Cyclist and artist Valentin Baldyuka, who has traveled around the world by bicycle, has been rehabilitating people with disabilities for more than 20 years.
Valentin Vasilievich is a great optimist by nature; he knows how to notice beauty around him, loves people, and inspires sympathy from the first few phrases. Someone is sure to call him an eccentric, they say. Well, for example, he came to meet me by bicycle when it was minus 17 in Brest that day. That is simply his way of life; he does not need any other transport, and in any weather. Perhaps that is why at 67 he is full of energy, ideas, and projects in progress; he has many friends and like-minded people — in short, there is so much work that there is no time to grow old.
The first travelers' club.
By education and main profession Valentin is an artist. He graduated from Krasnodar State University. In Soviet times he exhibited in Krasnodar and later in Belarus. But like most artists, at first he earned a living with agitational posters. The family moved to Brest from southern latitudes for a mundane reason — his wife developed an allergy to certain Kuban plants. His brothers lived here; Valentin, a native of Babruysk, had often visited them, so they chose a city closer to relatives and warmer than, say, the north of the country.
A great lover of bicycle travel, he bought his first bicycle with money earned on a student construction crew and immediately joined the regional cycling club. But they did not manage to ride across the Soviet Union — the great country ceased to exist. Soon the club collapsed due to financial problems.
Then the restless Baldyuka decided to create his own cycling organization. On the advice of the tax inspectorate they registered it as a private enterprise. In February 1995, 22 cycling enthusiasts came to the first meeting. It was decided to establish the production and tourism enterprise "Club of Cycling Tourism and Travel." To earn money for trips they worked on construction sites, hauled bricks from Hrodna for sale, and were not shy of any work. And they wandered around the world. At the same time they tried in every way to make themselves known and tell people abroad about Belarus. The city executive committee supported such people's diplomacy. Once they even made it to a bicycle exhibition in Berlin. That is how the tourist West learned about cyclists from Brest.
Chernobyl marathon with wheelchair users.
Around the same time he had to bring his father, a front-line soldier, from Krasnodar; both of the father's legs had been amputated because of illness. He devised a mechanism to attach a wheelchair to a bicycle and took his father for walks in the forest. When his loved one moved into the Veterans' Home, he saw firsthand the scale of the problem: many people around could not move on their own. Valentin began taking his father's neighbors from the Veterans' Home on Hrodzenskaya Street for rides. Then he first thought that disabled people needed help — not only elderly veterans but also young people sitting at home.
The first person he met at the regional association of disabled people was sports instructor Ivan Shmyga. They recognized each other as like-minded people at first sight and from the first words. Valentin Baldyuka was then preparing for an international cycling marathon across Belarus dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. And somehow the idea immediately arose to involve disabled people. They found the bravest volunteers. In short, five people with disabilities set out on the trip together with healthy cyclists, two of whom — Iryna Mokhava and Natallia Kurepina — were wheelchair users. A backup option was provided for them: a bus accompanied the group, and at any moment the girls could leave the route. But they did not give up; they overcame everything! They covered exactly 500 kilometers of road, riding in wheelchairs attached to bicycles.
— The group was welcomed very warmly in different cities. In Stolin, — Valentin recalled, — Iryna Mokhava, who read her poems, was simply showered with flowers.
Untrodden Path.
After that trip it became clear that work with disabled people had to continue; people needed to be drawn out of four walls and taught not to fixate on their illnesses. Together with the director of the "Center for Youth Initiative" Vasili Borisau, who has the Sputnik tourist base on the shore of White Lake in Brest district, they developed a 10-day rehabilitation course program.
— True, the first time we almost had to force these girls and boys out of their apartments, — Valentin Vasilievich recalls. — To say they felt uncomfortable when they arrived is to say almost nothing. They were afraid because they had no experience communicating with peers; they were ashamed of their illnesses and disabilities; they looked confused and depressed. But in ten days — we ourselves did not expect such a result — the young people changed. For example, the program included a special obstacle course. And when the first time they walked that path through mud and hummocks not only with our help but helping one another, and then shared their impressions, one girl said: "In that mud I sometimes wanted to kill you, Valentin Vasilievich, but now I am happy because we all overcame that stretch that is not very easy even for a healthy person to pass!" And I understood that I had chosen the right approach.
They parted almost in tears because they had learned to smile and openly express their emotions and feelings. We were no less happy than they, — he recalls.
After that, meetings became regular; young people were already asking to go to the tourist base. They got acquainted there; some fell in love and started a family; children began to be born. Thus gradually the public organization "Disabled and the Environment" was formed, uniting a ceramic workshop for disabled people, a rehabilitation tourist base on White Lake, and a cycling club.
For disabled people who united, a new level of life began. The theatrical festival "Untrodden Path" made itself known. People with disabilities discovered talents in themselves; their performances enjoy deserved sympathy from audiences. The festival already has its fans; similar theaters from different countries come to the fest. True, recently it has not been held because of the pandemic. But all amateur artists believe that the epidemic will soon subside and they will go on stage again.
And last year the youth public association "Disabled and the Environment" created an inclusive center for the promotion of a healthy lifestyle in the courtyard on Moshenskogo Street. Funds for equipment were allocated by the European Union within the BELMED project. Now on the courtyard playground not only disabled people but all willing people can exercise on trainers and play volleyball and other active games.
Pioneer of international routes.
For Valentin Baldyuka, work with disabled people is already an integral part of life. Since 1999 the mentioned organization has received 15 small grants from the embassies of Finland and Sweden, held cycling marathons, implemented environmental programs of the USA, Germany, Poland, and UNEP for cyclists who, together with people in wheelchairs, engaged in rehabilitation of people with disabilities. In short, bicycle travel became possible for disabled people, and it became possible to discover the beauty of their native land, its world-famous sights and small towns.
— Here we recently discovered one spring for ourselves in Pruzhany district, where the Mukhavets River begins, — Valentin Vasilievich recalled.
And he himself has been wherever one can go on a two-wheeled machine. He has six marathons on the Paris–Moscow route, on which Baldyuka was coordinator of the Belarusian part of the run. They rode through northern Italy to places of former battles under Suvorov's command in 1799. They returned home through Austria and Germany. For cyclists from Brest's twin city Ravensburg he organized a cycling trip across the Crimean peninsula. On one foreign award from the late 1990s it is written: "Pioneer of international cycling marathons."
How he congratulated Alla Pugacheva on her 50th birthday.
The late 1990s are remarkable in his personal travel history for a trip to a jubilee... of Alla Pugacheva. April 1999. "There was such an adventure in my life, — Valentin Vasilievich smiles, — I thought that if I came by bicycle 1,100 kilometers, maybe the prima donna would honor me with her attention and let me congratulate her in person."
And he rode 56 hours from Brest to Moscow almost without stops. Along the way he told many people where he was going and asked them to write wishes to the artist in a special album. Congratulations and kind words by hand were written by collective farm mechanics and brigadiers, school teachers and traffic police officers from road posts, students and pensioners. By the end of the trip the album was completely filled. Those lines deeply touched Alla when she leafed through the entries and promised to keep them in her personal museum. But that was later.
Right from the road Valentin had to wait for the singer four hours near the Rossiya hotel where the jubilee concert was scheduled. Kristina, Philipp Kirkorov, an administrator came out to him in turn and talked with him. Well, when a quarter of an hour remained before the concert, they finally brought him to the famous singer. When he presented the album, Alla Borisovna burst into tears and said something like: "How I love these Belarusians!" And he, exhausted by the road and long waiting, was so confused that he forgot about the camera on his neck and did not even ask for a group photo. But he was invited to the concert. And then, a few months later, there was the prima donna's concert in Minsk, to which Valentin Baldyuka received an invitation from the singer; he went to that concert with his wife and daughter.
Such an episode was in one of his journeys. As he said: "The meeting lasted seven minutes, but it remained in memory for life." Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote about him then; he keeps the newspaper clipping.
For third-age students.
Baldyuka the restless has, as already mentioned, many affairs and projects. He teaches cycling tourism and fine arts at the Institute of the Third Age of the Territorial Center for Social Services of the Population of Lenin District. He also stood at the origins of this Institute, which few remember now. Then, in the mid-2000s, this idea was brought from Germany. Colleagues and like-minded people helped with documentation, shared experience, and supported financially. The Institute in Brest was the first in the country, and then the good cause was picked up in other regions. Now "students" of an age who suddenly discover artistic abilities in themselves come to classes in the workshop. Some reach personal exhibitions. It turned out that one can also take up cycling tourism in retirement. Many have already become regular participants in bicycle trips. Participants in marches do not just ride and observe but also make the world around them better. Therefore sometimes they have to organize clean-up days on the go.
Once they and their companions first saw the Tsar Oak in Pazhezhynskoye forestry of Malaryta district, heard its sad story, and then restored this unique 850-year-old tree. Local people said that in the early 1940s lightning struck the oak, split the trunk, and knocked off the crown. So that history would not repeat itself, they devised lightning protection. At one enterprise they found the needed metal cap. They invited an alpine climber who made a path to the top of the tree. Then specialists climbed up, cut off irregularities, cleaned the hollow, lowered a bottle with a letter for posterity there, and closed it with a metal umbrella from which a wire was stretched down and grounded. The tree grows; excursions are conducted to it.
Valentin Baldyuka became one of the initiators of creating an ecological trail that was officially opened last year. It runs along the Mukhavets River from Brest Fortress to the Chyrvony Dvor area.
— Once we cyclists of the third age rode along the river and admired the landscapes. And somehow the thought of improving this territory arose by itself. Then our proposal was supported by the then governor Konstantin Sumar. And gradually the matter moved off the ground; various organizations were engaged in improvement. Last year the city executive committee together with the public brought the work to a logical conclusion. Now the green route five kilometers long has become extremely popular among city residents.
And recently they went to Domachava to a disabled wheelchair user who, with the help of friends, built his own house. The more I work with these people, the more I admire them. People with disabilities very often look stronger than us healthy ones, — Valentin Baldyuka said and hurried off to the opening of an exhibition by his "student."