IRKUTSK, Russia, Dec 12 (AFP) - Shunned by society, thousands of young people like Maxim afflicted by a fast-growing HIV epidemic in the Siberian city of Irkutsk have all but succumbed to despair.

"People should not be frightened of us. We may have HIV but we're human beings just like everyone else, there's nothing to be afraid of," he said bitterly, slumped on a hospital bed in Irkutsk's AIDS clinic.

Brought up in an orphanage as a child because his Gypsy parents were both in prison, Maxim was sucked into a vicious spiral of poverty and drug addiction when he dropped out of technical college soon after leaving school.

Horrified when their son contracted the HIV virus that leads to AIDS while sharing needles injecting heroin with other disaffected teenagers, his mother and father refused to allow him to come and live with them.

"I tried to rekindle a relationship with my parents but they knew I was a drug addict and HIV infected," said the 21-year-old, speaking with a haunted expression on his boyish face.

"They won't even allow me into their apartment. One and a half years ago I went there but they wouldn't open the door, pretended they didn't know who I was. Since then I haven't gone back," he added.

His elder brother, a businessman who had once given him financial support, also wanted nothing to do with him.

A deep melancholy in his voice, Maxim said he knew why he had fallen into such a trap: "It's a sickness of the soul."

Lena, 20, a bubbly girl with short ginger hair who defiantly wore red lipstick and pink fingernails, gently stroked his hair.

"I smile and I cry a lot," she said. "My Mum and Dad have also rejected me, they're afraid.

"But I've always been a life-loving person and that hasn't changed. You can't put a cross on your life. You've got to try and lift yourself up."

A two-year-old daughter whom she gave birth to before getting infected with HIV is her main solace.

"She's a great happiness for me. She's the future," Lena said wistfully.

Pavel, 19, covered his reddened face with his hands as he crossed his legs defensively.

"I was an optimist once, but now I'm a realist. I have nothing to live for, it's all the same to me. I don't think about any bright future, just how to survive," he poured out in a torrent of self-pity.

"I used to have great ambitions, I can draw, two of my cousins are architects. I'm not an intellectual, but I could write a book if I wanted to," said the teenager, tears welling in his eyes.

A 19-year-old friend of Maxim took his own life with a drug overdose, unable to cope with the news that he had contracted HIV.

"His family didn't give him any support. His granny even refused to feed him unless he brought her money. He was tired of life, he had this frightening illness. Suicide was the only way out," Maxim recounted tragically.

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