Scott Robert Alexander.com

Hi Scott,

Living in St Petersburg, Russia, has some of the same things that one would find in any big city in the US (or Canada, in my case) One of these is homeless street people – laying around bus stops – begging – intoxicated on something – etc. One of these such persons here in St. Petersburg – whose name I found out one day last year while sharing a park bench with him is Yuri.   Now, Yuri is one of those homeless guys who makes his rounds around the city, so I only see him once or twice a month – I never give out money to people, but have on occasion bought them what they were begging the money for. I have bought Yuri some food and even a couple of beers when I have seen him in the streets begging. Yuri is very filthy and dirty but I can say I have never seen him intoxicated – in my short time speaking with him I found him to be rather intelligent as he could speak some English, he just seemed to be a very smelly filthy person who lived on the streets.

Yesterday we got a good dump of snow that has added to the already too much on the ground here, and snow removal is not a strong point for the city – there are no sidewalks now as huge piles of snow from the streets are pushed on them, so pedestrians have small paths that are hell to navigate and fresh fallen snow over ice makes the trek that much more interesting. Today as I walked to the bus slowly in what could be called a pedestrian traffic jam, I noticed the cause of the jam was what looked to be some rags dumped in the middle of the path – upon getting closer, I saw that it was a person laying in the middle of this rather narrow path with many people just stepping over him and cussing him out at the same time. When it came my turn to navigate around this body, I found that this person was Yuri – I knelt down to see if he was OK and it was evident that he wasn’t (I had the feeling it was medical because I had never seen him intoxicated) Now there were two of us being sworn at and no one wanted to stop to help me take Yuri off the path. As I thought about what to do, 2 police came up the path (now this being Russia, I usually take off at the sign of the “Militzia” otherwise I may be contributing to their personal retirement fund via some bull law that they say I’ve broken as a foreigner) This time I motioned them over and, as luck would have it, one was a female (females have a higher tendency to speak some English – most male cops have trouble with Russian let alone another language) and she spoke English – I told her that I didn’t think Yuri was drunk and that he needed medical help and so with the help of her partner we got Yuri over to a park bench near by – she checked him out while her partner called for medical help. Yuri was conscious, but barely – he recognized me and motioned me to come closer – grasping my hand in his extremely dirty filthy hands he squeezed them and told me in Russian “Slava Bogu – Praise God – Spaciba Bolshi moe drueg – Thank you big my friend” and he died. The lady checked for a pulse, but he was gone. She told me that there was nothing for me to do and that I could go if I wanted to – As I turned to go she said that it was kind of me to stop to help a stranger and that she had never witnessed that before. I told her it wasn’t kindness – it was human.

Starting one’s day with a person dying in your hands gets one to reflect on why we are here – and that we can never give up our dreams – we are where we are for a purpose – I believe I was on that path today for this purpose as there were a dozen other ways I could have gone.

I wanted to share with someone that I know would understand – I thought of you.  Frank Godon

Frank’s letter really hit me hard.  The thought of Yuri dying in the snow as people stepped over him shocked me.  I talk a lot about following your dreams and changing the world.  Changing the world is not necessarily something that takes a lot of effort.  Changing the world does not require special schooling, lots of money or friends in high places.  Changing the world can be done now, by anyone with the love that Frank exhibited – by being human.  Frank, I am proud to be able to call you a friend.  Now, let’s go out and change the world!  Keep charging!!  Scott Alexander

Frank Godon - a Rhino changing the world.