In his mid-forties, heterosexual, HIV-positive in the Ural Region, the HIV epidemic for years. Thousands are affected. How to combat the Russians are the Problem? Mandlmeier reported from Severouralsk.
An HIV-positive child in Russia gets his medication
The Wind penetrates to the bones. Passers-by pull up your collar. The cigarette in the hands of young people don’t want to tackle. The Wind blows away the flame. His Hand is shaking from the cold. Even the dog trips freezing. The only one not left in the cold on this November Sunday, is Lenin.
Majestic, the former Communist leader, from his high Pedestal on the Piazza of the same name is looking over the heads of passers-by, over everything down there, what coughs, smokes and freezes. He wanted to know nothing about it. Why should he? He looks directly into the future, to the life-affirming mosaics in the socialist realism on the housing. On Dom Kultury, town of Severouralsk.
Songs against … AIDS
“It is the Communist party!” – echoes of the stage through the hall. Some of the mid-forties of the interior to swear fervently on the wrong hanging Lenin-Flag and the singing. Songs from their youth. About the home. About the future. Songs against … AIDS.
“This family concert is also a measure in the fight against HIV,” says Svetlana Batraewa full of Conviction. S smiles and says’. Please? “Yes, we want to give the values of older generations to the young. We will help you to understand what love is. Also love for the homeland. Because of this, the Communists-songs tell. It’s part of HIV prevention.” I not to hake: “A role model so, how do you get infected with HIV?” Batraewa responds: “Yes, of course it’s supposed to be a role model. Because the Elderly know how to live right and love.”
The facades of Severouralsk
Severouralsk is a sleepy little town in the North of the Russian Urals Region. 480 km up to the large cities of Yekaterinburg and Perm. No The Airport. And trains don’t go here. The only connection to the outside world, taxis, or marshrutkas, are the mini buses. Eight-hour journey up to Perm or Yekaterinburg.
It is a maze of grey plattenbau facades here, in front of the wooded hills of the Ural mountains. 26,000 people live behind these facades. Most of the life of mining. Although the unemployment rate is in Severouralsk with 3.28 percent higher than on average in Russia, but the valuable aluminum ore bauxite is mined here still. A so-called mono-town with a large operation as the main employer.
The HIV capital of Russia
But the ideal world is deceptive. Because behind these prefab facades a rule for years, the rights of HIV epidemic. Every fourth inhabitant of Severouralsk is infected with the deadly HI-Virus. The city in the North of the Ural Region has made a couple of years ago to great headlines. She was one of the first cities in Russia that captured the Positive, statistically clean. With this openness, itself Severouralsk brought to the inglorious title of the HIV capital of Russia. Even worse than the number of HIV-Positive and whose composition is. Here in Severouralsk the second Phase of the HIV epidemic in Russia started already. Here the Virus has become a danger not only for the so-called risk-groups, but for the entire population.
How do the people living with HIV in everyday life, I want to know. We are back outside, on the Lenin square. “Here there are a lot of Infected and Sick,” says an elderly woman. “It would be better to wash your hands.” “And you should be vaccinating,” adds in passing. “Vaccinate against HIV?”, I ask puzzled. “Well, something like that, right?” A strong man with a leather hat brings it to the point: “This is one of the biggest problems of our city!”
A group of young people in Severouralsk
I ask a young smoker with a deep-seated hood: “you Have HIV-positive friends?” He answers with a hoarse voice: “Yes. Many. All of them are sick. Half of the city consists of a bunch of Junkies.” I ask: “drug addicts?” “Yes. Young people simply have nothing to do.” Around the corner from Dom Kultury, a young woman pushes her stroller in front of himself: “I have fear, fear for my children,” she said. From Dom Kultury echoes, meanwhile: “The fight goes on. The heart is full of sorrow in the breast. Lenin is so young. The boy is October going forward!”
It was beautiful once
The hospital of Severouralsk is located just two minutes ‘ walk from the socialist dream. It is an old neo-classical Stalin-construction. With Greek columns and lush decorations. Seedy, morbid, yellowed. He was once beautiful.
Here today, the new infections are reported. Here are the HIV patients get their therapy. In the meantime, the city had recognized the scale of the disaster and react, tells Svetlana Batraewa proud of. Until recently, she was responsible for youth work and AIDS prevention in the city. Now she works as a journalist. But the topic has Batraewa still. She devotes her free time to the fight against AIDS: organizes, advises, and reports. And you accompanied me on this cold February Sunday for their home town.
The hospital of Severouralsk
Batraewa tells the story of free blood tests performed in mobile laboratories. By the way, directly under the monument to Lenin. It tells of discussions in the enterprises, the infection statistics maintained in Severouralsk carefully. Of a whole series of measures, thanks to the Severouralsk a real role model for other Russian cities had become. And the fact that this work is worth it. The number of new HIV infections drops. “One of our active working methods that Inform the population. About how to protect themselves properly,” says the activist, “how to behave properly and how to properly live. We rely on a healthy way of life and stand up for values such as family and romantic relationships – instead of Sex.”
Romantic relationships instead of Sex? Are affected by the HIV epidemic in Severouralsk, not only young people and not only so-called risk groups. As indeed in the whole of Russia.
What the Deputy Minister says
“The Urals and Siberia are in fact affected more by HIV than the Rest of Russia,” says Sergei Krajewoj, Russia’s Vice-Minister of health when I saw him later in Moscow to the situation in Severouralsk question. “The source is in the nineties. Catastrophic economic situation, high unemployment, and drug trafficking were the reasons. The needle of a young drug addict was the most common way of infection. But that has changed. Today, more than half of the Infected around the age of forty. You are infected during sexual intercourse.”
Traditions respect
What is the high-ranking officials of family values and romantic love as an HIV-prevention? “A healthy family is the same in all countries and all cultures, a high Well,” smiles Krajewoj. “But of course that’s not enough. The paths of Infection, the most Important thing is to be Informed. Therapies and tolerant in dealing with HIV-positive people. These people are no danger to your loved one in everyday life.” “Of course not, if one uses in the Sex, just use condoms”, I add and question: “Why hang up because nowhere in Russia posters with this very simple Präventionsart? As in Berlin,for example, where condom-images with the inscription ‘don’t Give AIDS a Chance!’ at the bus stops?” The Minister responds seriously: “We have nothing against an open approach with mechanical means of protection.” After a Pause, he clarified: “…with condoms. It is run with us in the television commercials of the company Durex advertising. By the way, on the topic of HIV. But you should respect the cultural and religious traditions of a country, if you really want to be a free society.”
The maintenance of these cultural traditions of a free society looks like, I know in the Dom Kultury of Severouralsk. After three hours, the family concert in the early afternoon to the end. The visitors return. Behind the facades of their Soviet panel buildings.