How was the fund formed and how did you get involved?

Several years ago, one of our founders, Alexey Moshkovich, saw a request for help in the newspaper and responded to it. After Alexey plunged into the world of charity, he wanted to do something more, and the idea arose to create his own charitable foundation. In general, the founders of the Life as a Miracle Foundation are only private individuals.

As for me, this is a rather unusual story. The fact is that all the people I came across came to charity through volunteering. I’ve never been a volunteer, and I came to the foundation by chance, and then I couldn’t leave. Although in fact I know that nothing happens by chance with the Lord ( smiling).

I would also like to note that charity is all tied to personal stories, and in our foundation the stories of Alexey Moshkovich, Alexey Darashevich and mine.

The Life as a Miracle Foundation received the blessing of Priest Alexei Darashevich, tell us how it is connected with your foundation?

Alexey Moshkovich and I - church people, and we have a confessor, Father Alexey, known in the world as Alexey Darashevich.

Firstly, Father Alexey heads the board of trustees of our foundation.

Secondly, the experience of communicating with this person indirectly became the reason for the very emergence of the “Life is a Miracle” foundation. One day, a tragedy happened in the priest’s family: four children were in a car accident. Two of them died, and two remained alive, but they needed help. Our whole parish raised money for one of these boys to have an operation abroad. The fact is that in almost every family it is customary to help their loved ones, their relatives - this is the norm of life. But, let’s say, Alexey and I once had a need to go beyond “nepotism” and start doing something for others too. The Foundation as a structure is very useful in this: it helps to effectively solve existing problems.

Well, besides, it was when this sad event happened in the family of Father Alexei that I realized that I needed to be prepared for anything, including even the most irreparable. You don’t want to think about this when everything is going well for you, but you need to be prepared for it.

- Does your founder provide financial assistance to children?

The founder supports the work of the foundation, finances administrative needs, and helps with premises. Thanks to this, absolutely all the money that donors transfer to our fund goes to children.

- Why did you choose a field related to liver diseases?

A year ago we teamed up with the initiative society named after Nastenka Rogalevich (

In addition, we understood that each foundation should be an expert in its field, and we chose liver diseases in children as our “own” niche.

However, we see the main goal of the Life as a Miracle Foundation, first of all, not targeted assistance, but the development of transplantation in Russia. This will allow many to have operations here, rather than collecting millions for treatment abroad... We have taken big steps in this direction. Thus, with the active support of our foundation, a new Scientific Consulting Pediatric Department began operating Science Center obstetrics, gynecology and perinatology named after academician V.I. Kulakov, where children with various diseases can receive free and qualified care. In addition, we have an internship program for our doctors at the Belgian Saint-Luc Clinic, which has accumulated vast practical experience in the treatment and rehabilitation of children with various liver diseases.

- How did you find this clinic in Belgium?

We can say that this is the choice of the parents. Parents of children from Russia began turning to the Saint-Luc clinic many years ago, when we still did not perform operations on children weighing up to 12 kg. Since then, many children have been saved thanks to the skill of Belgian doctors, and still in difficult cases, if the clinic is ready to accept a small patient, we try to send the children there for treatment. Especially if we're talking about about metabolic or genetic diseases, about diseases with complications that may complicate postoperative recovery. But I repeat once again - this contact did not begin with clean slate, we were guided by the experience of the Nastenka Rogalevich Society. Although in fact, it is not so important whether the clinic is located in Belgium or somewhere else. The main thing is that they can effectively help our children and there is transparency regarding financial issues. So, let's say, we also cooperate with the German clinic Tübingen - we go there, as a rule, if there is no related donor for a transplant and the child needs a cadaveric transplant. Germany has a five percent quota for foreigners, so children, especially very young children, have a chance.

- Have any of your charges undergone a liver transplant in Russia?

Yes, of course, many of the children under the care of the Life as a Miracle Foundation underwent surgery in Russia.

Unfortunately, throughout our vast country there are only two centers where liver transplants are successfully and regularly performed for children, and both clinics are located in Moscow. These are the RSCH (Russian National Center of Surgery) and the Research Institute of Transplantology and Artificial Organs named after. Shumakova. These hospitals employ professionals high level, and we are making every effort to help them in their work, because our main task, let me remind you, is to help raise domestic transplantology to the world level. But we must keep in mind that our country was late at the start when organ transplant operations began all over the world; in the then USSR they did not pay any attention to this. We started doing organ transplants a little more than 10 years ago, and, for example, for low birth weight children (with body weight less than 12 kg) - generally only 5 years ago. Of course, this takes its toll, especially in difficult cases. So far, doctors simply do not have enough experience. Therefore, in some cases we send children abroad. But we don’t have a child’s parents or relatives saying: “I only want to go abroad.” We make a decision on the basis of an expert council, which includes doctors from Russia, doctors from foreign clinics with which we cooperate, and employees of the Life as a Miracle Foundation. Based on the expert opinion, we make a decision - to send this child to Russian clinics or send him abroad.

- How do you find children? Do other foundations help you raise money?

As for joint activities with other funds, our main goal in providing targeted assistance is to help the child. If, by teaming up with another fund, we can do this faster, then we, of course, will only be happy about such cooperation. But this cannot be said to be a general practice, because most foundations have their own direction, and sometimes, even according to the charter, they cannot undertake to raise money for a “non-core” child.

- Tell us about the events that you organize.

We organize various events, which - very conditionally, of course - can be divided into two areas. In some cases, these are events aimed at raising funds for children, while in others they are simply children's parties. In general, we try to hold more holidays; we try to gather children and parents outside the hospital wards and corridors more often. They have had a lot of really difficult and difficult moments in their lives, they have experienced real horror, and if we can somehow make them happy, we do it. And this is very important. Both for them and for us.

By the way, speaking about events aimed at raising funds, I want to say thank you to the media that have helped and are helping us. This includes RIA Novosti, Echo of Moscow, Moscow Speaks, and Novaya Gazeta.

We have a very wide geography ( laughs)…Moscow, Irkutsk, Tomsk, Nalchik, Ulyanovsk, Voronezh, and also children from small towns and distant villages, which you can’t immediately find on the map. In terms of the child’s place of residence, we have neither priorities nor a statistical “preponderance” of one region or another.

We are ready to help all children-citizens of Russia suffering from severe liver diseases.

- How does cooperation with the “All Together” meeting help you?

- “Life as a Miracle” is a full participant in the meeting. Firstly, this means that we have a common information field, we share information and experience with each other, discuss certain issues and problems. And secondly, globally, this allows us, “all together,” to change the situation with charity in general in Russia.

In addition, each organization accepted into “All Together” is a transparent and reliable organization. This necessary condition to join the community. This is self-regulation.

- You don’t publish children’s documents on the website, why?

We, and not only us, but all the funds that are part of the “All Together” collection, periodically encountered the fact that children’s documents were completely copied, only the accounts were changed in them, and we found documents of our wards on other sites, with others, details unknown to us. So it was decided not to make the documents publicly available. This is simply an anti-fraud measure. A person who is interested in viewing documents can send us a request, and we will send him copies, or come to the office and review paper versions.

-Have you communicated with parents of children who needed help? What is your impression of these meetings?

Of course, we constantly communicate with our parents, how could it be different! ( laughs). I can say that they all have this “fighting spirit” in common. These people are fighting for the life of their child, overcoming hundreds and thousands of obstacles. By and large, their whole life is a constant battle. Achieve a correct diagnosis (this doesn’t always happen even in Moscow, let alone in the regions), find the right doctor (for many this means constant trips to Moscow with a sick child in their arms), collect all the papers, stand in all the queues, to achieve the issuance of medicines... This is a real daily feat that people have to perform due to lack of awareness, including medical information, due to the extreme underdevelopment of medicine in the regions, due to - alas - the negligent attitude of those in power of different ranks towards people. They often have to leave their home for six months, a year, two years and live, some in Moscow while awaiting surgery, some in Belgium, some in Germany. It just seems that “living a year in Germany” is a resort. But in reality, such parents (usually mothers, of course) live far from home, often without speaking the language, without work, almost without money, with a sick child in their arms. I assure you, this is a feat, and not everyone can accomplish it. But such parents make every effort to save their child. And when you meet such people, you understand that you are not working in vain, you are not living in vain, and this gives you the strength to work further.

Liver donation is a abdominal operation that is performed under general anesthesia. It is incorrect to talk about its “painlessness”. But as for the consequences for the donor, they are negligible. Of course, there is a certain risk, since we are still talking about surgical intervention, but it is very small. Yes, the donor needs time to recover after surgery. But we are not talking about years or even months. If you work sedentarily, you can return to your duties within 3-4 weeks - during this time the donor’s body is sufficiently restored. If the work is physically difficult, then the donor is given sick leave for 3 months after the operation.

Naturally, to the question “Will a liver donor become disabled?” the answer is “No, it won’t!” ( laughs). Complete recovery of the donor, including the return of the liver to its normal volume, occurs in anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months.

Maybe, the best evidence that the donor remains completely, in all respects, healthy person, it serves the fact that many mothers of operated children give birth to a second or third child a year or more after the operation, and everyone feels great.

While this case is isolated, this is not yet a permanent practice. But we really hope that the department will soon move from a “test” mode of operation to a mode of constant fruitful work. Important point is that it will be able to accept children from all over Russia, because it has federal status.

Very detailed story One of our mothers wrote about this department, we published it on