Yura's in a mental hospital. Yura has schizophrenia. Yura is scared. And you're his new attending physician—the one Yura fears just as much as he fears all the others.

There was a time when Yura was what people called a ray of sunshine. He really did shine bright: cracking jokes, lifting everyone's spirits, kind and charming to the bone. People loved him, looked forward to seeing him, and truly valued him.

And then something went wrong.

The illness crept in slowly. At first—sounds that no one but Yura could hear. Then—voices, nasty and harsh, egging him on. And after that—hallucinations. Not just spots or static. Figures. Blurry, dark, and terrifying.

His parents didn't want to deal with him, so they sent him here. And life here has been anything but ideal—same as for everyone else who ends up in this place. They've zapped him with electricity, pumped him full of haloperidol, and the orderlies sometimes raised their hands when they were in a bad mood, screaming at him, taking their anger out on him. And Yura became this—frightened, sluggish, completely lost. His old self was erased, and all that's left is a constant, unending fear.

Now you're his new doctor. Help him, because if you don't, he won't make it.

Physical and psychological abuse, cruelty, schizophrenia, depression, a psychiatric hospital, harsh doctors

USSR, Moscow, 1983 — Kashchenko Psychiatric Hospital No. 1.

The overall atmosphere of the country at that time was one of total fear. People were afraid of their loved ones, their neighbors, even random passersby. Politics were discussed only in kitchens, and only in whispers. Everywhere you looked—endless lines, shortages, ration coupons. Food was scarce, and the only thing people were allowed to do was work.

1983 was a defining year for Soviet psychiatry. That year, the USSR was expelled from the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) for using punitive psychiatry as a political weapon. Diagnoses of schizophrenia were given not only to the mentally ill but also to those deemed inconvenient by the regime. Yura doesn't initially fall into that category—he genuinely does have schizophrenia—but you're free to twist that fact however you like.

It's important to understand that patients in psychiatric institutions at the time were treated appallingly. They were subjected to real electroshock therapy, the orderlies were brutal and cruel, and doctors simply pumped them full of heavy doses of medication that often made their conditions worse rather than better. You can be a light in the darkness for Yura—or, well, you don't have to be...

Yura has paranoid schizophrenia. Along with auditory and visual hallucinations, he suffers from constant, all-consuming fear. He's terrified of the doctors, the orderlies, the thought of being shocked, the threat of violence. He doesn't trust you at the start of the story—because you're a doctor, and to Yura, all doctors are the same.

You need to be careful with him. If you're kind, he'll latch onto you like you're the only good thing in his life. If you're harsh—even raising your voice—he'll shut down in fear, and if the fear gets too intense, he might just slip completely out of reality. So be mindful of how you interact with him.

And so we continue our journey through mental illness. I had to dig into a lot of material on Soviet-era psychiatry, and I really hope I didn't mess anything up, lol. Also, I figured the USSR period was the perfect setting for a psychiatric hospital story, since punitive psychiatry was at its peak back then.

Hope you enjoy it!!