Stories of goodness from famous people. The Kindest People in the Celebrity World

“Rus' is not without good people!” Russian people can easily be considered one of the most responsive peoples in the world. On the pages of history you can find many characters who throughout their lives tried to make the world a little better. Among them are doctors, military men, nobles, and even royalty.

The opening of universities, specialized printing houses and schools, helping orphans, the hungry and the homeless is not a complete list of the good deeds of these people, which will be discussed in our material.

He was one of that rare breed of people who put the interests of others above their own “wants.” It was on the initiative of the “bright man” that the first shelters for beggars appeared not only in Moscow, but also beyond its borders. It was common for Rtishchev to pick up a drunk on the street and take him to a temporary shelter he organized - an analogue of a modern sobering-up station.

How many were saved from death and did not freeze to death on the street, one can only guess. In 1671, Fyodor Mikhailovich sent grain convoys to starving Vologda, and then money raised from the sale of personal property. And when I learned about the need of the Arzamas residents for additional lands, he simply donated his own.

During the Russian-Polish War, he carried out not only his compatriots, but also Poles from the battlefield. He hired doctors, rented houses, bought food and clothing for the wounded and prisoners, again at his own expense. After Rtishchev’s death, his “Life” appeared - a unique case of demonstrating the holiness of a layman, and not a monk.

She knew how to convince moneybags to donate money for the construction of educational institutions for noble maidens in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Simbirsk and Kharkov.

With her direct participation, the largest charitable organization was created - the Imperial Humane Society, which existed until the beginning of the 20th century. Having 9 children of her own, she especially cared for abandoned babies: the sick were cared for in orphanages, the strong and healthy were cared for in trustworthy peasant families. This approach has significantly reduced child mortality.

With all the scale of her activities, Maria Feodorovna also paid attention to the little things that were not necessary for life. Thus, in the Obukhov psychiatric hospital in St. Petersburg, each patient received his own kindergarten. Her will contains the following lines: “Give life to Your Spirit through meekness, love and mercy. Be helpers and benefactors to the suffering and the poor.”

A descendant of the Rurikovichs, Prince Vladimir Odoevsky, was convinced that the thought he sowed would certainly “come up tomorrow” or “in a thousand years.” A close friend of Griboyedov and Pushkin, the writer and philosopher Odoevsky was an active supporter of the abolition of serfdom, worked to the detriment of his own interests for the Decembrists and their families, and tirelessly intervened in the fate of the most disadvantaged.

He was ready to rush to the aid of anyone who turned to him and saw in everyone a “living string” that could be made to sound for the benefit of the cause. The St. Petersburg Society for Visiting the Poor, which he organized, helped 15 thousand needy families. There was a women's workshop, a children's shelter with a school, a hospital, hostels for the elderly and families, and a social store.

Despite his origin and connections, Odoevsky did not seek to occupy an important post, believing that in a “minor position” he could bring “real benefit.” The “Strange Scientist” tried to help young inventors realize their ideas. The main character traits of the prince, according to contemporaries, were humanity and virtue.

An innate sense of justice distinguished the grandson of Paul I from most of his colleagues. He not only served in the Preobrazhensky Regiment during the reign of Nicholas I, but also equipped the first school in the history of the country at his place of service, in which soldiers’ children were educated.

Later, this successful experience was applied to other regiments. In 1834, the prince witnessed the public punishment of a woman who was driven through a line of soldiers, after which he petitioned for dismissal, saying that he would never be able to carry out such orders. Pyotr Georgievich devoted the rest of his life to charity. He was a trustee and honorary member of many institutions and societies, including the Kyiv Home for the Poor.

Retired second lieutenant Sergei Skirmunt is almost unknown to the general public. He did not hold high positions and failed to become famous for his good deeds, but he was able to build socialism on a single estate.

At the age of 30, when Sergei Apollonovich was painfully pondering his future fate, 2.5 million rubles fell on him from a deceased distant relative. The inheritance was not spent on carousing or lost at cards. One part of it became the basis for donations to the Society for the Promotion of Public Public Entertainment, the founder of which was Skirmunt himself. With the rest of the money, the millionaire built a hospital and a school on the estate, and all his peasants were able to move to new huts.

But her main efforts were aimed at changing the situation of people with disabilities. For 45 years, she did everything to ensure that blind people had the opportunity to become full-fledged members of society.

She was able to find the means and strength to open the first specialized printing house in Russia, where in 1885 the first edition of the “Collection of Articles for Children’s Reading, published and dedicated to blind children by Anna Adler” was published.

To produce the book in Braille, she worked seven days a week until late at night, personally typing and proofreading page after page. Later, Anna Alexandrovna translated the musical notation system, and blind children were able to learn to play musical instruments.

With her active assistance, a few years later the first group of blind students graduated from the St. Petersburg School for the Blind, and a year later - from the Moscow School.

Literacy and vocational training helped graduates find jobs, changing the stereotype of their incapacity. Anna Adler just barely lived to see the opening of the First Congress of the All-Russian Society of the Blind.

He was the first in the world to use surgery in the field, and his decision to use anesthesia saved not only his patients from suffering, but also those who lay on the tables of his students later. Through his efforts, the splints were replaced with bandages soaked in starch.

He was the first to use the method of sorting the wounded into those who were seriously injured and those who would make it to the rear. This reduced the mortality rate significantly. Before Pirogov, even a minor wound to the arm or leg could result in amputation. He personally carried out operations and tirelessly ensured that the soldiers were provided with everything they needed: warm blankets, food, water.

According to legend, it was Pirogov who taught Russian academics to perform plastic surgery, demonstrating the successful experience of implanting a new nose on the face of his barber, whom he helped get rid of deformity. Being an excellent teacher, about whom all the students spoke with warmth and gratitude, he believed that the main task of education is to teach to be human.

It is unlikely that anyone will argue that faith, hope and love are the basis of human life. Even the most hardened and degraded criminal has at least one of these feelings alive somewhere in the depths of his soul: hope. For forgiveness, for a better life, for pardon, for reconciliation with oneself and God. And there, you see, it’s not far from faith and love.

Sofia is a special matter. Wisdom is not easy to come by, and not everyone needs it; many find it much easier without this burdensome phenomenon. However, in the history of real women, martyrs of Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia, this connection cannot be broken; these saints are always together.

Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia. Icon from Vatopedi Monastery

Their life is a story that is accepted with incredible difficulty by consciousness. And the point is not at all that our time somehow overvalues human life? or is too skeptical about such a phenomenon as the Christian faith, or puts more material than spiritual values at the forefront. No, the description of such a short, but such a bright life of three holy girls chills the blood precisely with this combination: a life short in duration and bright in content. Only now the content was martyrdom, with the sophisticated imagination of the torturers and the immeasurable, inconceivable human understanding and courage of the mother...

In the 2nd century AD, from 117 to 138, Emperor Hadrian ruled Rome, known not only for his state services, but also for the fact that his lover was the young man Antinous, who drowned in the Nile River and was not only deified by Hadrian, but became the last god of the departing ancient pantheon. It was to this emperor that a denunciation arrived from the Italian governor Antiochus that the pious widow Sophia from Milan professed the Christian faith and was raising her three daughters according to Christian commandments. The emperor was angry and summoned the family to Rome, making little secret of the final purpose of their journey.

Mother and daughters arrived at their destination - and all three girls, despite the fact that the youngest of them, Lyubov, was only 9 years old, and the eldest, Vera, had reached the age of 12, understood perfectly well where they had arrived and what awaited them . At first, Emperor Hadrian was quite kind and simply invited the arriving family to bow and pay homage to the goddess of the hunt, Artemis, dear to his heart. After a decisive refusal on the part of Sophia and her daughters, he offered rich gifts in exchange for this worship, but this did not bring success - however, it must be said, the emperor did not particularly count on consent. An attempt was made to separate the children from the mother and her influence - Faith, Hope and Love, on the orders of Adrian, were sent to a noble and famous pagan woman, who tried to persuade the girls to renounce Christ, either by persuasion, or caresses, or threats, or even religious disputes . Everything was unsuccessful: the young women firmly stood their ground, their faith was deep and sincere and did not depend on whether their mother was next to them or not.

The pagan woman lowered her hands, and the girls again appeared before Adrian. Threats were used, but Faith, Hope and Love were adamant in their faith. Realizing that words could achieve nothing, the emperor gave the order that the three girls be brutally tortured in front of their mother. They were burned on a hot grate, lowered into a vat of boiling resin, thrown into a fiery furnace, but all was in vain: the holy girls remained firm in their faith, and the Lord helped them to remain steadfast and miraculously preserved them from death. The perverted fantasy of the torturers extended far - for example, the youngest of the sisters, 9-year-old Lyubov, was tied to a wheel and beaten with sticks until her body became one continuous bloody wound. The mother was forced to watch her daughters suffer, but from her lips only words of support and praise to the Lord were heard. Before Sophia’s eyes, the torturers, tired of their fruitless efforts, beheaded the young women, but the mother’s spiritual joy was incomparable: she understood that her daughters had been awarded the crown of martyrdom and the Kingdom of God.

Emperor Hadrian understood perfectly well that a mother’s heart still suffers, even with the strongest heavenly joy. To prolong the torment of the persistent woman, he ordered his servants to give her the bodies of her daughters, so that she herself would take care of their burial. The suffering Sophia loaded her dead girls into the ark and went with her mournful burden out of the city, where she buried the holy bodies on a hill. After that, she spent two days next to their graves, grieving, rejoicing and praying to the Lord. On the third day He accepted her soul too.

The Church canonized the martyred girls as saints, glorifying their suffering mother along with them on the same day. Since 777, the relics of all four have been kept in the Alsatian church of Escho.

Modern realities change too much in the value system. Signs of the times are very ardent feminism and, most often, unreasonable juvenile justice - something that has no place in this terrible, sometimes cruel, but happy for every understanding Christian history of faith, hope and love - that is, wisdom.

The most terrible, the most godless time did not abandon these three virtues. Yes, faith in God could be replaced by faith in the ruler, love could be given some macabre colors at times, and hope could be placed on a pedestal of such heights that it seemed to replace the two previous feelings. But even the most perverted consciousness understands that faith, hope and love are integral aspirations, needs and abilities of a person - and it is not even so important whether he believes in the presence of a soul or only in the triumph of reason. After all, these are the main virtues.

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3 Comment threads

True stories from the lives of people with different destinies, lives and worldviews, but united by one big heart.

1. Dima is a teenager, no different from other guys like him. Nothing but kindness and sensitivity to complete strangers. One day he needed to visit the military registration and enlistment office. He didn’t have money for the bus, so he had to walk. It was in February. Having walked quite a bit from the house, from a distance he saw a woman lying in the snow. At first Dima thought that she was drunk, but when he approached her, he saw an elderly woman. Although there were many passers-by on the street, no one except Dima paid attention to her. The teenager came up and slowly picked her up. She said she was walking to church when she slipped and fell. Dima brought the woman home, although he had to deviate from the given route by two stops. As a sign of gratitude, she tried to give the guy money for travel. But Dima refused - that’s not why he helped her.

2. Love for animals can be limitless. Steve Craig, an accountant from Denver, knows this firsthand. A month after the death of his beloved dog, he began to feel depressed. Then Steve decided to take old, sick dogs from the shelter, who are unlikely to attract anyone's attention and whose fate, alas, is predictable. First, he adopted a twelve-year-old Chihuahua with a heart murmur and painful joints. Now he has 10 elderly dogs living at home. “I’m very happy that I was able to make these animals happy,” says Steve.

3. It’s no secret what exotic food they eat in South Korea. At their meat market you can find any animal, including dogs. Two-year-old dog Chi-Chi, hanging upside down in a dark room, was constantly beaten to make her meat more tender. However, for unknown reasons, it did not become another delicacy on someone’s table. She was simply left to die in a garbage bag. Fortunately, Chi-Chi was saved, but all of her legs had to be amputated. And after two months at the veterinary clinic, the dog found a family in Phoenix, Arizona.

4. Dreams tend to come true. It also came true for twelve-year-old Emily Tammen, who suffers from autism, attention deficit disorder and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The girl's joints suffer due to this disease. Emily came to the concert of her favorite singer Adele with a poster “My dream is to sing with Adele.” The singer noticed this ad and invited the girl to the stage, offering to perform the hit “Someone Like You.”

5. You don't need to be a superhero to save lives. At one of the baseball games, player Andrew McCutcheon from the Pirates team slipped his bat. It flew straight into the boy's forehead. An unknown “superhero” wearing glasses deflected the blow of the bat by putting up his hand. Having flown around the boy's head, the bat still hit him on the back of the head. But this was not at all the blow that the unfortunate guy could have received.

6. Friendship between a penguin and a human is possible. In 2001, a pensioner saved a tiny penguin. He lay dying on the rocks, covered in oil. The man picked up the poor animal, cleaned its feathers of oil and fed it fish every day until the penguin gained strength. This was the beginning of their long and strong friendship.

7. There are firefighters among dogs. Burnt puppy Jake, rescued from a fire by Bill Linder, became a firefighter. Baby Jake was just a few weeks old when he found himself in a burning barn. He received burns on 75% of his body, which forced his owners to abandon him. Then Bill's family decided to take him for themselves. Now Jake, together with his owner, conducts fire safety lessons in schools.

8. “You can’t see the most important things with your eyes,” said Exupery. Mr. Kuroki, a Japanese dairy farmer, spent two years trying to lift his blind wife out of depression. Having planted a giant flower bed, he pulled her outside, thereby making her smile.

9. Sometimes even a fire can end a wedding. A firefighter rescued a girl from a burning house. Unfortunately, he suffered a leg injury; doctors said that the man would no longer be able to walk normally. But 28 years later, he walked their daughter down the aisle.

10. “Five years ago I adopted a dog from a shelter that was about to be euthanized. Now this dog saves my life every day. I suffer from a neurological condition that causes seizures. My dog knows in advance about the next attack and warns me about it.”

Maria Ryzhova
Photo: avivas.ru, dailymail.co.uk, mediaLeaks.ru, blognews.am, 4tololo.ru

Tasadean tribe

Are there people on our Earth who know neither wars, nor violence, nor murders? A startling discovery was made by anthropologists. In 1971, on the Philippine Islands, where, it would seem, everything had been explored far and wide, an unknown tribe of people was discovered. It lives separately and does not know that there is a world around it, where there are also others like them. This tribe was called the Tasadei. Tasadao is a mountain above the entrance to a cave on the slope of one of the hills in the wilds of the island of Mindanao. There the Tasadei spend the night.

These people have a very primitive life. Each day they live is not much different from the previous one. Waking up at sunrise, they go down to the stream to wash and have breakfast. Thanks to the rich flora and ponds teeming with tadpoles, small fish and crabs, they always have food at hand and do not need to stock up.

The Tasadays sit down on sun-warmed rocks and begin their meal, feeding each other their prey. At noon, the tribe moves into the shade and spends the rest of the day in peace and quiet.

Only at sunset they go in search of plant food and after a vegetarian dinner (lunch) they take refuge in a cave for the night. Their undisturbed sleep lasts about 12 hours.

Life of the Tasadeans

This is how the life of the Tasadeans passes in peace and harmony. They have neither enemies nor dangers (large predators are not found in the Philippines). These people do not farm or raise domestic animals. Instead of clothing, they wear a bandage made of orchid leaves, which they wear on their hips.

This tribe knows neither quarrels nor enmity. When making any decision, they quickly come to a common opinion, so there is no need to appoint chiefs and elders.

Due to the fact that Tasadeans do not have a very good memory, they do not remember accidental insults and do not hold grudges against their fellows. Couples are created only for love. One marriage for life. The feeling of jealousy is unknown to these amazing people, since they also do not experience betrayal.

In this group of people everyone is equal. After all, they have no property, and they don’t know what money is.

Another remarkable quality of Tasadays is the absence of bad habits (smoking and drinking alcohol). Scientists believe that these people are good-natured and forgiving from birth.

Svetlana Smirnova, Samogo.Net

“Rus' is not without good people!” Russian people can easily be considered one of the most responsive peoples in the world. And we have someone to look up to.

Okolnichy Fedor Rtishchev

During his lifetime, Fyodor Rtishchev, a close friend and adviser to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, received the nickname “gracious husband.” Klyuchevsky wrote that Rtishchev fulfilled only part of the commandment of Christ - he loved his neighbor, but not himself. He was one of that rare breed of people who put the interests of others above their own “wants.” It was on the initiative of the “bright man” that the first shelters for beggars appeared not only in Moscow, but also beyond its borders. It was common for Rtishchev to pick up a drunk on the street and take him to a temporary shelter he organized - an analogue of a modern sobering-up station. How many were saved from death and did not freeze to death on the street, one can only guess.

In 1671, Fyodor Mikhailovich sent grain convoys to starving Vologda, and then money raised from the sale of personal property. And when I learned about the need of the Arzamas residents for additional lands, he simply donated his own.

Empress Maria Feodorovna

The second wife of Paul I, Maria Fedorovna, was famous for her excellent health and tirelessness. Starting the morning with cold douches, prayer and strong coffee, the Empress devoted the rest of the day to taking care of her countless pupils. She knew how to convince moneybags to donate money for the construction of educational institutions for noble maidens in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Simbirsk and Kharkov. With her direct participation, the largest charitable organization was created - the Imperial Humane Society, which existed until the beginning of the 20th century.

Having 9 children of her own, she especially cared for abandoned babies: the sick were cared for in orphanages, the strong and healthy were cared for in trustworthy peasant families.

This approach has significantly reduced child mortality. With all the scale of her activities, Maria Feodorovna also paid attention to the little things that were not necessary for life. Thus, in the Obukhov psychiatric hospital in St. Petersburg, each patient received his own kindergarten.

Her will contains the following lines: “Give life to Your Spirit through meekness, love and mercy. Be helpers and benefactors to the suffering and the poor.”

Prince Vladimir Odoevsky

The St. Petersburg Society for Visiting the Poor, which he organized, helped 15 thousand needy families.

There was a women's workshop, a children's shelter with a school, a hospital, hostels for the elderly and families, and a social store.

Prince Peter of Oldenburg

In 1834, the prince witnessed the public punishment of a woman who was driven through a line of soldiers, after which he petitioned for dismissal, saying that he would never be able to carry out such orders.

Pyotr Georgievich devoted the rest of his life to charity. He was a trustee and honorary member of many institutions and societies, including the Kyiv Home for the Poor.

Sergey Skirmunt

At the age of 30, when Sergei Apollonovich was painfully pondering his future fate, 2.5 million rubles fell on him from a deceased distant relative.

The inheritance was not spent on carousing or lost at cards. One part of it became the basis for donations to the Society for the Promotion of Public Public Entertainment, the founder of which was Skirmunt himself. With the rest of the money, the millionaire built a hospital and a school on the estate, and all his peasants were able to move to new huts.

Anna Adler

The whole life of this amazing woman was devoted to educational and pedagogical work. She was an active participant in various charitable societies, helped during the famine in the Samara and Ufa provinces, and on her initiative the first public reading room was opened in the Sterlitamak district. But her main efforts were aimed at changing the situation of people with disabilities. For 45 years, she did everything to ensure that blind people had the opportunity to become full-fledged members of society.

To produce the book in Braille, she worked seven days a week until late at night, personally typing and proofreading page after page.

Later, Anna Alexandrovna translated the musical notation system, and blind children were able to learn to play musical instruments. With her active assistance, a few years later the first group of blind students graduated from the St. Petersburg School for the Blind, and a year later from the Moscow School. Literacy and vocational training helped graduates find jobs, changing the stereotype of their incapacity. Anna Adler just barely lived to see the opening of the First Congress of the All-Russian Society of the Blind.

Nikolay Pirogov

The entire life of the famous Russian surgeon is a series of brilliant discoveries, the practical use of which saved more than one life. The men considered him a wizard who attracted higher powers for his “miracles.” He was the first in the world to use surgery in the field, and his decision to use anesthesia saved not only his patients from suffering, but also those who lay on the tables of his students later. Through his efforts, the splints were replaced with bandages soaked in starch.

He personally carried out operations and tirelessly ensured that the soldiers were provided with everything they needed: warm blankets, food, water.

Being an excellent teacher, about whom all the students spoke with warmth and gratitude, he believed that the main task of education is to teach how to be human.