I owe a lot to Katerina (Ivanova) Larrson, who facilitated access to Harsovo Asylum and spent days translating for me.

Harsovo Asylum is perched on a hillside just outside of the picturesque village of Gorno Harsovo. It sits across the road from the local bus stop and the village's small grocery shop. It is a fair distance to the nearest major town, and many Bulgarians hardly know the asylum is there. There are hundreds of similar asylums across Bulgaria.

In the winter, the asylum's corridors and crowded rooms are damp and cold. Space heaters offer some warmth. Patients wear torn clothes and rubber shoes in temperatures that dip below freezing. They congregate and roam the snowy courtyard. Normally separated in different wards, men and women mingle, idly bartering and smoking cigarettes.

There is a resignation on the part of the employees. They are paid little in exchange for caring for patients who are--in many ways--abandoned by their families and the rest of society. The challenges of working with patients with severe mental conditions--such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder--can be intense. There are very few visitors. Many stigmas surround mental illness in Bulgarian society and people with mental illness are largely isolated.

There are no signs of outright abuse, but the structural violence of placing extremely vulnerable populations in sorely funded and resourced environments is evident. Many human-rights organizations are seriously concerned by the possibility of involuntary confinement. Bulgaria is a member of the European Union, having met precautionary admittance criteria, and yet it is clearly lagging in many social responsibilities. The commitment on behalf of the central government in protecting the rights and safety of these mentally ill under its care is an unanswered question still waiting to be resolved.

There are Bulgarian civil society organizations working on advocacy and reform. 

Recent information indicates that Harsovo itself is shut down at this time.

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Anthropology/ethnography, International justice, Disability, Dying/death, Mental health, The human condition, Poverty, Bulgaria, Human Rights, Involuntary Incarceration, Balkans, Justice for Vulnerable Populations, Advocacy

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