The Vice President of the Russian Society for the Blind, Russian Duma member Oleg Smolin, had a meeting with representatives of special needs organizations in Moscow. He spent 3 hours answering questions about visually impaired people and other groups.

A group representing people suffering the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident asked that young people affected by the accident continue to receive benefits after reaching the age of 18. As their parents pointed out, after 18 years the chronic effects have still not disappeared, and the victims need constant medical care. The director of a special school in the Moscow suburb Orekhovo-Zuevo, Vasiliy Sutyagin  noted that unlike boarding schools, which are funded from the federal budget, special schools receive only minimal financial support. They receive funding only for the teachers’ salaries, communal services and 50 roubles per day for food for each child. Repairs and equipment for the workshops are paid out of donations, and there are no funds at all for after-school activities, gardening etc. Mr Sutyagin said the school was barely surviving, and gave Mr Smolin a letter asking him to propose in the Duma that special schools are transferred to the federal budget.