HIV ward

“Volodya is being taken to the hospital” - the voice of my best friend’s mother could not get through the interference of the telephone connection. I managed to hear only one word: “HIV.”

The name "Falcon Mountain" sounds beautiful and romantic - until you visit it. On Eighth Street of Sokolinaya Gora, in a gloomy white seven-story building, the Second Moscow Infectious Diseases Hospital is located. The Central AIDS Center is the only one in all of Russia that seems to have at least some kind of treatment. The disease comes in different ways, but sooner or later it ends here.

A guard blocked my way. “I have a friend lying here, let him pass, he is dying.” - “Everyone dies here. 30 rubles entry.”

Every time I open the door of the room with the fear that my friend is worse. That his feverish brain is no longer able to perceive what is happening and fight for life - and that there is no hope left.

HIV is accompanied by a whole host of diseases. Hepatitis is such and such. Pneumonia of all stripes are constant companions. Now another cytomegalovirus has appeared. In most healthy people, it lives in the body without causing harm. For AIDS patients, this virus threatens blindness and paralysis. We learn from our neighbors in the department what to expect next - anemia, tuberculosis of the lungs and brain. And the worst thing: endless, unbearable pain.

“The boy has a temperature of 38, could you give him analgin?” - I grab the sleeve of the doctor who glanced in fleetingly. “Give me?” His eyebrows shot up indignantly and hung over his green cap. “Socialism ended a long time ago.” Indeed, it is not his fault that there is no medicine in the hospital.

"HIV?" - asks a roommate, a boy from the Moscow region. "HIV". - "Moskvich?" - "Moskvich". - "Lucky."

Not that word. They say that the medicines - not analgin, of course, but those special ones that people come here for - are only enough for Muscovites. “They’re all drug addicts and fagots anyway,” the guard told me. The doctor stood nearby silently. Thank you, even though I didn’t support it.

A cheerful boy galloped past us. Young. “Would you like to warm me up for a smoke? - He’s so cheerful. - Yes, I’m not sick. I’m on an experiment.”
Not sick. Now I know that being infected does not mean “sick”, that you can live with the virus for quite a long time, about twenty years. You just need to convince yourself that life is worth living. But how to do this if after the diagnosis you end up here, on Sokolinaya Gora?

The boy apparently found the meaning of life in the experiment. Here the Belgians are testing new drugs. Twice a day the plane delivers our experimental blood to them for research. It’s clear - in Belgium, where you can simply get treatment, there is no point in participating in any experiments. And there are still people here who have nothing to lose. Along the way, they learn what their immune status and viral load are, and then they tell others.

Patients educate each other. And they change each other’s diapers, make sure that everyone takes their pills, feed those who cannot themselves, take the temperature, give advice to relatives about what medications and where to get them best, what tests to insist on. They explain which symptoms are especially dangerous and how to behave further in order to survive. They are alone, for themselves.

From senseless waiting and pain, fever is replaced by complete indifference. Then they will put a cross next to the name on the bedside sign - it means it’s heavy, you need help, let relatives in. And they transfer it to boxing. There is one bed for the patient, and the second for his relatives or friends. If anyone can, otherwise the patient will be completely alone. Twice a day the nurse gives injections, no one says what kind or for what; twice - a duck, and maybe the doctor will stop by. Write down everything: temperature, weakness, is there any pain?

In America there are hospices for HIV-infected people. Of course, we know that everything is better and bigger there. I’m not talking about the conditions - it’s just that there are people there, they’re called volunteers, who go to these patients just like that. They support in people, in strangers absolutely, the desire to live. They help in the wards, organize all sorts of Christmases and birthdays for the patients, carry out their orders, entertain them as best they can, that is, they do what doctors cannot do. They don’t get paid, and they don’t extort 30 rubles for entry, it’s unclear where.

It happens that there are not even 30 rubles.

“Let me in, I have a son here,” the tearful woman does not move away from the bars.
- Closed mode. Not allowed.
- He is dying.
- Everyone dies here.