UPDATED ON:
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
10:04 Mecca time, 07:04 GMT
FOCUS
Surviving Aids

Watch part two                       Watch part three                         Watch part four

Filmmaker: Richard Setbon 

When the Iron Curtain fell in 1991, it was not just shiny consumer goods and free-market ideas that came flooding over the newly opened borders.

The uglier side of the capitalist world also swept in including drug addiction, crime, poverty and HIV/Aids.

The disease spread rapidly across Russia, leaving a wake of devastation. And it was often young people, teenagers at the time of the transition from socialism to capitalism, who fell victim to the seductive drug culture that swept into their city when the Iron Curtain was lifted.

Sergei, Oxana, Sasha, Denis and their peers are perhaps some of the 'lost generation' of Kaliningrad.

Now HIV positive and in a country with little support or sympathy for drug addicts and people with Aids, Sergei and his colleagues are trying to turn back the tide of HIV/Aids and bring hope to those devastated by the disease.

Surviving Aids: The Story of Sergei takes us to the city of Kaliningrad to see the effects of this crisis up close.

The film introduces a range of characters, from addicts, homeless youngsters and women forced into prostitution, to survivors, health workers and a range of people who are fighting the double-hitter of drugs and HIV/Aids.

 Source: Al Jazeera
 
Topics in this article
City

 
ARTICLE TOOLS
 Email Article  Email article
 Print Article  Print article
 Send Feedback  Send feedback
 Share article  Share article
Aljazeera.net/english 2003 - 2010 ©
Designed & Developed by Aljazeera IT