Novinki Mental Hospital

Novinki Mental Hospital is the place where Valentina Timofeevna Panasevich’s son lives, and her account makes it a fixed point in the family’s life after her husband’s absence. Her doctors have ordered that, if her son is to live, he must live there; Valentina hopes to exchange her apartment for one nearer the hospital so she can be with him.

Setting and role

The hospital is identified as being in Novinki. The account gives no further description of its grounds, facilities, or treatment. Its importance instead comes from the medical requirement that Valentina’s son live there and from the distance that separates him from his mother’s home.

Valentina’s visits

Valentina goes to the hospital on weekends. Her son has been ill for a long time; although grown, he sees the world with the eyes of a five-year-old. When he greets her, he asks where Papa Misha is and when he will come. Valentina says that he is waiting for his father, and that they will wait together. Her plan to move closer is thus tied to the continuing work of visiting and being present with her son.

Narrative significance

Novinki enters the account through care rather than through an institutional portrait: the doctors’ order, Valentina’s weekend visits, and her son’s repeated questions establish what the place means to this family. Valentina also says that her son is what brought her back into life and that she wants to be with him. She plans to read her Chernobyl prayer in a whisper beside him, making the hospital a setting where grief and ongoing companionship meet.