I knew Zhenya personally. We rested together in the sanatorium and he was always smiling, liked to wear sunglasses and put one foot on the other. Many of us called him the "Olympic Flame" and the "Computer Fanatic".
Eugene was born into a normal family, in Kiev and in the year of the Moscow Olympics. At 4 and a half months he had a fever and was taken to an infectious disease hospital.
–Doctors could not diagnose for a long time, - Nina Ivanovna Zhenya's mother remembered. - They did a spinal tap. That's when it all started. His bones began to deform, his legs and handles were like threads. My boy stopped growing. Doctors only waved their hands: this, they say, after the puncture is extremely rare - one case per thousand. Zhenya and I spent almost five years in hospitals, going to Moscow for consultations with professors. All to no avail. Eugene was diagnosed with "Spinal muscular atrophy".
When Zhenya was 6 years old, his sister Olena was born. He loved to take care of her. Eugene studied at home. Many children from school brought him their tests for successful completion. The only window to the world was a personal computer, which Eugene mastered in detail. After graduating from school, he entered the University of Ukraine, majoring in Computer Technology. After learning that there is an organization of people with disabilities on computers in Moscow, he decided to create the same in Kyiv. Together with those who care, they together created in 2000 the "Association of Disabled Computer Workers", which already operates in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv and Sevastopol.
Eugene worked. He taught students computer secrets at home. He wrote poems. Developed. Despite his condition, he said, "I want to live this life to the fullest, as a healthy man». On October 6, 2006, Eugene was alone at home. He wrote a message to everyone and said goodbye. It was on this day that his heart stopped. He was 26 years old.
