After a childhood of drug addiction on the streets of Bucharest, a former addict finds an alternative solution for users to recover An English version of a confession published in DoR Interview and editing by Michael Bird, and Ionut Dulamita. Illustrations by Ionut Dulamita It is evening. I am in the room where every Monday […]
Category Archives: Drugs
With the help of a priest, we search for a new class of east European addicts who steal for heroin in Madrid’s Cañada Real by Michael Bird, Vlad Odobescu and Feliciano Tisera. Illustrations by Sorina Vazelina. Published in The Black Sea Madrid’s underground station of Embajadores is a crowded junction with a fountain gushing from […]
Up to 100 recovering drug users have died in Crimea since Russia seized the Ukrainian peninsular and banned their medication A feature published in The Black Sea, The Influence (USA) and Matters of Substance (NZ) magazines Surrounded by seaside resorts, Crimea has been both a magnet for holidaymakers and drug users (picture copyright: Petrut Calinescu) “I had to abandon home, […]
1. Ukraine: Part of a series of three stories revealing the complexities of living with HIV in east Europe. Published in The Black Sea “I tried to escape from heroin in the city to my grandparents in the countryside – but there was the source of the drug. That’s where I think I contracted HIV,” says ex-user […]
2. Moldova: Part of a series of three stories revealing the complexities of living with HIV in eastern Europe. Published in The Black Sea “You don’t meet many couples where one is injecting drugs and the other is clean,” says Gary from Balti, Moldova Visual by Andrei Cotrut “My outer appearance has changed. If I brought […]
3. Romania: Part of a series of three stories from east Europe revealing the complex lives of people with HIV, published in The Black Sea and TOTB. “I am not a victim,” says communication specialist Monica from Bucharest, “but a person was has survived and can have a normal and healthy life.” Visual by Andrei […]
Meeting the mothers with HIV who refuse doctors’ recommendations to abort their babies in Ukraine and Moldova. A feature published in The Black Sea and EU Observer I meet Svetlana in a cafe in central Kyiv. She is 38 years old and a month away from giving birth to her first child. “Finding I was pregnant […]
Shot in the Revolution, pimped out by her mother, lost to drugs and now homeless, Sanda is one of countless victims abandoned on the 25th anniversary of Romania’s uprising. A feature published in The Black Sea I am sitting in the attic office of the French-Italian charity Parada, which trains homeless people from Bucharest into circus performers. Alongside me is the […]
Fornication has overtaken drug use as the main route of transmission for new cases of HIV in Moldova – The country needs a deep and meaningful conversation about sex – a feature published on The Black Sea and Moldova.org After losing his job as a barman in Moldova’s capital of Chisinau, 26 year-old Ivan found […]
Paralyzed by legal highs, wedding singer Ciobi was alone, jobless, living on the streets of Bucharest, his body collapsing – until he took up popping, locking and breaking – a feature from The Black Sea In south-central Bucharest, 43 year-old Ciobi is standing by the water cooler upstairs in a ramshackle villa housing Italian charity Parada, which […]
Michael Bird Writer & Journalist 