“THERE IS NO ZOLOFT IN TBILISI ANYMORE”: VIRTUAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF MENTAL HEALTH COMMUNITIES AMONG RUSSIAN MIGRANTS ON TELEGRAM

This thesis examines the mental health practices of Russian migrants who departed the country after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and who participate in a Telegram-based online community during their residence in Georgia. These individuals, primarily from urban middle-class backgrounds, confront a healthcare system that remains unfamiliar and lacks sufficient resources. In response, they construct therapeutic arrangements that extend across national borders and include local clinics, consultations with Russian psychiatric professionals, and informal access to pharmaceuticals. Migrants employ digital communication technologies in order to sustain mental health practices that combine elements of clinical expertise, collective knowledge production, and interpersonal assistance.The thesis demonstrates that middle-class forms of subjectivity, previously dependent on mobility and stable infrastructures, become especially precarious when these conditions are withdrawn. In such circumstances, mental health practices function as a means through which individuals maintain a sense of aspirational coherence within pervasive instability.