Samara Regional Cardiac Center, Volga Federal District

Situated on the Volga River – a vital commercial thoroughfare for many centuries – Samara is Russia’s sixth-largest city. During the Soviet Era, Samara was a closed city. Today it is an important social, political, economic, industrial, and cultural center with a metropolitan population of over three million.

Self-sustaining pediatric site: our second
Area served: 401,000 square miles
Population served: 30 million
Beginning of collaboration: 2003
Self-sustainability reached: 2009
Size of first team trained: 50
Children saved to date: 4,700+

In 2003, Heart to Heart set out into the heartland of Russia. Our partner site in Samara was our first pediatric site after St. Petersburg. With our start in Samara, we announced Heart to Heart’s new goal: to give all children in all regions of Russia access to life-saving heart care. In 2009 this site became self-sustaining, and has now been serving children in the Volga region for over a decade.

“A pediatric cardiac center is judged by its surgical outcomes. A few days ago, Dr. Goryachev performed the Norwood procedure – the most difficult open heart procedure. I observed his patient postoperatively in the intensive care unit. The baby’s hemodynamics were excellent, and he looked as well as could be expected. Baby Maksim would not have fared better at my home institution.”

— David Teitel, MD
pediatric cardiologist (interventionalist)
UC San Francisco pediatric heart center