Visit to Asatiani Mental Hospital

How do people suffering from a psychiatric illness live?

-“I have one question. Is it necessary to love somebody to get married?”
-“Maybe.”
-“No, what kind of love you are speaking about? Why did he kill my child then? Can you understand me? He killed my beautiful child. I was nursing him for eight years and then they cut off my breast because I was nursing him…Do you want to see his photos? I cannot. My husband took them from me. He killed my son too. I had one leaf and used to put it on my son’s wound but he died. Why do they kill children? Tell them to let me go. I am not insane, can’t you see? I have to bring my son back to life. I know where to get those leaves. Tell them to let me go or I will be too late…Do you want to kill my son again?...”

-“You stupid woman, why are you lying, you never had a husband and a son,” says the nurse standing at the window looking at us.
-“You do not know and stop speaking…”, says the woman.

It is difficult to breath here. The corridor is long and badly lit. There are no ghosts, but these people move like ghosts. All of them have the same way of walking: they keep their hands on their back, lower their heads and their look is frozen. They observe the stranger from a distance. Those, who are braver, approach the newcomer.

-“Don’t you have lipstick?”, eighteen-year-old Natia asks me. She was brought to the hospital by her grandmother. “I do not have parents. I had an argument at home, but they will discharge me from here soon. Can you take my photo? I will stand here…”

Women are treated on the third floor of the Asatiani Mental Hospital. The cloth on the old iron beds shows no resemblance to linen. The walls have lost their color. As for the floor, you must walk carefully, or you might break your leg. A terrible smell is coming from the toilet. Patients are standing at almost every barred window. They are waiting for somebody. Nurses watch their behavior closely.

-“I am a woman of the 21st century. I will turn the earth over and protect it,” said seventy-year-old Rusudan, who is dressed in a blue gown. She is convinced she has some extraordinary power; she also thinks that if we, healthy people also believed in our powers, we would have managed to save the earth.

-“Rusudan, Keep silence!” A nurse is in the corridor and led the woman into the chamber.

If that girl met me in the street, I would never imagine that she was suffering from a mental illness. She is sitting on the bed and looking at her ‘temporary neighbors’ from a distance.
-“I had some serious problem sin my life some time ago. My family members brought me here. Now I am calmer and I want to go home. I cannot stand being here…”

The television is turned on. Some soap-opera is on. Three or four patients are attentively watching it and the expression on their faces shows that they see something strange on the screen…A patient, who is holding the bars in front of the window, is still waiting for somebody…

I go downstairs. Men are treated on the second floor. I rang the bell and a male nurse opens the door. In order not to get sick you should hold your breath. Then you should take a deep breath. It smells terribly there. Five or seven minutes later I do not notice the terrible smell anymore. However, now I see a very long corridor where people are silently moving around in an almost lifeless state. The head of the department appointed a guard to accompany me. I try to take photos. Patients are so curious that they stare at the camera…

-“Shorena, Shorena, come here…”
-“My name is Nino.”
-“No, you are Shorena, Vazha’s wife. Come here. I want to speak to you privately, have you given up smoking?” The person who gave me the new name comes from Sokhumi. The ‘bodyguard’ told me he became mentally ill after Sokhumi was bombed.
-“Did you go crazy? You are Crazy,” he is really an outstanding patient. He is wearing all his clothes. He has iron rings on his fingers and is walking in the corridor nervously.

The patients, lying on incredibly dirty beds, do not move when I enter the room. I am taking photos.

-“Stop welding me, my eyes ache,” the flash of camera irritates one of the patients and he turns to the wall.
-“I have no problem. Please take my photo,” a young twenty- or twenty-two-year-old-man approaches me. “If you do not take my photo I will follow you everywhere.”

-“Edward, leave her alone. Do not prevent her from working”, the nurse is takes him aside.

-“I was taken to the clinic two years ago. I live in a village and carve wood. I also serve in church. I got very exhausted and my parents advised me to go to the clinic. Here I can relax and analyze my past life,” said Temuri. An ordinary journalist like me could never imagine he is a mental patient.

However, as for “Chipolino”, I could not get him to stand motionless while taking his photo; he was whirling and trying to pull his hat down on his face.  

At the end of the corridor there is a room with a piano, but it is locked. Now is not the time for the patients to enter that room…

The nurse is leading me and six patients downstairs. There is a department for art therapy. Those six patients were selected to demonstrate their abilities to me. One of them plays the piano, two of them can sing and the rest are showing me their paintings. The department for art therapy is much cleaner and more comfortable. The walls display patients’ paintings. One of them explains me why he has painted that many faces close to each other…

Some of them asked me about my address; others wanted to know my telephone number; there were patients who asked me for cigarettes and money…Some of them made me promise to visit them in two days…I could satisfy one patient’s wish, Natia, I gave her my lipstick….

-“Shorena, Shorena, See you in America!”

As a rule, journalists try not to show their feelings about a story they write, but in this particular case I want to make an exception. It makes no difference that these people live in an unreal world. The fact is that their world is here in Asatiani Street in Tbilisi, Georgia… I wonder when the Ministry of Healthcare finally will show an interest in the living conditions of these people. 

Nino Tarkhnishvili, Tbilisi