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"Prisoner of the Bolotnaya" Mikhail Kosenko left the hospital. On July 9, 2012 he was detained, on July 11, 2014 he was released

^{Photo: Ekaterina Fomina - "New"}

A month ago, the Chekhov City Court granted the request of the doctors of the Psychiatric Hospital No. 5 to transfer Mikhail Kosenko to outpatient treatment. Before that, there were a year and a half in a pre-trial detention center, the loss of his mother, for whose funeral he was not released, the conclusion of the doctors of the Serbsky Institute about “insanity and public danger”, an open letter from his sister Ksenia to the president ...

The shabby iron door swings open: Ksenia, like a guide, leads her brother out. Has changed: a smooth face - shaved his mustache, a lost look in front of him. I am surprised how a person who has fallen from darkness into bright light. He smiles faintly when he sees journalists and people who have come to support him. There are only ten of them, here is a woman with white flowers and a box of chocolates already hugging and congratulating Ksenia.

— What do you feel?

“The wind of freedom,” Mikhail replies dumbfounded.

Plans? No plans yet.

No sadness, no joy. The rest of the guys are sitting. Inhale freedom to start.

And his sister says:

- Honestly? I want to cry.

- Well, cry

- No. I’ll cry later,” she snaps. - We need to come to our senses a little, clean the feathers, and then we'll see.

Piece by piece, it is possible to put together an idea of hospital life. Mikhail is questioned, but he is confused by such attention. Only in the car on the way home he spoke himself.

^{Mikhail Kosenko with his sister Xenia}

In the wards, the crowding is up to 23 people, there were 15 in it. There are those who have been in the hospital for 30 years. On the adjacent beds, normal people, sane, inadequate are kept in another department. There is a TV - they watch the news, they do not react to the situation in the country, they do not discuss it.

Everyone is monitored there, they keep a log. It contains records of orderlies: “Looking out the window and thinking about escaping”, “Beastly eating gingerbread” ...

There is occupational therapy in the schedule, but there are no workshops, they closed two years ago. But there is duty along the corridor, the ward, the dining room - not every day. When bored, people play backgammon, dominoes, talk. There is a volleyball court but no net. Something even worse than in a pre-trial detention center, - Mikhail recalls. You can't drink tea when you want, you can't sleep when you want, ten cigarettes a day - and then when they let you. Normal attitude, no rudeness, called by name. No, no one was angry that they were letting go, they were even happy.

Doctors generally do not like it when someone goes to patients. There is even such a rumor: if you want to be discharged faster, relatives should often visit the attending physician: how are you feeling, what are the forecasts, when is the discharge?

Mishin's classmate Alexander is driving, the head of the information department of the Public Verdict Foundation is sitting next to him, they also studied in the same class. They recall that the Russian language was taught by an elderly dissident, how Misha held his breath for three minutes in a biology class (“Come on, this can’t be!”), What a shock it was for everyone when he, a typical “nerd”, himself decided to serve...

^{At the door of the house}

On radio news: "According to polls by the Levada Center, protest moods have fallen to a record low." Mikhail received information only in this way - he listened to the radio in the player. It seems to him that the country has changed in these two years, but not much. He will go to rallies. “The authorities have ceased to be afraid of civil activity. Our society is screwed up."

Conditions for outpatient monitoring: Mikhail must go to the doctor every month and check in at the dispensary. In general, everything that he did before, even before his arrest.

“I want to exhale, but so far I can’t,” says Ksenia. We've arrived. Mikhail Kosenko returned home, where he had not been for exactly two years.

^{Last photo on the loose two years ago}