Life in a national hiding place – the last colony for leprosy

Tichilesti is the last colony for people suffering from leprosy (Hansen’s disease). It is located in Romania, tucked away in a small valley on the edge of the delta of the Danube river. There exists only one very small road, diverging from a small country road, which leads to the colony. Founded in 1929, the colony for a long time has been a national secret. During the years of the Ceausescu regime leprosy has been concealed, officially the disease did not exist. Although leprosy is curable since the 1970s all infected persons had to give away their identity cards and all other documents; even the dossiers about their illness have been locked away. Since many years the inhabitants of the colony are no more contagious, most of them have not been it any more when the Ceausescu regime still existed. Since decades they are living like ‘normal’ people, as far as you could live a normal life when you are suffering a disease like leprosy. They work for their living, they do agriculture, get married, get children and die like most of us when they are old. But the strict restrictions against people suffering from leprosy only have been abolished after the end of the Ceausescu regime in 1989. Only then the inhabitants of the colony could have been free to leave Tichilesti and return to ‘normal’ life. But most of them were too old and too poor to do so. So nobody left, but everyone stayed. That is why life in Tichilesti goes on like nothing has changed. It seems that the colony would not be closed before the last inhabitant died.