{"id":2834,"date":"2025-11-15T19:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/?p=2834"},"modified":"2025-11-27T09:36:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T09:36:50","slug":"the-rise-of-durking-why-some-russians-find-peace-in-mental-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/15\/the-rise-of-durking-why-some-russians-find-peace-in-mental-hospitals\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise of \u2018durking\u2019: Why some Russians find peace in mental hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once a punishment, now a privilege \u2013 the comeback of psychiatric rest<\/strong><\/p>\n

A headline recently caught my eye: \u201cZoomers practice durking.\u201d<\/em> Every word in that sentence demands translation. Not for you, dear reader \u2013 I know you\u2019re an enlightened sort, fit and well-versed in modern life \u2013 but for the sake of accuracy.<\/p>\n

First, \u201cZoomers.\u201d<\/em> These are people born roughly between the mid-1990s and early 2010s. Those who have never known a world without the internet, smartphones, and digital noise. In other words, young people.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s \u201cpractice,\u201d<\/em> meaning to do something deliberately and repeatedly.<\/p>\n

And finally, \u201cdurking.\u201d<\/em> This one, oddly enough, makes a certain sense. By analogy with the trendy \u201cmonasterying,\u201d<\/em>where tired twenty-somethings escape to monasteries for a few weeks of manual labor and silence, \u201cdurking\u201d<\/em> refers to voluntarily checking into a psychiatric clinic for rest and treatment.<\/p>\n

Yes, you read that correctly. Young Russians are now signing themselves into mental hospitals, not because of acute illness, but to escape the world.<\/p>\n

More than a billion people globally suffer from mental health disorders. Psychiatrists often joke that there are no \u201cnormal\u201d<\/em> people, only undiagnosed ones. In that sense, the pool of potential patients is endless.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"FILE
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In recent years, mental illness has been destigmatized almost entirely. Visiting a therapist is now as ordinary as getting a haircut\u00a0\u2013 especially in large cities, where it has even become fashionable. On social media, you\u2019ll find every second young woman showing off her certificate from a three-week \u201cpsychology coaching\u201d<\/em> course, now calling herself a \u201ccoach-psychologist.\u201d<\/em> The market for mental guidance is booming.<\/p>\n

For many young urban Russians, mental health has become part of identity. Anxiety, depression, ADHD. These are badges of belonging. To reach adulthood without at least one diagnosis is, for some, to seem suspiciously uninteresting. When I was in school, the coming-of-age rituals were vodka, cigarettes, and stories about sex. Perhaps therapy is healthier\u00a0\u2013 but it\u2019s hard to shake the sense that neurosis itself has become a social currency.<\/p>\n

The mass turn toward psychiatry stems not only from rising stress but from self-diagnosis. People feel something is wrong\u00a0\u2013 and they\u2019re often right. The defining word of our age is anxiety.<\/p>\n

Anxiety is as old as agriculture. When humans first began cultivating crops 20,000 years ago, they learned to think about tomorrow. And when you start worrying about the future \u2013 the harvest, the weather, the neighbors \u2013 anxiety becomes inevitable.<\/p>\n

In the modern era, constant exposure to bad news, notifications, and political noise keeps that anxiety humming at a high pitch. Only cat videos offer momentary relief, and even they can\u2019t save us forever.<\/p>\n

So, how do young people restore balance? Increasingly, by seeking help\u00a0\u2013 or at least refuge \u2013 in clinics.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"RT\"
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A stay in a private psychiatric hospital costs $150-$190 a day. Those without such means can go through the public system, though it requires registration with a psychoneurological clinic. Given how widespread certain prohibited substances are among the youth, this is often not a difficult formality.<\/p>\n

Inside, the experience is far from grim. Phones are allowed for just half an hour a day, typically for family calls. Patients receive daily vitamin drips, medical consultations, and rest. They are given medication, board games, clean linens, and four meals a day.<\/p>\n

To put it bluntly, it\u2019s a sanatorium with a psychiatric accent. The younger generation knows nothing of punitive psychiatry, the locked wards and Soviet horrors. Today\u2019s clinics are humane, comfortable, and even chic if you can pay.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always this way. Two decades ago, the very word sanatorium carried a smell of Soviet mustiness. In those days, people dreamt of the Alps, the Maldives, or Milan, not mineral baths and pine forests. But the wheel has turned.<\/p>\n

Now, quiet retreats are fashionable again. Health resorts promising detox from digital life and isolation from \u201cinformation noise\u201d<\/em> are booked solid. It\u2019s a paradox of modern life: the freer people become, the more they crave controlled environments.<\/p>\n

Pushkin once wrote that there is no happiness in life, only peace and freedom. Today\u2019s youth would likely settle for peace alone.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"RT\"
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The Russian tradition of \u201cdurking,\u201d<\/em> it turns out, has deep cultural roots. Our poets did it long before it became a lifestyle trend.<\/p>\n

In 1925, Sergey Yesenin, worn out by creativity and vodka, checked into the Kremlin Clinic in the Caucasus for treatment. It didn\u2019t help. He left in worse spirits and soon ended his life at the Angleterre Hotel.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Vysotsky, too, was a frequent visitor to psychiatric hospitals, often for alcoholism. His song Letter to the Editors of \u201cThe Obvious, The Incredible\u201d<\/em> from a Madhouse was written after one such stay.<\/p>\n

Even Joseph Brodsky once spent time at Leningrad Psychiatric Hospital No. 2, which he later described as \u201cnot unpleasant,\u201d<\/em> though he had no desire to return, he\u2019d \u201cgained all the new experiences he could.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Madness and melancholy have long walked hand in hand with Russian creativity. The only difference is that now, the journey is voluntary and comes with better catering.<\/p>\n

Is \u201cdurking\u201d<\/em> a problem? Perhaps. But it also reveals something deeply human: the desire to step away from the madness of the outside world, even if only by pretending to be mad oneself.<\/p>\n

In an age of constant connection, silence has become the rarest luxury. Our grandparents queued for trade-union vouchers to sanatoriums; our youth queue for places in psychiatric clinics. The motivations are the same: to rest, to recover, to find a little peace.<\/p>\n

Every generation travels the same road in its own way. Today\u2019s young Russians simply call it therapy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This article was first published by the online newspaper\u00a0Gazeta.ru<\/a>\u00a0and was translated and edited by the RT team<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once a punishment, now a privilege \u2013 the comeback of psychiatric rest A headline recently caught my eye: \u201cZoomers practice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2834"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2834"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2840,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2834\/revisions\/2840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}