On Monday morning it was back to work for us.  We drove from Feodosia to Dzhankoy, a bleak1 northern Crimean town. The name of this town comes from the Tatar Canköy, meaning "new village."  I had known of it for years, as we had had many kids from that internat attend tabir2 over the years, and I had gotten to know several of them and their teachers well.  I knew that many of the children had social/psychological problems, and had heard from fellow UCARE members who'd visited that the internat was in bad shape, but nothing prepared me for the reality of the place.

It was, simply, horrible, the worst internat I've ever visited.  The staff were nice, and seemed as though they tried hard, but they also looked quite tired.  Dzhankoy is an example of what one should not do when designing an internat.  It was meant to be a school for children with psychiatric problems, and had medical staff who tried to treat the children as best they could3.  Unfortunately, at some point it had also become a dumping ground for children with behavioral problems; kids who couldn't or wouldn't behave at other schools were sent here4, as were gang members, street kids, those who'd been recently incarcerated and/or used illegal drugs, such as sniffing glue.  Thee kids should have been sent to a locked down juvenile facility, but instead were dumped on the poor staff (and on the non-violent children with actual medical problems) here.

One of the biggest problems is that older kids and kids with psychological disorders are not in any way segregated from younger kids and kids who seem normal or at least not aggressive5.  This creates a Lord of the Flies6 atmosphere.  Both the staff and younger, weaker and less aggressive children are terrorized by the older, stronger and more aggressive children.  The staff does little to stop bad behavior, because they are (justifiably) afraid of the children. 

All of the children here have some form of orphan status, and they typically do not attend college or trade school after leaving.  Dzhankoy has a vocational education program through the 9th grade where the children can learn a trade such as painter, plasterer or construction. 

The internat itself is in horrible shape. The perimeter fence had huge gaps, there were no guards, armed or otherwise, only a group of (mostly) female teachers and support staff.  Kids come and go as they please. People can just walk in off of the street to deal and use drugs on the grounds, and they do. The city of Dzhankoy is a major illegal drug center in Ukraine, and drug use is rampant, so drugs are a major problem for this internat as well. 

The entire internat was swarming with mosquitoes, it seemed that nearly every window at the back of the huge dormitory building was broken out.  There were also at least two locations where there were really big holes in the dormitory building’s foundation, such that a person could practically just walk into the building’s basement.  The grounds were also covered with broken glass, old tires, trash and a lot of disgusting debris.

We did what little we could to help. The director asked if we could get them a set of quilted mattresses7 – many of the kids are bed-wetters, and these thin mattresses can be properly washed. In addition to underclothing and the other things we brought from Kyiv, we purchased  a water heater for the kitchen, three vacuum cleaners, and books for the library, including two encyclopedias and lots of small text books.

Not  everything was horrible.  The staff were pleasant, well-meaning and hard-working. Many of the children were pleasant and nice to talk to.  Two particularly sweet young boys, who live at the internat but attend the local public school and take music lessons there, played several musical pieces for us.

We had been scheduled to spend the night there, but it soon became evident that this would not be a good idea. Several of the children tried to vandalize the vans – we had to stop the kids from hitting the windows, pulling on the window latches and generally pulling the vans apart.  Our drivers, both of whom were in the Ukrainian army, were concerned nothing would be left of the vans by the next morning, and would not stay the night anywhere in the city of Dzhankoy8, much less the internat.  So we spent half the night on the road, leaving Crimea and heading back to the Ukrainian mainland, finally stopping at the next city of any size, Zaporizhia, where Tanya, via telephone, had found us rooms at a government hotel. We slept well and long that night.

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1. 1.Dzhankoy is a poor area, and a major center of illegal drug trafficking in Ukraine.  We were told that drug dealers operate with impunity on the campus, in some of the back buildings (see photo at top).  There is no real security there to stop them, just a group of teachers ill-equipped to deal with this problem.
   

2. 2.We often joked that the kids who were sent to camp from the internaty were either the very best or the very worst the internat had to offer.  In many, the children competed all year to see who would be able to attend.  In others, or so it seemed to us, the director would pack off the absolute worse students so as to be rid of them for two whole weeks.  We were never sure which Dzhankoy was......
   

3. 3.Per Peggy's report (she takes very good notes): "This place has one psychiatrist, one psychologist and one social worker.  We were told every child here receives psychotropic medications, although not every child receives these medications every day, which is the Western standard of care.  They also send some kids to a hospital in Simferopil for a regimen of psychiatric medications." There is also individual and group therapy.
   

4. 

   4.   As Peggy notes, "Distressingly, Maryna said that if a teacher just randomly does not like a child, that child could get a junk diagnosis, such as 'neurasthenia,' then get shipped to Dhzankoy.....We saw quite a few tiny little children, maybe age 4 or 5, who we thought could not possibly have done anything to deserve being sent here.  They may have some behavior issues that are not readily apparent, or there may just not be a good reason for them to be here.  In either case, we felt awful for these little ones, who will be victimized by the older, more aggressive children."
   

5. 5.   Another problem is the gender imbalance: 75% of the kids are boys. Staff noted that they have constant problems with the boys, who have more personality and behavior problems, such as ADD.  Only 25% are girls, and some classes have only one or two girls.
   

6. 6.   As Peggy noted: "This is a very rough place.  The older, bigger children beat up the smaller children and take things from them.  We saw several small children with cuts on their heads and faces, which looked as if they had been hit.  Many of the children here are aggressive......We saw three kids hit one child and kick him in the stomach.  One boy, who looked about 10 years old, made sexually explicit statements, in English, to us.  Another boy (possibly the same one) ripped a box of yo-yos out of Irka’s arms, and ran off with it.  The staff did nothing." 
   

7. 7.We ordered these, for delivery, on our return to Kyiv.  We also ordered 160 foam pillows, so each child could have a new, clean, washable pillow.
   

8. 8.Not that this was actually a realistic option.  Although it has a population of 26,000, is a major railroad hub, and has several factories, including automobile, reinforced concrete, fabric, and meat, it has little tourist infrastructure, and there are no decent hotels.