Dmitry Shparo is a world-famous traveler, the leader of the first ever ski expedition from earth to the North Pole in 1979. The leader and director of the Club “Adventure” – about the choice between prestige and vocation, about who can become a volunteer, about participation in rallies and about raising children.
What do you think, when in what situations or at what age does a person think about what they will leave behind?
Someone thinks, someone, I think, does not think. My father Igor Borisovich Shparo – a professional writer-lived quite isolated, the outside world existed for him, but it did not matter much. The older he got, the more distant he seemed to grow. But the birth of his grandchildren, first Nikita, and then Matvey, in my opinion, changed him a lot. There was – that’s for sure – a great new interest in his life.
As for me, everything is simpler. I am a mathematician by education and by love of the profession. After graduating from the Moscow State University Mekhmat and postgraduate studies, I defended my dissertation and worked at the Department of Mathematics at MISIS. But in parallel, he headed the public polar scientific and sports expedition of Komsomolskaya Pravda. Both lasted for 20 years. I loved my job and my students, and at the same time I became a professional and famous traveler.
At some point, I felt that I should make a choice, and in 1989 I left MISIS and with my friends founded the professional club “Adventure”, which, therefore, will turn 25 this year. It was a rational choice. I felt that my second profession would allow me to realize my full potential, which means that I would be of great benefit to people.
Expedition to the North Pole in 1979
How and what, in your opinion, should those who think about charity and volunteering do: contact foundations and communities, or change something around themselves?
Both ways are good. Who chooses what. Another, very rich person will never think of changing anything around him, but he can think hard about charity-where should he actually put the money?
But it is easy to imagine a very different case. Again, a rich, active person. Why does he need funds? He himself, much better than others, will find an object for his charity.
You have combined charity and volunteerism. I think these things are fundamentally different. And regarding volunteering, I will answer this way. A volunteer can be a person with a pure soul. And inevitably, he will change something around him. And, most likely, he will miss it. And he will look for applications to his forces, perhaps, contact foundations or some communities. Volunteers are constantly involved in the work of our Club and in our work with children. These are wonderful guys. And our task is to make sure that they get maximum satisfaction with their work.
Expedition to the North Pole in 1979
Is society now ready to change its attitude towards each other? What do we lack, and what features of society have we already acquired?
No, it’s not ready. An extremely difficult question – what are we missing? I think there is not enough, not enough at the time of the change of epochs – in 1991, the elite, who would not think about themselves, but about their country, their people. The country moved, quickly acquired momentum in this movement. But many now understand that the shift was wrong. And the inertia is already very large. Fixing is always harder than building again.
Moscow lives its own life, colorful, but still quite modern and well-maintained. And this determines the position of citizenship of Muscovites: the right attitude to journalism, critical attitude to the government, strict demands for elections, rejection of the judicial system that depends on the government, hatred of corruption…
In other regions, life, I think, is more simple; in the mass, I apologize, more mundane, people are not up to citizenship. However – this is not quite true. There are many examples, well, at least Yekaterinburg, which show that the situation is changing.
Dmitry Shparo and Yuri Senkevich. 1979
What kind of charity — helping those who need it, is closer to you personally — can you give examples?
Any charity is close to me. I like that Nestle supports the Bolshoi Ballet. I like that the McDonald’s company traditionally supports the Paralympic Games, etc., etc. If our Adventure Club was rich and could spend money not only for daily production needs, not only for development, but also for serious charity, then obviously we would develop a scholarship system so that children from low-income families could get into our children’s sports and recreation adventure programs for free or almost free of charge.
This is a happy occasion when our charity could be most wonderfully combined with our own production activities. By the way, we are constantly thinking about this. And I’m sure we’ll come to that soon. To the scholarships that will allow you to come to our children’s camps www.pro-camp.ru in Karelia, the Crimea, and the Moscow region, children who want it very much, but who do not have enough money for it.
How do you think children should be raised?
First of all, children should be loved. Children need to meet them halfway, treat them with warmth and patience.
After this good paragraph, you can write a lot more. Children don’t grow up on their own, they’re not mushrooms. Or they won’t grow up the way we’d like them to. We need to raise children and grow up with them. Children need to be engaged; constantly, without slacking off. At the same time – undoubtedly-you yourself become better and better as a result.
In the very infancy, to help the crumbs, to master a very small living space. In the first grades – to help you learn. Then try to expand the children’s horizons as much as possible, to teach a healthy lifestyle. Today, this latter is the most important element of culture. The necessary correct, sometimes harsh demands, but so that it does not hang in the air, you also need a personal example, demanding of yourself.
In my opinion, it is extremely important to constantly look for an alternative to endless computer games and the Internet. From the good, all this quickly passes into the camp of the main enemies of our children.
For example, in America, there are quite a lot of companies similar to our Club that educate, train, heal, and develop children in autonomous travel. Along with the enemies-smoking, alcohol, drug addiction, our colleagues abroad confidently call children’s dependence on the Internet.
Communicate with your children, walk with them, run with them in the morning, read them more interesting things. Adults don’t have time to read, but it’s impoverishing. Read aloud to children, “killing two birds with one stone” – developing children and developing yourself. Keep children away from the TV.
Of course, we: I, my sons Matvey and Nikita Shparo are patriots of travel. Our Big Adventure camp in Karelia is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2014. If we consider that 1,600 people pass through the “Great Adventure” every year, then this is 24,000 … What good children come to us! We sincerely love them and are always waiting for them.