Time to read: 11 minutes(s)

Many people don't understand me. "Are you stupid, to live in the village because of a dog?", "Are you stupid, to spend so much on its food?", "Are you completely nuts, to shell out so much money for cremation?" And I don't understand how it could be any other way? And is it even possible to do otherwise?" — says Vladimir Krysanov.

He's been blind since childhood. At first, he could distinguish light and shadow, but then he couldn't. A little over 10 years ago, he got his first guide dog, Dick, and Vladimir seemed to "see the light" and began living a full life. Now he has Eustace, because Dick died of a heart defect. But Dick is still with them—in a box.

NeMoskva spoke with Vladimir about life by touch, with and without a guide dog, his fears, hopes, and the constant: "Where are you going? Are you blind or something?"

The dog flies out of the house at the sound of the gate opening, wiggles his butt, wags his tail, dives headfirst into the bag, receives a "bone" of pressed sinew, and lies down with it in the sun. Vladimir follows, confidently descending the three steps, then holding onto the wall of the house with his hand—the path is uneven. His boots, heavily worn, carefully tread over the bumps.

- Volodya, what's wrong with the shoes?

- Look, he ate it. And he's still crawling around in the bags, — the owner warns belatedly. — And he carries hedgehogs, then plays with them, how come his nose is still intact?

"He" is a Labrador, guide dog EustaceIn official parlance, it's a technical rehabilitation device, one unit. When Vladimir received Eustace, he was already four years old and had already worked as a guide dog for another blind person in the Khabarovsk region. The dog proved to be a heat-loving dog and began to get sick, so he had to be returned to the temperate zone.

Eustace is six now, but he acts like a puppy: he runs around the house after a ball, tries to escape through the gate and run around the village, and has chewed his owner's shoes and his collar. His owner isn't upset. He admits he's too kind, spoils the dog himself, and doesn't know how to discipline. He then demonstrates just how cunning the dog is: he grabs a stiff working harness—Eustace pulls away from Vladimir, as if to say, "Oh, forget it, I'm not in the mood." He grabs a regular leash—the Labrador immediately offers his neck—"Yes, yes, Master, let's just go for a walk." "Yustik, aren't you ashamed?"“Vladimir addresses him, and the dog obediently turns its muzzle towards him, wanting to work a little.

Vladimir Krysanov — a well-known figure in Ryazan and beyond. He first gained notoriety around 2008, when he was picked up right off a trolleybus on suspicion of committing a series of pickpockets. They held him at the police station for a day, telling him, "How blind are you? Stop putting on a show here, and your ID is fake." Journalists raised a fuss, but didn't even apologize to Krysanov.

In 2013, he became famous for being the first in the city to receive guide dog Dick (Eddie, according to his passport). No one had ever applied for this type of rehabilitation equipment before, for various reasons. Vladimir says some are afraid of negative reactions from neighbors, while others find the dog a burden: they need to prepare food for it and take it outside for its own needs, not just when the owner needs to go to the store.

He himself immediately after Dick's appearance problems startedSome neighbors weren't happy with a blind man walking his dog in a vacant lot behind his house, literally amid the weeds. He approached the mayor's office with a request for a small area for walking. Vladimir mowed the plot himself and fenced it with chain-link fencing, "so as not to encroach on someone else's property." This upset the other neighbors: what kind of "land grab" was this? He didn't buy it! Vladimir "butted heads" with the disgruntled neighbors for a bit and then moved to the village to be with his mother, 60 kilometers from Ryazan. He only visits Ryazan occasionally: he's convinced that the city is no place for a dog, while the countryside offers nothing but health benefits, both physical and mental.

A few years later, Vladimir became famous again, this time throughout the country: “A blind Russian built a house himself” full of Media headlines. He actually built a house out of timber, by touch, since the old brick one had long since celebrated its 100th anniversary and was about to collapse. Then journalists began to flock to him for stories about the construction, but he kept turning to his own theme: "It was Dick who helped; without him, I couldn't have done anything."

But the blind pensioner's adventures didn't end there. He ordered plastic windows from the Ryazan branch of the Rostov-based company Ecoplast, but never received them. About the deception Wrote All the media, but Vladimir never got his money back. He still recalls how obedient Dick didn't want to enter the firm's office—he sensed something was wrong. Vladimir speaks philosophically about the frequency of his "stumbles" into awkward or unpleasant situations:

- You sit quietly at your computers, but I live, so my whole life is a constant adventure..

Burials — a small village in the Spassky District. If you drive, the 10 kilometers from the highway require a bumpy ride along a potholed, then gravel road. Krysanova's plot is the second-to-last one; beyond that, there are gullies and a field. He takes a different route to town: a kilometer-long walk along rough roads, and then he reaches the train station. This deserted road played a decisive role in his decision to get a guide dog:

"I've walked home from the station so many times, but every time I was afraid I'd fall and end up in the field. No matter how much you called, no one would hear. In winter, you'd freeze to death before anyone stumbled upon you. And I had to carry groceries to my mother, how could she be here alone without help? With Dick, everything became simple and safe."

He followed Dick to Kupavna near Moscowwhere is located guide dog school All-Russian Society of the Blind. First, I learned to communicate with him and walk in a new way there, then I brought him to a city apartment. I showed Dick where the local post office, store, and public transportation stop were. Now, all he had to do was say, "Post office!" and Dick would lead his owner there.

They began attending concerts at the Philharmonic frequently—at first with scandals, then, again with the media's help, they were allowed in. Dick would lie at his master's feet and listen to music. On trolleybuses and minibuses, the dog also tried not to disturb anyone, but Vladimir and his handler are still not always allowed on commercial transport. "Where are you going? You can't bring dogs!" and "Can't you see there's no exit out the back? Are you blind or something?!"—he hears such shouts from drivers and passengers almost every time he gets ready to go somewhere.

"I'm used to it, I don't pay attention, because I could walk across the entire city with Dick, and he wouldn't let me down. You could tell him where to go and generally take his mind off things, think about something else. Eustace can take his mind off things, he can fool around. If Dick was a foreign car, then Eustace is a Moskvich, if you compare it to cars. But, you know, that's just me... Eustace is a very good guy, and I love him, it's just that Dick spoiled me, and I miss him, that's why I say all these things," Vladimir catches himself.

One day, Dick fell ill. He was receiving his medication, lying on the floor, breathing heavily. His owner lay down next to him, hugged him, stroked him, and said: "Dick, just don't die! Don't die, darling."Then he recovered. But in 2019, the dog began to decline: a heart defect was discovered that was undetectable in puppyhood. Veterinarians immediately declared the dog was a lost cause, with only suffering ahead. But Dick wasn't in pain; he had difficulty walking and began to experience shortness of breath. Vladimir "pulled" him along as best he could, taking him to the veterinary clinic in the city and buying expensive medications. The FORUMHOUSE community website removed the photo. video about the house built by the pensioner and collected a little more for him 300 thousand rubles for gasification of the site, but it never came to that: Vladimir asked that the money be given to him for maintenance therapy for the dog.

— They tell me: what’s wrong, you still haven’t finished decorating the house, we collected money for you from all over the country! And I’m fine: even if my floors are shaking, and everything is like this [without interior finishing], at least Dick lived for another two years... People advised me to put him to sleep right away,” the interviewee recalls. — And now I meet neighbors, and they say: “You’re a fool, you spent your money on the wrong thing, you could be living like a godfather to the king now. But you’re still spending it on the dog. You knew it would die!” I answer: “Not ‘die’, but ‘perish’!” Well, yes, I knew. If it weren’t for the flies... I decided then that I wouldn’t give him up to the flies.

By the summer of 2021, Dick was barely leaving the house, where he'd been resting in the shade. In July, he began to be plagued by flies, which Vladimir couldn't shoo away. And so he made a decision. Vladimir received help with a car, which took him and his dog to the city veterinary clinic. There, he was given the last medications of his life, and then taken for cremation. His ashes were delivered in a container placed in a small box. On it was a handwritten inscription: "Guide dog. August 16, 2021. Krysanov." Vladimir says he decided not to remember Dick on this day:

 I don't know how, but I feel like he's next to me. With us. I feel calmer this way.

And he takes the box with the ashes to his city apartment for the winter so that it doesn’t accidentally get damp.

 And recently there was a case, — Vladimir begins, as if a gripping story would follow. — I almost chopped off my finger here. I wanted to chop a crooked splinter into the stove, but I hit my finger. I went into the city, to the [train station] "Ryazan-I", but I couldn't get through these frames. The inspection. The woman says to me: "Can't you see, here are the frames, you need to go here!" But I really can't see, and something is jingling in my body. Either the cane, or Eustace's collar, or something in my pockets. They're spinning me around, and I'm already dizzy and don't know which way to go. And everyone says: "Can't you see?" They probably thought I was some kind of homeless person: my hands are black, I'm constantly messing around with the stove, I haven't washed them.

Once he managed to get past the security checkpoint and reach the first-aid station, Vladimir calmed down a bit: the bandage stuck to his finger was soaked in a basin of disinfectant, and the wound was treated. Eustace was even luckier: "they even heated up some chicken for him in the microwave, and he gobbled it up right away."

"There are bad people, but there are more good ones," Vladimir shares his observations. "It's just that not everyone understands what it's like not to see, and they also don't understand what a dog means to me. Some people want to walk on clean parquet floors, and all they can think about is money, but for me, clean floors and money are a thing of the past, as long as everything is alright with the dog. Who would I be without Dick? And now without Justik?"

Whenever Vladimir meets another good person, he always asks someone to write a thank-you note "out there, on the internet." He thanks the veterinarian who procured Dick expensive medications at the wholesale price and kept him alive; the crematorium staff for treating him humanely and "doing everything perfectly"; the medical staff at the train station for their professionalism and kindness; and the guys at FORUMHOUSE, without whom Dick wouldn't have survived so long and Vladimir wouldn't have a second home.

"It's a pointless and never-ending story. The first house I built from timber was not allowed to be connected to gas for several reasons, including safety regulations. I didn't step back three meters from the fence. They also issued a demolition order for the old brick house—a wall had collapsed a few years ago. The guys from FORUMHOUSE helped me build a second house from timber, this time according to all the regulations. But gasification still wasn't working out. So I installed a wood-burning boiler—it survived the entire winter without freezing," the interviewee rejoices.

He's slowly dismantling the old house by hand. He carts the bricks to the rutted road that leads to the train station. In the local mud, his bricks are a drop in the bucket, but Vladimir believes there will be kind people who will repair the road so it's safe to walk. With or without a guide dog.