Forest Glade: Ukraine's Secret Sanctuary Healing Soldiers' Invisible War Wounds
Hidden deep within a serene pine forest in Ukraine, with tranquil lakes and gentle ponies roaming the grounds, stands an unexpected sanctuary for the nation's wounded warriors. This secluded location, far removed from the cacophony of urban life and frontline hostilities, centers around a modernist Soviet-era building constructed in 1974. Originally designed as a secret sanatorium for Soviet Ukrainian ministers, its marble walls have since absorbed decades of military trauma—first from soldiers returning from the 1979-89 Afghan-Soviet war, then from those engaged in eastern Ukraine conflicts since 2014, and now from servicemen arriving from every segment of the Ukrainian front.
An Unconventional Approach to Military Mental Health
This facility, known as Forest Glade, operates as a highly unusual mental health rehabilitation hospital where war-exhausted soldiers participate in a remarkable array of therapeutic activities. Patients engage in tango dancing, yoga sessions, wall climbing, musical performances, gardening projects, pony care, archery practice, and medieval battle reenactments—all meticulously designed to address the invisible psychological injuries sustained during combat. The program integrates comprehensive medical, psychological, physical, and social support systems specifically targeting stress disorders, depression, anxiety, adjustment difficulties, and trauma-related conditions including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The architectural exterior maintains the stern, symmetrical coldness characteristic of late-Soviet modernism—a structure originally conceived for authority rather than vulnerability. Yet inside, natural light floods generously through corridors where vibrant green plants soften the hardness of stone surfaces. The atmosphere feels less like a conventional hospital and more like a suspended transitional zone, temporarily insulating inhabitants from war's relentless velocity.
Therapeutic Activities Rebuilding Mind and Body
Throughout the facility, evidence of unconventional therapy appears everywhere. Multiple billiard tables host daily tournaments where the sharp crack of colliding balls echoes through large halls, immediately altering the expressions of newly arrived patients. On the second floor, a small kiosk dispenses coffee to soldiers who then step onto terraces overlooking pine forests, standing silently while listening to birdsong. Along corridors, others sit closely together watching television, playing cards, and exchanging fragmented recollections about frontline positions, artillery shelling, and lost comrades—their narratives often disrupted by trauma's tendency to rearrange chronological memory.
In the courtyard, rehabilitation doctors conduct archery sessions that demand profound physical stillness and regulated breathing. Drawing the bow requires anchoring one's body to the ground while focusing on a single point until all distractions recede. This practice becomes an exercise in reclaiming attention from intrusive memories, using disciplined physical presence to counteract the mind's instinctive threat-scanning reflexes developed in combat zones.
Upstairs in sunlit offices, doctors work with patients on memory reconstruction and fine motor skill development through handling small objects and planting seedlings in pots. During spring, these pots are carried outdoors—creating a profound dissonance as combat-trained men relearn patience through nurturing fragile plant life. This very dissonance forms a crucial component of the therapeutic process.
Animal Therapy and Medieval Combat as Healing Tools
Every few weeks, a traveling petting zoo transforms the facility's foyer into a space of gentle interaction. Soldiers cradle roosters against their chests, allow stick insects to crawl slowly across their hands, laugh nervously while handling large cockroaches, and stroke rabbits' backs with deliberate tenderness. This uncomplicated, non-verbal physical contact helps restore registers of touch that warfare typically distorts, providing moments when overstimulated nervous systems can temporarily soften.
Several evenings each week, Forest Glade hosts "buhurt" sessions—staged medieval combat where soldiers wear padded armor and engage in team battles using blunted foam weapons. This controlled physicality creates a structured arena where aggression can be expressed without causing actual injury. In Ukraine, this unconventional activity has evolved into a deliberate psychological rehabilitation tool, particularly for veterans with PTSD, channeling combat energy into ritualized expression rather than chaotic outbursts.
Beyond Hospital Grounds: Controlled Re-Entry Experiences
The rehabilitation program extends beyond hospital grounds through organized excursions to karting tracks, ski slopes, climbing walls, and equestrian centers. These outings function not as mere entertainment but as controlled exposure therapy—structured re-entries into environments demanding intense focus without life-threatening consequences. Over years of operation, few soldiers discuss Forest Glade without conveying a particular intensity in their recollections, less about gratitude and more about profound recognition of its unique therapeutic environment.
The Personal Connection and Provisional Recovery
The author's personal relationship with Forest Glade deepened when her father became a patient there, spending significant time undergoing acupuncture treatments. He reported diminished ear ringing, reduced headache frequency, and softened speech patterns during his stay. Yet after returning to service, his hypervigilance and physical symptoms quickly reappeared—highlighting how provisional recovery can be when warfare reactivates what treatment temporarily quiets.
Medical staff and soldiers alike recognize that three weeks represents an impossibly brief period to address cumulative trauma. However, wartime realities dictate this constrained timetable. As one soldier featured in the documentary "No Time to Heal" explained, he first learned about Forest Glade while in captivity, when a fellow serviceman advised him to seek it out upon release—testament to its reputation among those who have experienced its unique environment.
A Temporary Island of Predictability
Each return visit to Forest Glade creates a temporary distance from external world anxieties. While anxiety doesn't disappear entirely, it becomes more containable within the facility's structured schedule where tomorrow possesses defined parameters. In warfare's constant unpredictability, this predictability itself becomes therapeutic. The program teaches soldiers to focus energy on what they can influence rather than events beyond their control, creating what patients repeatedly describe as "their own environment"—an island of safety within a pine forest that temporarily shields them from war's brutality before their inevitable return to frontline duties.
