History of the foundation in detail

Since 2016, the Together Forever Charitable Foundation has been doing its best to ensure that children with rare neurological diseases of the spinal cord and brain receive the treatment they need in a timely manner. The Foundation gives children access to quality medical care and the opportunity to undergo treatment outside their home country in one of the best clinics in Europe, Israel and America. These clinics are equipped with high-tech modern equipment and employ highly specialized professionals who provide treatment to our beneficiaries and return them to a full life or help them find it.

The history of the Together Forever Foundation began long before its creation. It began with the birth of my second son, Alexander. It was after his birth that an irresistible desire to help children emerged within me. I decided to support the Russian charity foundation Life Line, where I soon met Irina Ryabushkina, the head of private programs, a person who later played a very important role in my charitable history. Irina told me who the foundation was helping and how, and got me so involved in the world of charity that I wanted to do my best to help the foundation's wards. My earnings at that time included a bonus program, under which additional payments were made twice a year. During 5 years, I used each bonus to pay for a heart operation for a child and thus helped the foundation to save 12 children, to whom we gave a new life.

Helping children inspired me a lot, I constantly wanted to do more, but I didn't know how. A meeting with Irina Ryabushkina in 2015 gave me answers to all my questions and helped me rethink my charity work. It came to me that large Russian foundations provide children with help only inside the country, but not outside it, where there are clinics with high-tech and modern equipment. And children with brain and spinal cord diseases simply have no chance of getting there, even if kind people help them. That's when I got the idea to create my own foundation, thanks to which children will have such a chance.

There are six children in my family: two sons and four daughters. For me, as for any parent, the most important thing is their health. At the end of 2015, I had to go through a difficult ordeal - my daughter, Mashenka, needed an urgent brain surgery. We managed to find a clinic in Germany, where doctors performed two complicated neurosurgical operations on her and brought her back to full life. Having overcome all the stages of this difficult journey, I realized everything that parents of children who need urgent help feel, and time is your biggest enemy. At that moment, I made the final decision to create a foundation to which children living in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and other post-Soviet countries could apply for help.

I was not a top manager or a media personality, I knew it would be difficult, but I had the most important thing - people ready to support my initiative. And the most important person among them was Irina Ryabushkina, for her huge contribution to the creation of the foundation I will always be grateful to her. It was Irina and her team who, in September 2016, launched and created the structure of the Together Forever Children's Charitable Foundation, and my business partners in Cyprus helped me to register it. I took over the entire legal and organizational structure.

The process of setting up the foundation was more complicated than I had anticipated. It took so much time that at a certain point I even had a dilemma: to continue doing it myself or to pass it on to the family that was already involved in the foundation's activities. But given the complex specifics of the direction of the foundation, accepting applications, attracting donors and paying for surgeries, I could not do it, so, with my best efforts, I continued to do what I had started. Over time, I had a team of specialists who helped me in all matters.

One of the first people who contributed to the development of the Together Forever Foundation was Maxim Martynchik. He gave us our logo with the image of three elephants, and we are very grateful to him for that. When no one knew about our elephants yet, it was very difficult for us to gain trust. Despite the fact that the Foundation's activities are absolutely transparent and all the funds coming into the Foundation's account are used only to pay for the treatment of children, it took us a long time for people to start helping children together with us. I often told my friends, colleagues, business partners and even just acquaintances about how and to whom we help. But it wasn't until two years after our founding that Together Forever reached a new stage of development - it began to make friends and like-minded people. People began to trust us. Before that moment, I paid for the first three surgeries for our beneficiaries from my personal funds.

As the number of people who wanted to make a difference in the lives of children grew, so did the capacity of the foundation, and eventually Together Forever had people to whom I was able to delegate the management of the foundation, leaving the key decisions to myself.

Together with our team, we regularly participate in and hold our own charity events, during which we have the opportunity to communicate personally with those who, like us, feel the need to help others. For several years of the Foundation's existence we have managed to form a whole community of kind and caring people who share our values and look in the same direction with us. We feel their reliable shoulder in every collection, and there are no words to convey how grateful we are to them for their trust and constant support. Together with them we are one big family of people close in spirit, for whom there are no alien children.

Thanks to our joint efforts, we have already raised hundreds of thousands of euros, paid for dozens of complex neurosurgical operations, and gave children a chance for a healthy and full life.

I sincerely hope that just like our name Together Forever, which I gave to the foundation in August 2016, the friends of the foundation who joined us once will stay with us forever, and that the three elephants on the logo will be a symbol of our friendship.