Alexander Stadnichenko

Artem Berman: Look, I want to tell you something. I will be telling you the same things as I tell everyone. Well, the story is that I am doing my Ph.D. at Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, that is in Spain. The topic is the impact of the digital economy on the employment of people with disabilities. Well, whether it has changed or not, taking into account the new opportunities that this digital economy can offer, or whether there are other factors that influence the economy. Then I thought, since I have these interviews, I can use them for publication on this website. That’s the whole story. Let’s start. In short, we have approximately 22 questions. Well, the research is qualitative. This means that the questions will be maximally open-ended, I mean implying the possibility of giving a detailed reply, expressing your opinion and sharing impressions. So, there are three types of questionnaire: “I have never worked,” “I was employed, but I am not employed presently” and “I am currently employed.” Well, given all that, I think it is the third one.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes, work is immortal like a little pony.

Artem Berman: So, we have “I am currently employed”.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes. I am currently employed.

Artem Berman: The first questions are very easy. They are just formal. The first one, “Do you allow your interview to be used for scientific research work?”

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes, of course, I allow it.

Artem Berman: Do you allow your interview to be published on this website?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes, I allow it.

Artem Berman: Would you like your real name or pseudonym to be used?

Alexander Stadnichenko: My real name.

Artem Berman: Well, your name…

Alexander Stadnichenko: Alexander Vladimirovich Stadnichenko.

Artem Berman: Okay, the fifth one is “Contact information”. E-mail, phone. Well, it seems to me, I have your phone, and we are connected…

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, if necessary, I will provide you with my e-mail.

Artem Berman: Yes. How old are you?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Let me count… Thirty-six, seven … What year is it? Eighteenth.

Artem Berman: Eighteenth.

Alexander Stadnichenko: I was born in October 1981.

Artem Berman: Well, you gotta be kidding me.

Alexander Stadnichenko: [laughter]

Artem Berman: How old is he?

Male voice: He will be 37 this November. October.

Artem Berman: 36 years old, then. You are still young. I am 42. The seventh question – gender?

Male voice: [laughter]. No way!

Artem Berman: Surprise.

Alexander Stadnichenko: No-no-no.

Artem Berman: Are you living independently or with parents/other relatives?

Alexander Stadnichenko: I am living with my parents.

Artem Berman: What kind of disability do you have? Politically correct words are rare in Russian.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, I got it.

Artem Berman: So, give the information you think is necessary to be given – what happened, when it happened, at what age – either injury or …

Alexander Stadnichenko: I have progressive muscle dystrophy. It is colloquially known as myopathy. It is a muscular disease that is supposedly genetic, supposedly hereditary, but I do not notice any heredity. That is, I have some rare mutated form. Most likely, it is after Chernobyl. I mean, it began to progress when I was 6-7 years old.

Artem Berman: Okay. How did it influence your life in all aspects – social, family, personal, opportunities to get an education, professional, etc.? Speak up.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Come on, speak up. And clowns at this moment. Well, it influenced a lot. It can be said, I have still survived. That’s good. Because it’s not a fact that I would have survived this long if I walked on my own feet. It’s because I climbed where I couldn’t. Even in a wheelchair, I manage to climb into places where they then have to pull me out with a truck. That’s it. The better the jeep, the farther you will run for the tank… for the tractor. That’s it. Well, it is difficult at first, but then you become a kind of bulldozer, a locomotive, a diesel locomotive. And you just trudge on and … What limitations?! I have no limitations. I just have certain difficulties, certain variations, and I look for solutions. As for me, I have a very cheerful life. It is a life with its own, let’s say, subtleties, but it can be said that it is more developed and eventful than most of the crowd’s.

Artem Berman: Well, to some extent, yes, I understand what you are talking about. What were the problems, the difficulties initially? My understanding is that it began to progress at the age of 6 or 7. Did you go to a regular school or were you homeschooled?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes, I mean, it was a regular school. Well, originally I… I went to a regular school, I mean, up to the third grade. Accordingly, the progression of the disease went on, etc. I started going to hospitals and examinations. Another thing was the lack of education. I mean I missed a lot, and then they homeschooled me, but that was during the perestroika of the USSR… The teachers simply stopped coming to the house. I mean no one … I mean, I can say that I have a 3rd-grade education.

Artem Berman: You mean, formally.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, formally, yes. Then I studied some things with my parents, with some things my sister helped me. That’s it. A teacher came once every three or six months. I have an official paper about finishing nine grades, and that’s it.

Artem Berman: How did your social rehabilitation begin? What was the process of returning, well, or, so to say, getting back into society? What or who helped? What or who were the obstacles?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, you can say that. There were lots of sticks and stones. Besides that, I ended up in a wheelchair at the age of 13; I was already moving around only in the wheelchair, we also had a house with stairs and a lot … To leave the house … Stairs. So, it can be said that there were various banal difficulties. It can be said that the teenager was isolated, and then, as they say, got lucky. My father and I met… We were driving by car, coming back, and Nikolai Podrezan was standing on the road. I don’t know whether anyone knows him or not. He shouted something. We took him to the center and got acquainted. He was already at that time a spinal invalid with experience; he had his IP phone. So to say, he began to show and tell, in principle, yes, some literature that was new at that time. We didn’t have the Internet at that time, yes. I mean, the Internet appeared when I was 14 or 15. I mean it was already after our meeting. I mean we started to find out something somehow. Podrezan also advised me to go to a sanatorium. My first sanatorium was Slavyansk; I saw a lot of people there who were the same. I mean, I saw people, I saw that they had an active way of life. Someone is plunging, someone is banging, someone does something else, and I realized that until you pull yourself together, no one will give you a magic push. Well, that’s it, I started to progress. In general, there was a lot of volunteering activity in my youth. I took part in different events, attended some foundations and organizations. I mean, first I went, and they trained me, yeah. However, after 3-4 years, at the age of 19 or 18, I was already a volunteer who showed and told young people everything. There was even a story when we were invited. It was not a rehabilitation center, but a meeting in Pushcha Voditsa. All of the organizations for people with disabilities had meetings there. Well, and I went there just in case. Well, I spent 90 percent of my time talking to volunteers and kids with mothers with AIDS and HIV. We organized children’s theaters, talked and showed something. Let’s just say, I started to have an active social life. All this was up to a certain point. Well, then I realized that all the social things were good, but you needed to eat and earn, that’s it. And then I started to have jobs – the first, the second, the third – for someone.

Artem Berman: Well, in principle, it corresponds, so to speak, to the path of any person with two legs. Somehow.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes.

Artem Berman: Roughly speaking.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, if you analyze everything, where a healthy person actively took part in different projects, helped with something during his/her student life, I just had my social activity. I mean, I did not study anywhere, well, only sanatoriums, rehabilitation centers, and camps. That is the same thing.

Artem Berman: Are you receiving support (some special treatment related to your disability) from the organization where you are employed? What kind of support?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, yes, I got it. Well, yes. Well, when I worked for others, there were no indulgences. I mean, I had a full schedule, as expected, and got the same salary.

Artem Berman: Did you work remotely or in the office?

Alexander Stadnichenko: I worked remotely. All my work was remote, but there were even occasions when sometimes I went to the office if it was necessary. So I didn’t have indulgences. In principle, if necessary, I got to work. Well, social, yes, benefits, help …

Artem Berman: Especially from the employer…

Alexander Stadnichenko: No, none whatsoever. I mean, I even tried to raise the question that freelancers earn more because they do not use, roughly speaking, office tea, coffee, yes, and electricity. And they have higher salaries, as in many countries. However, such arguments did not help. Accordingly, I had the same salary as office workers had.

Artem Berman: Got it. Again, it is more about your experience of working for someone. Have you ever been promoted? Do you see the career path? Do you perceive yourself as a candidate for promotion? Why? Why not?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes. I can say that I am proud of the fact that no one ever got me a job, neither through acquaintances nor through family connections. I mean I always found work independently, or someone approached me because I was already a specialist. Yes, there are no indulgences. I mean I came to the workplace. If I saw opportunities for career growth, I got down to it, did a certain amount of work, showed the management that I could do more than that. And it happened that I came in as a sales manager, and three months later I was already the head of the sales department.

Artem Berman: What would you call the main difficulties or challenges in your work?

Alexander Stadnichenko: The biggest difficulty is that I need to be in two places at the same time, or, in principle, to be somewhere. And it’s not always easy – to stand up and run, yes.

Artem Berman: Yes.

Alexander Stadnichenko: First of all, the transport issue, because you need to have access to a car, a driver. Secondly, you need time. Disability requires more time for dressing, changing places, moving around. And then you understand that if you had two legs, you would do everything in half a day, yes. Now I understand that I need to spend the whole day, and it’s not a fact that I will manage in time. So, sometimes it hinders a little, it slows things down. I mean you need to choose priorities, and, well, to cut out the fluff. Well, there are certain difficulties in this context.

Artem Berman: And what was the main reason for you to start working at the time and continue to work now?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, I mean, the first push was that I wanted some candy or some kind of little things. Yes, that is, my first earnings began when I got a computer at the age of 15. I mean I started to earn some money typing texts, etc. I already understood then that having your own earnings meant that it was your money that you earned, and you could invest it both in your family and in your own things, and you don’t need to run and ask your parents for money.

Artem Berman: Yes.

Alexander Stadnichenko: And vice versa, to help them, yes. And then a desire to earn appeared when I understood that I wanted to have my own private life.
Yes, I mean I understood that if I wanted to build my private life, I needed not just ‘hee-hee’, ‘ha-ha’, yes, and miserable money, but a stable income. And when I had a stable income, I already understood that I could move ahead. I mean, my horizons expanded immediately, and I realized that you could have middle management that will work for you instead of being this middle management and working for someone.

Artem Berman: Can you imagine yourself not working and what would be the consequences of such a decision, say, or such an event?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Not working, yes. I can imagine myself not working, having a big enough capital, really such a huge capital. I would like to spend time, well, on trips, yes. However, however, I would still have people who would implement my ideas, I mean, you can say, I’m a creative person, yes! I came up with the idea of a single wheelchair, a wheelchair, yes, which would be compact, but all-terrain, and I want to make it come true. Well, yes, the idea of some other kind of device came up. Well, I can rough it out on napkins or something else. I want someone to build it, but I do not want to waste time on it. That is, yes, I want to spend time with pleasure, but some ideas, it’s, you can say, a hobby.

Artem Berman: So, theoretically, the entrepreneurial spirit exists.

Alexander Stadnichenko: In theory, I could supposedly do nothing, but I would do things for my own pleasure.

Artem Berman: Well, in fact, this is a financial issue now, and if we return to the real world, then…

Alexander Stadnichenko: In the real world, I now push hard from morning to night and understand that if I have a blind spot, then I will let someone slip ahead, and I will no longer need to gain momentum but to catch up. And I do not want to catch up, I want to continue to gain momentum.

Artem Berman: You need to run very fast just to stay in the same place.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, something like this, yes.

Artem Berman: Do you consider work an important way of rehabilitation and integration of a person with disabilities into society?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Definitely yes. Now I communicate with a large number of people with disabilities. They are divided into several categories, yes: people who work, people who somehow somewhere work alongside something else, and the disabled. That’s it. Yes. Accordingly, the third category, the disabled, yes, they sit, they chew snot, they want to get some kind of mythical bonus from somewhere, yes, for handouts to happen without doing anything, and they are surprised why they have nothing. I mean, believe me, as soon as a person becomes a person, once he is socially adapted, no one owes him anything, he needs to earn, work, be socially useful. I mean, even in the wild, a creature that does nothing but only eats is a parasite, well, to draw a parallel. And one parasite seems to be fine, but when there are a lot of them, society cannot sustain it and gets sick with cancer.

Artem Berman: Is the place where you are currently working your first workplace, and if not, why did you leave your previous jobs?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes. The current place of work is not the first. It’s really hard to say how many jobs I have changed. A couple of years ago I was trying to write my resume, and it turned out to be 3 Word pages. And that was just what I remembered. And every time it was a desire to move ahead. I realized that I had grown out of it long before. Starting to work at a certain place, yes, I mean, working for someone, not for myself, within 1-2-3 months I realized that it was primitive, and if there was no growth, I was already getting bored. I mean I see no reason to work in the same place for ten years, getting the same salary, without the possibility of any growth, I mean, well, my ambitions gave me no peace. I mean, why can’t I do more, right? I mean I can do it, give me the opportunity, yes. Well, I’ll show you, I can do this, let me move ahead, well, I mean, don’t hold me at a standstill. And if there was an opportunity, yes, I could move ahead, I, yes, would gain momentum, yes, I would climb the ladder, etc. If not, then excuse me, I will be moving on, I will be looking for options. Well, accordingly, there was only one moment when I had to take a step back in my life, yes. So. However, I always progressed, I mean more-more-more, more-more-more. That’s it.

Artem Berman: What does your family think about your job? Do they support you or not? Do they motivate you or not?

Alexander Stadnichenko: They always support me. I believe that they are happy that their son is not a loafer, not an alcoholic, that he does not sit and complain like, give me money, everyone owes me. I mean, it can be said that my parents are overprotective when I work too much or something. It’s like, “Stop for a bit; you can’t make all the money.” Well, well, it’s clear. On the other hand, in the beginning, when I started something new, they had a fear, “Where are you going? And why do you need this? And what are you doing?”. Now, when I say that everything will be fine, it’s, “Well, if you are sure, then everything will be fine.” They already trust me, and…

Artem Berman: The question is not very suitable for you because of the absence of any formal university education. We can skip. The question is, “Is your work connected with your education? Does your higher education help you have more opportunities to find work, and how do you maintain the current level of your specialization?”

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, yes, in principle, I can also answer this question. That is, I had a desire, as they say, in my youth, yes, out of my stupidity. I thought, “Maybe journalism?” I mean, there was a desire to enter a technical university. But, again, I understood that only a few of my friends had work connected with their education.
I mean, let’s say, I think a doctor should get an education, yes. But this is specific, yes. A lawyer should receive an education, yes. A person who works as, let’s say, a physicist. I mean, all the others, that is, there still are some specific ones, yes.

Artem Berman: Yes, specific.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Others, well, I see no reason, and whenever I had the thought, “Maybe I should go to study,” every time I thought, “What for?” I mean I changed my profession, my direction, well, really, quite radically, and you cannot say… I mean, I worked in the news department – wrote news, and we can say, I was a journalist, something like that, yes. I worked in online stores as a sales manager. I had lots of jobs, yes. I worked in call centers. I worked as a social worker, yes. Now I work as a technical, yes, engineer, you can say. Well, the directions are a bit different. So, roughly speaking, had I gotten an education, having spent five years of my life on this so-called unnecessary thing, one might say, unnecessary things, I would have lost out a little.

Artem Berman: If a person has a linguist’s diploma in English, then who am I, right?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, it seems, yes.

Artem Berman: How do you maintain the level of what you are currently doing? For example, the Internet, magazines, I do not know, communication, the level in the profession, whatever the profession is.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Okay, I got the question. Well, with the advent of the Internet everything has become much easier. You can always download some literature, watch videos and everything else.
At the moment, roughly speaking, it concerns construction, yes, engineering of some kind of designs. I have an idea-task in my head, yes. I see how it can be realized. And then I look for options, on the Internet, yes, what can be similar, options. Sometimes the literature about the construction of bridges can help in the construction of a wheelchair. It is because it is also frameworks or something. I mean now I use the Internet, yes. I’m looking for variants of some solutions, looking in broad circles that can somehow come into contact. Accordingly, through my attempts, yeah, there are one, two, three, four people, who are specialists in this or that aspect, whom I can count on for advice. It may not always be directly related to my task, but, it can be said, thoughts or some ideas will somehow be added into this concept.

Artem Berman: Let’s go on. Are you receiving any financial support from the state? If so, what percentage (not necessarily to name the figures) of your total income is a pension?

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes. Good question. I had, well, let’s discuss it a bit, yeah.
For a person with a disability of the first group, yes, for a person with a disability of the first group, only two years of work experience are enough to receive a labor pension. I have about ten years of work experience. I mean I had many jobs recorded in the employment record book. Also, I believed very naively that I would receive an adequate labor pension, yeah. Recently, I left the labor pension, gave it up in disgust and washed my hands of it. It is 1450 or 1440 hryvnia. You can convert it into dollars, yeah.

Artem Berman: 50.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, something like that. Now I have moved to a so-called social pension. And it is already 2150 or 2170, well, to cut it short, 2200 hryvnia, approximately.

Artem Berman: 90-85.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, yes, I hope I will never have to live on my pension. That is, well, this is a negligible percentage of the income that I have today. And I understand that a pensioner, yes, can’t live on a pension … I do not know, I look with horror at elderly people who are alone, who have such pensions, and it scares me. Well, I. I do not mean cats, dogs or anyone else, I feel sorry for really old people who have worked all their lives, slaved away, and get minuscule money now, and when an old woman faces the choice of buying a loaf of bread or some pills… It’s just, well… It’s scary, it’s just scary.

Artem Berman: Are you satisfied with your current level of income?

Alexander Stadnichenko: No, of course not! Multiply it, well, at least by ten, yes, and that would be a normal living wage.

Artem Berman: Okay, yes. Look, we’ve already reached the last question. It is a kind of philosophical one; it consists of several questions. So you can answer as you wish. So, the final one. I would like you to describe yourself in your own words. To do this, please complete the following phrases. The first is very open – “I …”.

Alexander Stadnichenko: I do funny things and get on with it. I build both my life and its directions nowadays, with adjustments for life.

Artem Berman: Okay.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, that’s it.

Artem Berman: Yes. Taking into account that the disease happened early enough, it could be difficult to answer, but, “Before the trauma or before the disability I was….”

Alexander Stadnichenko: Before I was injured, I was like a juvenile go-getter, and I stayed one, well … Although, yes, I can answer, I have often observed that when a person, roughly speaking, was injured, there, at the age of 15-17, yes, he/she approximately remained at the same level. Well, it does not mean that he/she is behind the times, but he/she somehow gets stuck in that same period. But, I think, it depends on the person. The person either wants to develop and trudge on, or he is comfortable in that …

Artem Berman: State.

Alexander Stadnichenko: In which he is. And it is already …

Artem Berman: Although if we talk philosophically, many people with two legs do not want to start working nowadays. The day before yesterday I read in El Pais that in Aragon parents took their 35-year-old child to court, and according to the court decision he is obliged to leave their home and start living independently.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, yes, I’ve noticed this a lot.

Artem Berman: It seems they got tired of a 35-year-old man living off his mother and father.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes, I have also noticed a lot that people who have legs and hands either complain, or don’t want to, or something else. And there was such a case when a girl told me that she was so tired, so tired of supporting her husband, family, everything. When I asked what had happened to the husband, well, actually, what the problem was – he had an amputation up to the knee. I mean…

Artem Berman: Yes, what a tragedy.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes.

Artem Berman: And he also had severe pressure sores several times, because he just lay there, she even cleans the urinal for him.

Artem Berman: Both legs to the knee?

Alexander Stadnichenko: One leg up to the knee. Yes. And I kept struggling with this. And I decided not to comment, not to answer, nothing, because there was a solid …

Artem Berman: I have noticed a tendency that the earlier a person experiences a trauma or a disease, the higher the probability that he will try…

Alexander Stadnichenko: To adapt.

Artem Berman: Yes, to break in. It’s because you have lived to 25, and suddenly… However, to think that the loss of one leg is a disability…

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes, I agree, but again it depends on lots of factors. Roughly speaking, well, the fact that I was in the camps of active rehabilitation in my youth, at different similar events, it can be said like this, many people, leaders, took their places before my eyes. I mean, not thousands, but several hundred people passed before my eyes, and they were breaking themselves, some had just recently broken. And, well, let’s just say, 5 percent of these people lead an active way of life nowadays, they are active social people. Someone has a business, somebody has some kind of activity or something, yes. And the other people disappeared somewhere – they are neither to be seen nor heard. It’s possible to say the rest came to nothing. Someone does not work at all, lives on a pension. I have one friend who lives on a pension, yeah. “I have enough money for beer and cigarettes, and it’s enough for me.” That’s it. And…

Artem Berman: Well, again, if we make a comparison with the world of healthy people…

Alexander Stadnichenko: That’s the point.

Artem Berman: It is also a huge percentage, as they say, life is not bad when you have bread.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, when I started, when I had my first idea, why couldn’t I create my own online shop, and when I told people, “Let’s do it.” Yes, healthy people, yes, as you say, in quotes, and everything else, but it’s all how, and what. People have fear. A person has taken his social niche, yes, and there is no movement – not a step to the side. Why can’t I do this? Someone does it, yes, the same as me, someone does it, with the same hands, legs, head, yes, why can’t I do it too?

Artem Berman: Well, the next one, “I am able to…”

Alexander Stadnichenko: Give me a foothold, and I’ll get up from the table. I am able; I can do a lot. The question is motivation, necessity and … Let’s say, if I need something, I will apply 120% of the effort to achieve it. I don’t see anything that cannot be done. It’s just a matter of time, finances and needs.

Artem Berman: Yes. “In the future I….”

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes. I will be the funny optimist who goes on behaving eccentrically and getting on with his life.

Artem Berman: Okay. And the last two questions. One of them is positive, and one of them is negative. The negative one is “I am afraid of…” Answer within your comfort zone.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Yes, got it. I have not been afraid of spiders for a long time. I’m afraid … Well, in principle, it is stupid to be afraid of something. That’s it. Everything that is going on, it either should happen, or it is stupid to be afraid of it.

Artem Berman: I have recently read this: You do not need to worry at all – it makes no sense to worry about little things, and it’s too late to worry about serious things.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Well, yes. I see no reason to worry about something that hasn’t happened yet, and maybe won’t happen. We need to deal with things as they come.

Artem Berman: The last one, “I want…”

Alexander Stadnichenko: I want… Well, ideally, I want to have 1.3 billion or at least 130 million, and then I can figure out what to do. Well, or at least the minimum for today – it’s … I would like to have a comfortable motorhome, a full tank every month, to drive around the world for several months, years.

Artem Berman: Okay, I got it. I am pressing “pause.” Thank you.

Alexander Stadnichenko: Thank you.

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Photographer Olenka Galay