A Special Farm For Special Needs

SVETLANA, Leningrad Region — When Dima, 18, first came to the village of Svetlana, he wasn’t able to button his shirt and needed snow to be swept away before he could step onto a sidewalk. As a child, he was diagnosed with an intellectual disability and was used to being assisted with everything.

Now, less than a year later, he not only dresses himself in the morning but has become a happy and productive member of his community. During a recent visit, he was helping in a garden, moving a wheelbarrow of compost with a broad smile on his face.

“He never would have been able to achieve these results if he had stayed in some state institution for the disabled, where you have to take a dozen pills a day,” said Anatoly Nagalsky, while fussing around an oven, where he bakes bread for the village.

An oceanologist by profession, Nagalsky moved to Svetlana from Odessa, Ukraine, last fall, but he has already become an integral part of the community as its baker.

He seems overwhelmed with enthusiasm, hurrying around his kitchen to finish a fresh batch of bread in time for lunch.

Set in the countryside some 150 kilometers east of St. Petersburg, Svetlana doesn’t look like a typical Russian village. The population is young, and the houses are Norwegian-built. About 40 people live here, roughly split between those with special needs and volunteer residents, also known as co-workers.

The village is a part of the worldwide Camphill movement, founded in the 1940s by Austrian physician Karl Konig. The movement stresses that all people — regardless of physical or mental conditions — be treated as equals.

And while Camphill communities have become world-renowned for their positive results, Svetlana’s attention to personal development is an anomaly in Russia, where the intellectually disabled often live in poorly funded state institutions that have to focus on supporting people rather than helping them.

The co-workers — many of whom come from Western Europe — say residents with special needs usually change greatly after just a few months in Svetlana. They gain weight and break out of the routine of being constantly sedated with endless pills. They start smiling.

People come from all over Russia to live in Svetlana. The disabled are usually brought by their relatives, some of whom don’t have the means to care for them or just don’t want them to live in medical institutions.

Living Together

“It not so scary for foreigners to come to a Camphill site in Russia, as it is a world-known movement and they know what to expect, rather than at a completely Russian organization,” Sarah Hagnauer, a Briton who leads the Svetlana community, told The Moscow Times. “Some of those who come don’t speak Russian, but they have to learn, as you can’t do without it.”

She said teenagers who arrive from affluent Western societies are full of enthusiasm for helping the disabled.

“A lot of them come here without any real meaning to their lives — they’re living like robots. But life in Russia is entirely different, and it’s really a strong experience for people who come here and realize that they really can help,” she said.

Pierpaolo Bettoni, 32, came from Italy to improve his Russian once heard about Svetlana.

“I’ve spent just a few days here, but I really enjoy it,” he said.

Bettoni is helping with a cowshed, which is run by resident Sergei. With admiration in his eyes, Sergei looked at a row of his cows, saying he “gave names to each of them.”

In addition to some 20 cows, the farm has two horses, pigs and geese. The village also owns about 60 hectares of land, mostly used for farming.

Residents also work in the bakery and dairy, or practice woodcarving and other crafts in the village’s many workshops. Every hour of each busy day is scheduled.

The dairy is run by Sven Dietsch, who works there as an alternative to doing compulsory service in the German military, and villager Yulya, 18. With a shy smile, she said she liked to spend her days making different kinds of cheese, sour cream and butter. The dairy was initially built specially for her.

“I also like to go to the market to sell what we make,” she said, with flushed cheeks.

The villagers use most of the milk and dairy products themselves, but some of the goods are taken to a nearby town to be sold. Svetlana’s milk sells for an average of 30 rubles ($1) per liter, while others sell milk for 37 rubles, the residents say.

Constant activity is what makes residents’ lives here so much more fulfilling than in the city, where they are often forced to stay in their wards and beds, Nagalsky said. “It’s important to keep them occupied, interested in work.”

A Thriving Village

According to village lore, Svetlana was named in honor of the woman who first intended to build a Camphill community in Russia, back in the 1980s. She learned about the movement from a Norwegian exchange student, who was staying with her and her disabled daughter.

Svetlana wanted to bring the movement to Russia but died of cancer before she could start the village herself. A group of volunteers who established the village in the early 1990s decided to name it after her.

The community was given 60 hectares by the administration of the local Volkhov district in 1992, when vast expanses of land became available as the system of collective farming was collapsing. In 1994, the first houses were built.

The movement, however, dates back much further.

Inspired by the works of philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner — collectively called anthroposophy — the Camphill organizers started working with children who had developmental disabilities. Steiner considered anthroposophy to be a science of the spirit and a path of self-knowledge.

By the end of the 1940s, five Camphill centers had been set up in Scotland to allow people with special needs to live within a supportive community.

The communities were initially designed to make it possible for each individual to share his or her personal life ambition and develop their abilities. Christianity is a key part of village life in Svetlana, although its religious activities are nondenominational.

The movement now has more than 100 communities in 22 countries, primarily in North America and Europe, but also in southern Africa and India.

While driving to Svetlana from the nearest bus stop, about 10 kilometers away, the travelers pass decaying wooden houses and occasionally a few elderly residents.

There are many dying villages in Russia, where virtually everyone has either left or are drinking themselves to extinction. And that’s partly why Svetlana has been so well received, said Hagnauer, the village leader.

“Only we have children for three kilometers in any direction, because all the young families from nearby places have moved to St. Petersburg,” she said.

‘Problems of Their Own’

Svetlana was given its land, but the community doesn’t receive any help from the regional or local government. And frankly, Hagnauer said, it doesn’t want any.

“We don’t want to fulfill government programs. If the government creates a program saying ‘this should happen in the Leningrad region, and we’ll give so much money for you to do it,’ then you become dependent on the program and have to do exactly what the government says,” she said. “We have a very different kind of life here, in many ways.”

Even a quick visit to the region is enough to see that the Leningrad region has plenty of other ways to spend its money, with roads in disrepair and an aging population living on small monthly pensions.

“They have enough problems of their own. Some things are getting better, but you still can’t compare it to Moscow,” Hagnauer said.

Like any nongovernmental organization, Svetlana welcomes financial support, however, because more equipment — like a bus for trips to the city or a video projector for studies — is always needed.

In February, a nursing home fire in the republic of Komi, in northwestern Russia, killed at least 25 people, leading the government to order fire-safety checks at all nursing homes and other public institutions.

As a result, fire officials demanded that Svetlana update its alarm system or abandon the site. Installing the new equipment became a costly enterprise for the village, which managed to survive thanks to private donations obtained despite the financial crisis.

The village began receiving broader support from the public since a documentary about it was broadcast last fall on the state’s Channel One television. Now, they receive many more calls from people all over Russia who would like to move to the village or settle their relatives there.

Hagnauer said it was hard for her to turn them down, but the village is currently full. Even if it were to grow, Svetlana alone would not be able to accommodate all Russians with special needs.

The Health and Social Development Ministry estimates that there are more than 13 million people living with disabilities in Russia.

Many of the people who call say they like the village’s philosophy of sharing and cooperation, but so far no one has attempted to build on its success, Hagnauer said.

“The problem is to find someone to live in a village with enough strength and vision to carry it through,” she said.

Nagalsky, the baker, said he thought there was too little willingness from the government — and too many disabled people — for any quick improvements. Svetlana has succeeded because it’s a European movement, but there is no such project on the national level, he said.

“Camphill villages alone can’t solve these problems,” he said

Dima’s mother, Yelena, who declined to give her last name, arrived with her son from Ukraine to live here and believes that more communities like Svetlana should be created. She said she was planning to establish a Camphill community in Ukraine.

“The communities can bring more humanity to society,” she said. “They might not be able to solve the whole problem, but at least it’s a part.”