I was born in the city of Tver, the largest city between Moscow and Saint Petersburg. I spent the last seventeen years of my life in Moscow before I had to leave after the full-scale invasion. After that, Russia became a very unsafe place for me.

Now, looking back, I believe that if I had been braver, I might have discovered my HIV status earlier. But when I was finally diagnosed, my CD4 count was twenty. I caught the last train.

For many years, I believed my HIV status was a private matter, something that concerned no one except those who might have been infected by me. Even my mother did not know.

Some time later, I made a decision that changed something inside me. I decided to stop hiding my status.

I realised that this was my responsibility not only to myself, but to a society where HIV stigma still exists.

The moment that pushed me toward this decision came after the death of a close friend.

In February 2023, I received a call from a hospital. When we spoke on video, he was in isolation, in a sterile room. At first, they said it was severe COVID. But he also told me something else he had just discovered: he was HIV positive.

Two days later, he fell into a coma.

He never woke up. He was thirty-eight.

What makes this even more painful is that he lived in a place where testing, PrEP, condoms, and treatment were easily available.

It would not have cost him anything to receive care if only he had been tested.

And I kept thinking one terrible thought: if he had known that I was HIV positive, that I was taking medication, that I was living a normal life… maybe he would have tested earlier.

Maybe he would still be here.

I had time to think about that. Eventually, I realised that the only way to live with that feeling was to start with myself and stop hiding.

A Ukrainian HIV activist I met in Poland introduced me to that world. Some people simply change the environment around them. When they become activists, everyone around them slowly becomes one too. Through her, I met many remarkable people, and later I joined the Buddy Program.

At first, I believed I was helping other people. But during my first consultation with a newly diagnosed man, something unexpected happened. At one moment, he asked me why I was doing this work.

And I answered something I had never said aloud before.

I told him that this work gives me back my dignity.

For years, I hadn’t even realised I had lost it.

Later, I understood something very simple: I only began to believe that I was okay when I started explaining it to others. By helping them see that they were okay, I finally managed to accept it for myself.

Recently, a friend called me in panic after a risky sexual encounter. He had heard about post-exposure prophylaxis, but in Poland it costs about fifteen hundred zloty, and he did not have the money.

I told him that, as an activist, I should say, “Take the treatment.” But based on my experience, his risk in that situation was extremely low.

Most importantly, I told him: whatever you decide, I will be by your side.

Standing beside him in that clinic, I realised something important about myself.

In the early years after my diagnosis, whenever I heard that someone else had tested positive, a small part of me felt relieved because I was not alone anymore.

But that day, I felt something completely different.

For the first time, with my whole self, I hoped with all my heart that he would be negative. Because there are experiences in life that no one needs to go through.

For many years, I lived with the feeling that I was dirty. Eventually, I let that feeling go. I do not live with it anymore.

If someone newly diagnosed asked me what advice I would give them, I would not start with medical explanations or advice. I would say something much simpler:

I’m here. Call me anytime.