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← Sergey Sandrkin
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, there was a desperate shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers—things like FFP2/FFP3 respirators, hazmat suits, and face shields. Global industry just wasn't prepared for that kind of massive spike in demand, and we saw these same struggles play out all over the world.
Back then, almost every medical professional was putting their life on the line daily just by doing their job. Many were forced to use standard surgical masks or low-grade respirators that offered little real protection. It’s also worth remembering that, at the time, there was no vaccine to provide immunity. To make matters worse, plenty of people were flat-out denying the virus even existed, which only put more pressure on an already breaking healthcare system.
The whole situation was wrong. So, a small group of us in Ulyanovsk got together to try and help however we could. We just wanted to "make things right" — in Russian: "delay normalno" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (which is actually where our movement’s quirky name came from). We spent our time diving into technical specs for respirators and protective gear, hunting down legitimate PPE and tracking down suppliers who actually had stock. Since plastic face shields were nearly impossible to find, we started manufacturing them ourselves using laser cutters and open-source designs we found online. Everything we managed to buy or build was donated to frontline medical workers in Ulyanovsk and Dimitrovgrad — people who were fighting to save lives while being almost entirely defenseless against the SARS-CoV-2 virus themselves.
Eventually, the government stepped in with the necessary measures, and the PPE shortage finally ended. Today, we know this virus has claimed over 7 million lives worldwide (you can find the latest data here). We may have only played a small part, but it was our way of contributing to the fight and helping our local medics do their jobs safely.
Below is an archive from our Telegram channel documenting our small movement’s activities from that period. For some reason, it feels important to preserve this bit of history.