Everybody hurts: Russian radio airs from psychiatric hospital

A radio show broadcast live from a Moscow psychiatric hospital every Saturday kicks off with a jokey jingle - "Radio Through the Looking Glass, it's nuts!"

This is a station with a difference: Russia's first to transmit from a psychiatric institution whose presenters are all being treated for mental illness, mostly schizophrenia.

"Hi everyone," quips Daniil, opening the hour-long show in a Homer Simpson T-shirt. "This is Radio Through the Looking Glass with you, as usual. And as usual, we're broadcasting on Saturday direct from the Kashchenko."

Named after Lewis Carroll's fantasy tale about Alice, the station started in 2014, broadcasts online and has caught attention in a country where there is still a massive stigma around mental illness.

The presenters are outpatients, living at home, with two saying they travel 90 minutes to take part in the novel broadcast. They range in age from the 20s to the late 40s.

Relaxed, they smoke and chat ahead of the show. One named Dina shows a photograph of her latest sewing project. But when the broadcast goes live at 3:00 pm, the atmosphere changes as presenters take turns to discuss the show's theme: the limits of sympathy and compassion.

"I don't tell my tragic tale to all and sundry ... but none of my friends whom I told about my mental condition have rejected me at all," said presenter Mikhail Larsov.

"We ourselves, let's be honest, don't always understand what's going on inside ourselves - just you try explaining it to other people!" said Daniil, who has worked for two national newspapers.

Diagnosed as a teenager, he describes feeling "like there's an opaque wall between me and the rest of the world." After a broadcast, he struggles to stay awake, head in hands.

During the broadcasts, editor-in-chief Darya Blagova checks the schedule on a tablet while her husband Vitaly, who handles the technical side, weaves in pre-recorded sections.

"It was a very good broadcast, dynamic," she tells the crew in a debriefing as one suggests a song to end each program - REM's rock ballad "Everybody Hurts".

Blagova came to the radio via journalism training and earns a small wage from a charitable foundation.

Though she has a full-time job, "this is a lot more important than all the other things," she admits, saying she keeps in contact with the presenters throughout the week.

Another host, Larsov, had worked at a Moscow radio station but after a hospital stay was told to leave. He has since struggled through odd jobs and unemployment.

"I came here when I felt really low. I had lost radio work and was on a lot of medication," he said, talking openly about a suicide attempt and calling Alexeyev hospital "one of the most civilised" psychiatric facilities he has experienced.