionary, “tunnel vision is a painful condition in which a person loses the ability to see peripherally (laterally). The image is perceived only in a certain narrow radius that falls on the central region of the retina.

A person with tunnel vision looks as if into a pipe. He does not notice objects moving near him, ceases to orient himself in space. The causes of this disorder may be different, among them: oxygen starvation, severe blood loss, a sharp drop in pressure, hallucinogens and some other drugs, a sharp release of noradrenaline (fight or flight reaction), nitrogen poisoning (caisson disease), complications of laser therapy, cataracts, glaucoma, retinal degeneration and more.

The effect of tunnel vision can be temporary (bleeding from the head of astronauts and pilots is accompanied by such symptoms) and chronic. There is no single scheme to help people with this disease. Some doctors prescribe medication, others suggest using special devices designed for people with tunnel vision. Among them are glasses created on the reverse principle of binoculars. They cover everything that happens from the side. However, this invention is not popular with patients, because. reduces objects, thereby interfering with the objective perception of the surrounding world. There are also glasses with cameras that shoot everything that happens around a person and broadcast the image on small screens.

legal blindness

Another visual impairment is legal blindness. Her stages:

• 20/200 to 20/400: Considered a severe visual impairment or severe visual impairment. A person sees large objects and people, distinguishes colors, but everything is out of focus.
• 20/500 to 20/1000: Considered profound visual impairment or profound loss of vision. The patient loses peripheral vision, ceases to perceive colors. Everything around appears to him in a thick fog.
• Greater than 20/1000: Considered to be near-total visual impairment or near-total blindness. Man does not even see the light.

Recall that visual acuity, expressed in the following values, is taken as the norm: 1.0, 20/20 or 6/6.

monochromatic

Monochromasia is congenital complete color blindness. Monochromats see the world in black and white. In more complex cases, they have photophobia and complete loss of vision.

The disease can be diagnosed in early childhood. The first signal: the child does not distinguish colors.

The thing is that in a healthy person, 3 cone mechanisms are fully functioning, with monochromasia, the work of cones - peripheral processes in photosensitive cells of the retina - is disrupted. Therefore, the whole world around us is painted in black and white. Monochromats often cannot be in the sun without glasses. sunlight, acting on the retina, brings great pain to their eyes.

For accurate diagnosis of the disease, ophthalmologists, as a rule, use Rabkin's polychromatic tables, or electroretinography. If a child has any symptoms of monochromacy, you should immediately seek help from a specialist. However, it is still impossible to completely get rid of the disease.

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With this article, I open a series of articles about the achievements of ordinary people who are among us. They are the same as us, they have the same desires and opportunities, they set themselves the same goals.

Only to achieve them they need to make a little more effort, a little more difficult to overcome themselves, a little more difficult to prove their right to.

And when it’s hard for me, when my hands give up and it seems that the movement towards the goal has stopped or even turned back, I remember these stories, these people, I feel ashamed of my weaknesses and I move forward further.

I hope they will help you in overcoming difficulties on the way to your personal success, they will give you a boost of energy.

This story was told to me by a close person who came one day after a lecture in great enthusiasm. We sat at a lecture in the library for the blind, he said, lecturers succeeded one another.

It was very interesting. Among the lecturers, a young man in a neat elegant suit was waiting for his word. He did not stand out among the others and we did not pay attention to him at all, but now it was his turn.

He got up and confidently walked to his seat in front of the audience and told us what opportunities modern technologies have for blind and visually impaired people, and specifically about the possibilities in the field of the Internet. At the same time, he actively and deftly showed how his own personal gadgets work.

Then he had to show how a stationary computer works. He went into another room and confidently sat down at the computer and very quickly, gliding over the keys with the fingers of his right and left hands, walked around various sites, showing us Internet resources for the blind.

How blind people live. Blindness is not a hindrance to success

Our surprise was great when we realized that Sasha, that was the name of the young man, was completely blind himself, that is, he could not see anything. He does not even feel the light, that is, he cannot approach the window, guided by the source of light, only by ear and with the help of a cane.

What does a blind person see? Try it, blindfold your eyes with a thick cloth, and you will understand how a blind person feels. Black haze.

Somewhere in Europe there is a restaurant where people sit and try to eat in complete darkness.They say that few endure until the end of the meal, but Sasha lives like this all the time.

We were shocked how he walks alone, without the help of other people. Our surprise became even greater when we found out that he lives quite far away, at the other end of our million-strong city, and every day makes his way from home to work with two transfers.

How he does it is mind boggling. We just complained to each other about how hard it was for us to get to the place of the lecture in the cold, how slippery it was, how hard it was to go through snowdrifts after a night snowfall.

And how could he, blind, be able to overcome all this. Our complaints now seem ridiculous to us. Everyone fell silent and respectfully began to listen to Sasha's story.

The life of blind people. The story of the blind boy

Sasha went blind at the age of 12, after an absurd accident when he played with firecrackers with other boys. There was an explosion and Sasha received severe burns in both eyes.

Along with his vision, he lost two fingers on his right hand. The question arose how to live on. Together with his parents, he decided not to give up, but to become an educated person and use all the possibilities of modern civilization.

“Yes,” says Sasha himself, it was very difficult. At first, I was completely attached to my parents. They met and escorted me to and from school.

But by the age of 16, I realized that if this continues, then I will remain attached to someone, I will not be able to live my own life, become independent and not achieve success.

I put in front of me , achieve everything that ordinary people want to achieve and help other blind people achieve their goal. I decided to start with the simplest for all other children, but very difficult for me goal - to become a free person in my movements.

And one day, getting up early in the morning, before my parents got up, I quietly packed up and went to school on my own, which I had never done before. As it turned out later, my mother heard everything, but, having understood my idea, she made an effort on herself and did not stop me.

She just followed me out the window. It was also a victory for her, because it is very difficult to let go of your loved one in such a situation, to understand and give him the opportunity to go towards his goal in achieving success.

Without interfering with me, thus my mother supported me in difficult times.

Before Alexander was a picture, like a photo, what he would like to achieve and he decided to go to this picture, to this happy photo. Blind people do not dream like sighted people, their dreams seem to healthy people without value.

And for them, just walking down the street is akin to a feat.

Strength of will. Life of a disabled person and life with a disabled person

Sasha went to school. It was his first small victory, his personal success, the first rung on his long and difficult ladder of success.

But, I was not going to stop there, Sasha continues, I have always been fascinated by computer technology. I spent a lot of time at the computer while I was still sighted.

And I entered the Institute of Information Technology and graduated from it. He became the chief IT specialist in the library for the blind. And I also work on the Internet, using its huge opportunities.

I recently got my wife involved in this. By the way, she has a webinar tonight, he admits. In general, she is a massage therapist, but so far she does not work in her specialty and I attracted her to .

Very comfortably. She sits at home, but does not turn into a housewife, but works and feels confident. And, here's the clue, we thought, probably, after all, his wife helps him. But, to our great surprise, it turned out that the wife is also blind and they live separately from their parents.

By the way, they themselves earned an apartment and bought it. They also recently had a baby. He is sighted, and of course, his parents will do everything to make him successful.

And how could it be otherwise, when such parents are in front of your eyes. Such a family, such a path to success.

So, friends, nothing is impossible. If you want something, set goals one by one. Build your . Go to them without giving up. Use all your possibilities at 100%.

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A person receives information about the world around us mainly through the organs of vision. However, there are people who are blind from birth. Have you ever wondered what blind people see? What are they dreaming about? You will find answers to these questions in this article.

Try to close your eyes very tightly. What do you see. The black haze is sometimes illuminated by luminous spots. It is this condition that a healthy person means by the concept of blindness. However, we do not know what darkness is for the blind, how he interprets it. It all depends on when and under what circumstances a person lost his sight.

• If the patient is blind at a conscious age, he thinks in pictures that he has already seen and remembered. Images appear before his eyes after he smells a familiar smell or hears a certain sound. For example, such a person hears the sound of water, and represents the sea, the river. Warmth in such people is often associated with the sky and the bright sun.
• A person cannot remember a lot of information to create visual images in his head. However, he can remember and understand the meaning of the color. Basically, such patients perceive the world through sounds, smells and touch.
• People blind from birth perceive the world differently than everyone else. They have never seen with their eyes any images, colors. This part of the brain is turned off as unnecessary. They have absolutely no association between the subject and the image. They can't even understand the expression "see." Blind from birth can learn the names of objects and colors, but when pronouncing these words, he will not have any associations and images.

Echolocation replaces vision for the blind

As mentioned above, a sighted person receives 90% of the information through vision. The opposite is true for the blind. The main facet of feelings for him is hearing. Scientists have proven that blind people have better hearing than sighted people. Because of this feature, one can often meet brilliant musicians among the blind. Charles Ray and Art Tatum are the best proof of this.

The blind not only hear well, but in some cases can use echolocation - the ability to recognize sound waves reflected from an object. With the help of hearing, a blind person can almost accurately determine the distance to an object, calculate its size.

Not so long ago, echolocation was not recognized by scientists. Everyone considered this ability some kind of fiction. Echolocation is an integral part of life for bats, dolphins, and now a blind person. For the first time, Daniel Kish, blind from infancy, ventured to apply the technique. With this ability, he was able to lead the life of an ordinary person. Daniel constantly clicks his tongue. Directional outgoing sound is reflected from the objects around him, and gives him a complete picture of the environment. Unfortunately, Daniel's method has not yet been widely adopted, and is not recognized by scientists.

The blind know the world by touch

How do the blind, who are also deaf, see? Such people perceive the world around them through touch. If the blind-deaf have lost their abilities at a conscious age, then it is enough for them to touch any object so that its image appears before their eyes.

Blind and deaf people are connected with the outside world by touch. Especially for such patients, a system called dactylology has been developed. It allows the disabled person to communicate with others. In addition, each finger sign denotes a specific letter or word. Such people can even read Braille books. In such editions, the letters are raised symbols that are understandable for reading only by the blind and deaf. However, this system has one significant drawback - if a person is disabled from birth, he will not be able to learn the font. Such patients have to learn the world only through vibrations and by touch.

How did I go blind

In 2006, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fortunately, it turned out to be benign, and I was operated on. Everything would be fine, but during the treatment I lost my sight.
Then my twin sister Natalya helped me a lot. At some point, she said: “You are only blind. Life doesn't end there." And I took her words as a guide to action.

Yes, I'm blind. Well, so what? I have arms and legs. I can do a lot. Then she asked her sister for knitting needles, yarn and tried to knit. It turned out badly. Everyone around said that I was doing nonsense, and the blind need to learn everything again. At first I was upset, and then I realized that before losing my sight I worked at a school, taught Russian language and literature to children. If I could teach others, I can teach myself. I continued to knit and started studying the Braille tutorial.

How I started creating

I sincerely believe that all emotions, dreams and goals originate from childhood. At the same time, everything that encourages a person to choose a life path is laid. As a child, my mother taught me to draw - I remember how she mixed paints, talked about colors ... It turned out that I can live without vision, but I cannot do without drawing. But how do you draw when you can't see? Then I decided to knit a pattern. After all, if a blind person cannot see a flat image, it is necessary to make it three-dimensional.

Little by little I got used to knitting blindly. The main problem was that she could not independently determine the color of the yarn. Then it dawned on me: Braille came up with 63 combinations of six dots to denote letters, numbers, signs. I also need to come up with my own alphabet of color in order to knit and not disturb anyone with questions. Then, with the help of my nephew, I marked all the balls of thread with knots and loops according to associations: blue yarn ─ this is a dove berry ─ a knot. Red ─ similar to a tomato ─ loop. Black ─ four little black grimy little imps ─ four loops.

Now I have a lot of knitted pictures. Several exhibitions were organized, including one at the Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired. There are paintings with fairy-tale characters, city views, self-portraits, where I depict myself in dark glasses. I remember the colors of the world well and believe that I convey them correctly. If I draw the sea, then I weave green yarn into blue: marsh, light green, emerald.

How I was morally destroyed

“They teach you how to live there,” is how they described the rehabilitation center for the visually impaired on Dzhambul Street, 3. In fact, they taught me to read and write in Braille, work on a computer with a sound program, and move around the city on my own.

I went to rehab twice. After the first course, she went to a sanatorium for the visually impaired in Gelendzhik. There, each blind person is assigned an escort, a kind of escort. This woman would not let a step go without her and kept everything under vigilant control - she stifled all independence in the bud.

When I returned home, I realized that I was morally destroyed. Everything that had been worked out with such difficulty disappeared, and the panic fear of the city returned. I had to go through rehab. At the orienteering class, I asked the teacher if there were cases of a blind man being robbed or offended. She said that in her 40 years of work, she had never encountered such a thing.

I shared my fears with a psychologist. She advised me to tie up my fear and bring it. At home, I chose black yarn and twisted it into something creepy, resembling a burnt pancake. Thought I'd work on my problem. And the next day I’m looking for this pancake and I can’t find it - I dropped it, that means. The psychologist asks me: “Well, Tatyana Petrovna, did you bring your fear?” I answer: "No, I lost it somewhere."

I realized that there is nothing to be afraid of. In St. Petersburg people are special: cultured, sympathetic. It is best for the blind to live here - as soon as you leave the house, they immediately offer you help.

How do the sense organs change?

Some people think that the blind hear better, but they don't. Blind people simply hear more. For example, I hear the mood of a person, his state, reactions. Everyone, regardless of their desires, gives an assessment of what is happening. My task is to hear how he sounds, with what intonation he speaks.

They also say that the blind have a well-developed ear for music, and the loss of sight activates other senses. This is partly true, but only an ear for music is a talent. And it has nothing to do with blindness. How many famous blind singers do we have in Russia? One Diana Gurtskaya and only.

Previous experience helps to rebuild. In this regard, it is much easier for blind people than for those who are blind from birth. We have seen a lot and know firsthand. The most difficult thing is to survive this loss.
For the blind from birth there are special programs through which they are introduced to the world around them. In our special library, for example, the blind are introduced by touch to Fragonard's painting The Secret Kiss. A whole album is dedicated to her, where each fragment is presented in close-up. A fan, dresses, a scarf - everything can be touched: “examine”.

How to live without seeing anything

To be honest, you can get used to everything. I work on a computer with a sound program, I read Braille (not fluent, but still). On the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the Society of the Blind, we were presented with a device for converting flat-printed text into Braille. Now it is enough to load sheets with text into the typewriter and get three-dimensional letters at the output. In general, the process is simple.

Even the city is not so badly adapted for the blind: there are sound traffic lights, friendly people. Although, of course, you should not expect that everyone is trying to help you.
To be honest, what the blind lack is not the slats along the houses and signs in Braille. The blind need employment. This is a great way to provide financial and moral support. But there are far fewer jobs than the blind, unfortunately.

In the All-Russian Society of the Blind, they told me that before the revolution the situation was terrible: either a person stood on the porch, or hung on the neck of relatives. The first blind person received his higher education in 1950, and the massage department for the blind, that is, a real job opportunity, opened only 25 years ago.

Most people are psychologically crippled by blindness. We just don’t know about it, because they live like moles: they don’t go out into the light, they sit at home, they are afraid, they are embarrassed. They do not understand how a blind man can decide to go out into the city, move freely, go down the subway. I want to tell them all: "Get a cane and overcome difficulties!"

How did I find a job

I work as a waiter-guide in the restaurant "Dans le noir?", where all the visitors taste the dishes in complete darkness. Guests can choose from four menu options: fish, vegetarian, meat and a surprise menu. Without lighting, people rely solely on smell and taste to taste food and drink, and begin to better understand their feelings when communicating with each other.

It happens that a person comes to a restaurant who does not know why he is here. My task is to show him that being in the dark is tantamount to diving under water. This is a completely different world, but it is also very interesting in it. It is necessary to enjoy what is happening while there is such an opportunity, and then everything will end: a person will come into the world and find himself in a familiar environment.

Most often in "Dans le noir?" lovers go on a date. At the end of dinner, I invite them to describe each other. And so the young man says that his girlfriend is the most beautiful, and she, in turn, that he is dear and the only one. Then I ask them to remember this moment, because here and now they did not see each other with their eyes, but they saw with their hearts.