No excuses: "The state is me" - an interview with Roman Aranin

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Roman Aranin is a former pilot and now a businessman who created the Observer company, which makes Rolls-Royces in the world of wheelchair vehicles. After an unsuccessful paragliding flight, Roman was seriously injured, but this did not make him look for any excuses.

The conversation with Roman turned out to be incredibly kind and endlessly exciting. We talked about our country, about business and about people. Roman is a man who is truly in love with life. And she seems to reciprocate.

Airplane man

- Hello, Nastya! You have a wonderful special project.

- I have a classic Soviet family: my mother is a teacher, my father is a military man. Therefore, from the memories - airfields and airplanes buzzing overhead. Born in the Saratov region, Sennaya station. Then my father was transferred to Kyrgyzstan, then to Alma-Ata. There I finished school.

- No. I easily readjusted. I liked new schools and new people. In general, I like people.:)

- Yes. There was no question of who to be. Airplanes fly overhead - who else to be? At the age of 14 I was already in the flying club, and at 15 I flew on a sports plane on my own. In the 10th grade, I went to the airfield with the booklet "Instructions for the pilot of the Yak-52 aircraft" under my arm. And the pilot is you and you are …

Flying is really cool. You look out the window - only a gray sky, and you get on a plane, break through the clouds, and there - a blue sky and white fluffy clouds below.

- In 1992, they only came to the service to teach "materiel" and paint curbs. As an officer … There was no kerosene. There were no apartments. There was no money.

And I am a proud mountaineer. I already had a family, a wife and a child, I had to support them with dignity.

Besides, I am a creative person. And the army without flying to creativity has a very indirect relationship.

In Russia, business was just emerging. I went there.

Crazy race

- Well, about how he sold sandwiches, probably not worth it …

- It was.:)

Even in that dark time, the pilots were well fed - cutlets, meat, chocolates. But the people did not go to these dinners - 4th year, all are already married. I collected these cutlets, took a white coat from the girls in the medical unit and went to the station to sell sandwiches. The barmaid's aunt had sandwiches on the wind, with a thin piece of bread and one cutlet. And I have a thick piece of bread, a layer of butter, two cutlets and prices are 2 times lower. The competition was unequal - the barmaid tracked me down and handed me over to the police. They took me away, called the military prosecutor's office - the case was on the way to expulsion. Of course, he fell to his knees, showed a photo of his wife and daughter - they let him go, but they said “So that you are not here anymore!”.

- Then he retired from the army, returned to Alma-Ata, took a couple of overcoats left over from the service, and left for China. I sold them there. My parents gave birth to a dog - I also took this money. This is how the start-up capital appeared for the first business - the R-Style company, which is still operating.

- Before the injury, there was some kind of crazy race. I remember well my feeling: everything seems to be there (strong business, some kind of business), everything is working out, and you are a deeply unhappy person.

It may sound strange, but after the injury, I found happiness. Even a year after her, when nothing was still moving, I was a happy person.

Just imagine, I am walking with friends (I am traveling in a wheelchair in a reclining state, because I could not really sit), we pass by the Kaliningrad Cathedral. A beautiful ancient building - 750 years old, the Teutons were still building. And I understand that every morning I ran here, walked the dog. But I didn't see any of that. And now I am driving and I see a cathedral, beautiful leaves, chestnuts, sky …

Probably, I should have stopped and see how wonderful this life is.

- On the contrary, after the injury I had a constant stream of friends and acquaintances. Surprisingly, people brought their problems to me. Rather, they seemed to come to visit, but it turned out that they poured all their difficulties on me.

Probably, I was just a very patient listener - you can't run away anywhere.:) And they weighed their problems and mine (mine, as a rule, outweighed "a little") and calmed down.

Now, of course, no one perceives me as an invalid. They only come for business advice.

Tanks are not afraid of dirt

- Speaking about wheelchairs, you need to understand what degrees of limitation a person has. People are accustomed to the fact that a wheelchair user is a person who actively turns the wheels. When only the legs are paralyzed, and the hands are working, you cannot think of anything better than an “active”.

I was a little less fortunate. It turned out that the first time after the injury I could only move my lips and blink. The standard wheelchair was not for me.

The task was to get out of the house.

I have a friend - Boris Efimov. Together we went to the mountains in Alma-Ata, together we entered the flying club. He has an absolutely brilliant technical mind. Back in school, we made some kind of light and music, sorted out engines and so on. He became my Observer companion.

With him, we began to think about how to solve the problem. And they came up with a gyroscope under the seat of the stroller, which tracks the position of the stroller in space and keeps the chair in the horizon. That is, the frame with wheels can be at an angle of 30-35º, but you will not feel it - as you sat straight, you will sit. This idea came to us after I, going down to the sea, fell out of the carriage with my face on the asphalt. The Observer was born.

Another person joined us - Yura Zakharov (once my personal assistant, and now my deputy).

They began to develop the idea. Boris literally grinded parts on a hand-held machine, tried different gearboxes and engines.

New targets have emerged. Including me personally. I already wanted not just to leave the house, but to go with the child to the forest or to the sand dunes. This is how all-terrain carriages appeared, on which you can walk both on the beach and in the forest.

We experimented further - it turned out that our strollers can also ride up stairs.

Well, then it was time to share all this with the world.

- We will de facto launch the production of strollers in Russia, God forbid, in January.

- Yes.

I have a Chinese girlfriend. We have been friends for a long time, since 1992, when I left the army. The girl seems to have no higher education, but she is sensible - at the moment she has 2 factories and 400 employees. I told her that I wanted to make strollers, and it turned out that her neighboring factory was already doing this.

Now the situation is like this: we buy electronics in England, we buy gearboxes in Germany, we buy engines in Taiwan, we send all this to China, where it is assembled.

But we are gradually moving towards launching production in Russia. The workshop is already ready.

- I think we will stay at the same price, because people have to pay more here. But at the same time, we will win somewhat in terms of quality and timing. That is, when selling to Argentina, Brazil, Australia, logistics is still more profitable to produce in China. And for sales to Europe (we plan to enter the Italian and German markets), we will collect here.

- Even some 5-6 years ago, any wheelchair with an electric drive in our country was simply an inaccessible dream for a disabled person. Now the state allocates completely different money. Social protection authorities buy our strollers and give them out to those in need free of charge. Of course, getting an expensive and good rehabilitation tool is very troublesome, but possible.

We are the state

- Probably, some Danes and Swedes will still be ahead of the rest, because they have been doing this for a long time. But I have a clear conviction that in the next 5-7 years we will reach a more or less European level.

- That is why I was forced to register my own disabled organization. All-Russian Society of Disabled People, no offense, but it does not work. Money is allocated, but no activity. Therefore, I gathered my activists and, like Artem Moiseenko, created my own “Ark”.

We have made it our main goal to fight the irrational use of funds. Here's an example.

About 30 caterpillar lifts were purchased in Kaliningrad (the cheapest of all technical solutions). I recently came to the Arbitration Court, equipped with such a lift - it does not work. Nobody ever uses it, the battery is discharged, people are not trained. A day later I come to the Museum of the World Ocean - the same story … The money was spent, but nothing works.

Therefore, we are trying to take control of the money precisely at the stage of allocation, when the terms of reference are just being formed. So that if a staircase is purchased, then a walking one, capable of climbing any stairs with any coatings; so that if there is a ramp, then according to all SNiPs. You also need to take control of all newly erected and repaired facilities. After all, people often do not modify it out of malice, they simply do not understand - you think of a 3 cm border, what difficulties it will create, and a person in a wheelchair will run into it at full speed and be crippled.

In this regard, in the summer we are planning on the seashore, in Svetlogorsk, to hold a series of seminars on creating a barrier-free environment and invite all interested persons there - architects, builders, officials. We will invite specialists from Berlin and London for training.

- I have a feeling that the state has turned a little towards non-profit organizations. They are ready for dialogue and cooperation, because they themselves cannot cope.

For example, we now have a project to create a network of wheelchair repair shops (we have already opened them in Kaliningrad, we are opening them in Sochi, Orel, Voronezh, Murmansk). Social services pray for him - they simply do not have time to do it.

- Here, in my opinion, is the main problem. Thank you, by the way, for your special project - you are doing a great job, breaking stereotypes.

And is it important. It is necessary to show examples that it is possible to live differently, even being in a difficult physical situation.

We have a Soviet "sediment". Yes, it was a good country, but the initiative was still punishable. We believed that the state owes us something. And it owes us nothing. Because the state is us. The state is me.

You know, I am not ashamed of Russia when I come to England or Denmark. Because Russia is myself. I'm not ashamed of myself. I speak English, Chinese, I work.

When you go to the exhibition in Dusseldorf, there are almost all products from Denmark and Holland. Once we were in a town in the north of Denmark, where the population is only 14 thousand (in all of Denmark - about 5 million). In Russia, in such towns, everything is very sad. And in Denmark, not only is it clean there, there is also an industrial zone where 15-20 factories operate. This is all private capital. Private initiative.

And we are so huge, can’t we really do this at home? We can all. You just need to cross this barrier and do it. And everything will work out.

Proud Highlander

- When you have a broken neck or spine, a wonderful "excuse" appears - I'm an invalid, how will I work ?! And there is a temptation to press on pity: I am disabled - give me a special discount, I am late because I am in a wheelchair.

For myself, I do not allow such things. After all, I am the same Roman Aranin who was 9 years ago, I like the same high peaks, beautiful girls and interesting places. The bar did not fall.

On the contrary, I began to demand even more of myself. I don’t allow myself to be late or hack. This gives me the right to demand the same from my subordinates.

It seems to me that when you ask yourself strictly, you and others perceive you differently. The stroller fades into the background - you are just a competent person to whom you can turn for professional advice.

- The first is the family. I have already said, I am a “proud mountaineer”, I need my family to have all the best. I have two daughters - one is studying in Beijing and the other is 13 years old. You just have to row to keep your family in order.

The second is travel. I like traveling very much. And I like that in my business I can combine work and leisure: you go somewhere in Europe for an internship, you do an internship for 3-4 days, and then you go to get to know the country.

The third is the desire to help. Unfortunately, so far such examples as Ksenia Bezuglova, Artem Moiseenko, I are the exception rather than the rule. Our stars formed the right way: there was a tempered will, my wife did not leave, parents and friends were there.

Some are less fortunate. Alas, they are less fortunate in 9 out of 10 cases. But I can influence it. Through personal participation, through the creation of a disabled organization, through interaction with the authorities - the situation can and should be changed.

For example, we went to Lithuania, where there is a wonderful summer town on the seashore, made by disabled people for disabled people. Seven people from our organization lived there absolutely free for 10 days. I saw how the guys' eyes were burning. It may not be interesting for me to go to Lithuania, but for them it was an event. For this, too, it is worth paddling forward.

- Before, when a star fell, I always thought to love and be loved. Now everything seems to be fine with this - and I love and love.

So I want a little factory.

I want a disabled person to come there to work in a wheelchair and understand that he did it himself. And then at the same exhibition in Dusseldorf he represented Russia, and on the back of his carriage it was written - made in Russia.

I am a great patriot.:)

- I wish to break down those barriers that we have in our heads. To break the mood - "everything is bad, it's time to blame." It's wrong.

You just need to start with yourself. Move away from the eaten cliches and make your life better, more active, drink it in big sips. And you will see how everything changes around.

- Thank you, Nastya, and Lifehacker for the amazing special project No Excuses.