ВПО: вдруге переміщена особа

З початком повномаштабного вторгнення, більше ніж 11 мільйонів Українців були

вимушені залишити свій дім: переїхати за кордон або змінити місце проживання
всередині країни.
Такі українці стали ВПО - внутрішньо переміщеними особами. Але для величезної
кількості українців цей досвід - не перший.

Вперше мільйони українців були вимушені залишити дім в 2014 році, з початком
вторгнення та окупації Росією Криму та частини України на сході.
Вдруге - вже в лютому 2022, з початком повномаштабної війни. Станом на 2021 рік,
офіційна статистика фіксувала щонайменше 1,5 млн зареєстрованих в Україні ВПО.
Після 24 лютого їх стало набагато більше. Цей артбук - збірка графічних інтерв’ю
про досвід людей, яких війна вириває з домівки, роботи, власне життя вже вдруге.

ВПО - Вдруге Переміщена Особа.

Ми почали роботу над проектом навесні 2022 року, всі втрьох знаходячись на заході
країни, поїхавши з Києва під час сильних обстрілів. Аня та Женя - вперше ставши
ВПО, а Марія, яка родом з Краматорська - вдруге. Ми подумали про те, як це
важливо - нагадати, що тисячі людей живуть з війною під одним дахом з 2014 року.
Ця книга про досвід прощання з домом, водночас просякнута дошкульним
та гірким гумором. Ця книга повниться спогадами про людей, які і складають наше
щоденне життя: сусідів та однокласників, продавців в магазині та екзаменаторів
в університеті. Вона про нас і про громади, з якими ми невідворотно зростаємося -
так міцно, що коли вони раптом збирають валізи і евакуюються, навіть не одразу стає
зрозуміло яку ж частину життя втратив - чи то щось незначне і буденне, чи то власне
свою автохтонність, ґрунт на якому зростав.

Проект створено за підтримки програми Артіф.

IDP – Again Internally Displaced Person
Since the start of the large-scale invasion over 11 million Ukrainians have been forced to
leave their homes: move abroad or change their place of residence inside the country.
Such Ukrainians have become IDPs – internally displaced persons. However, this is not the
first experience like that for a large number of Ukrainians.

For the first time millions of Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes in 2014 after the
start of invasion and occupation of Crimea and part of Eastern Ukraine by Russia.
And they had to do that for the second time in February of 2022 after the start of the large-
scale war. As of 2021 official statistics showed at least 1,5 million IDPs registered
in Ukraine.

Their number has significantly increased since February 24. This art-book is a collection
of graphic interviews about the experience of people yanked out by the war from their
homes, work, their own life for the second time.

IDP – Again Internally Displaced Person.

We started working on this project in spring of 2022, with the three of us being in Western
Ukraine, having left Kyiv during heavy shelling. Ania and Zhenia became IDPs for the first
time, while Mariia originally coming from Kramatorsk became an IDP for the second time.
We thought about the importance of reminding that thousands of people had lived under
the same roof with the war since 2014.

This book is about the experience of saying goodbye to your home, and it is full
of sentimental, yet bitter humor. This book is full of memories of people which constitute
our daily life: neighbors and classmates, shopkeepers and university professors.
It is about us and about communities into which we get inevitably integrated – so tightly
that when they suddenly pack their belongings and leave, we cannot not even realize
at once which part of our life we have lost – whether it is something minor and routine
or rather our own indigenousness, foundation on which we have been growing up.

The project has been implemented with the support of ARTIF Program.
Our project is about people who are internally displaced for the second time.
I call this phenomenon “two-time Ukraine champions”.
I can’t say that I really realized back then, in 2014, that the war started because my dad
quickly took me away. At that time I lived in Makiivka, which is in Donetsk region. I went
to school there – I was finishing the 4th grade. I did not hear anything – neither explosions,
nor bombings. In fact, as far as I know, Makiivka where I used to live was not the most
severely damaged (note – word in Russian)… How would it be in Ukrainian?
Damages. (note – word in Ukrainian)
Damages. (note – word in Ukrainian)
You can use any language that is convenient for you.
I could tell you about this perfectly well in Russian, but still I want to speak Ukrainian.
We moved to Minsk: my dad took me to Minsk to my aunt. I lived with her all summer and
even went to school there. But after the first quarter, dad took me to Kharkiv.
Basically, Kharkiv is my home. Because I have never lived anywhere in my life longer than
in Kharkiv: I lived in Krasnyi Luch in Luhansk region for 6 years, I lived in Makiivka for
4 years, I lived in Minsk for about 4–5 months. And I lived in Kharkiv since October 2014.
I played football, went to school.
I went to School No. 15 in the neighborhood of KhTZ (Kharkiv Tractor Plant).
I graduated from the 11th grade there, entered NURE: Kharkiv National University of Ra-
dio Electronics.
And do you remember how this war started for you? I mean – this is the same war, but this partic-
ular stage of the war – how did it start for you this time?
I left Kharkiv on February 23: I spent about 15 hours on the road to my girlfriend Kateryna
to Lviv. I slept for one hour only because Ukrzaliznytsia has rather uncomfortable pillows.
I came to my father’s friend. I was staying at his place. I arrived at 5 o’clock in the morning,
and the war started. I started worrying about my father – he stayed in Kharkiv. And about
my nephew as well… friends… all people in general – teachers whom I loved… that is, for all
people who meant at least something for me.
On February 24, of course, it was not easy – to live, move, sleep – well, it was already rela-
tively easy to sleep because I didn’t hear explosions in 2014 or this year. I was very lucky in
this respect. I am a truly lucky person. Because I saw when I met people that this might really
impact your mental health and your conduct, and this is… well, this is war.
I am in Lviv now. There are many humanitarian centers, district centers in Lviv – there you
can get something if you’re registered in the Center for Administrative Services Provisions,
have the IDP certificate.
And did you receive it back in 2014?
I received it later, probably in 2015. Frankly speaking, I don’t remember: my sister and father
were doing that. But yes, of course, I have and had it.
So, now, it appears that you were receiving the certificate for the second time? How was it? Did it
take more time?
Yes, yes… They had to get in touch with Kyiv and cancel my first certificate. But the system
works in such a way that when I was receiving the new certificate, I did not hand over my
first certificate, no one asked for it and I forgot. Maybe, it’s no longer valid… But I would
preserve it just for the sake of remembering – in 2014 I moved to Kharkiv from Krasnyi Luch,
Luhansk region.
Are you planning on going back to Kharkiv?
This is very dangerous in the near future.
Well, yes, of course. And are your close people safe now?
My father is in Europe. And almost all of my close people, my family are in so-called LPR,
DPR. My mom is a paralyzed, sick woman; she is in the LPR. I can’t do anything about that:
I can only hope that she won’t die.
Before 2014 we lived in Yasynuvata. That’s not far from Donetsk.
Yasynuvata that you remember – how does it look like?
It was a beautiful town despite being small. What I remember well is that we had the big-
gest sorting station in Europe. There they were sorting out freight wagons, with permanent
screeching sounds… Well, and what I remember best is that there was a forest behind our
house. I used to walk my dog there, there was a pond… It was interesting: my school, then a
pond behind the school, forest behind the pond, and then it was pond – forest – cemetery –
and you could see all of that from windows of our school. Well… that’s why I remember the
forest best!:) Other parts are not so vivid in my memory anymore.
In 2014, when this issue arose, we had our own principled position…Our country is Ukraine.
One night someone came by and painted Ukrainian flags on lampposts by our house. On the
following day they were changed to the DPR’s flags. My mom went out, took yellow paint
and repainted them so that it would the Ukrainian flag again. At night, and we didn’t have
water supply in the house, we had a water fountain outside, my father went out to fetch some
water and heard some faint noises and then as if someone was running away. In the morning
we saw a huge writing “russia” on our gates and our entrance gate covered in gasoline. They
could have set it on fire… We realized that. During the entire day I was trying to wash away
this writing, painting it over, and I painted a flower crown on the gate.
Back then I didn’t realize anything at all.
Guys and I used to play football. I loved it. Only I had the football ball in the entire village.
And in 2012, when the EURO tournament was taking place, my aunt gave to me and my
father yellow-and-blue uniforms as a gift. And I used to play football with others wearing
this uniform. I remember how I entered a shop and the saleswoman asked me: “Aren’t you
afraid?”. I was standing there, thinking: “What should I be afraid of ?”.
My mom says that she heard explosions in Donetsk – back then I was playing computer
games, World of Tanks, a lot and told her: “I have my own explosions here, I can’t hear
anything”.
I didn’t realize anything, and I was told that we were going on a vacation. And then they were
feeding me with promises “Well, we’ll go back in a week, in a month…”.
So, this is how you and your family moved for the first time.
Our move… We visited lots of relatives. In Kyiv, Vinnytsia, in Donetsk region… We were
moving around like that, we came to Kramatorsk, I have many relatives there. My parents
said: “We’ll spend a week here, at your grandparents’ place…”. I remember: I was walking
around and my father called me: “Sveta, I arranged here that you will study in Kramatorsk,
in school which I used to attend.. Are you happy?”. And I had been dreaming for two years to
get into the lyceum, its chemistry faculty. I entered it then based on results of the olympiads
without entrance exams. I convinced my friend to go study there with me. And I was standing
there angry, thinking: “Damn, I’m happy… I’m beyond happy”.
And didn’t you have this feeling of danger? Because… well, Kramatorsk is actually not far?
For me it was more about my friends, my life being there! We had to start everything from
scratch.
And how did you spend these 7 and a half years? Do you feel that besides the normal process of
becoming an adult this experience has changed you? As a personality, as a citizen.
My parents have engaged in volunteering since the very first days. Actually, most volunteers
in Kramatorsk were displaced people.
And when I hear somewhere about 8 years, I think: “I’ve saying this during all these 8 years…
I’ve tried to make sure that it’s not forgotten”. I was very insulted that people didn’t think
that it was war. And only now, while talking with one of my groupmates, he told me: “Now I
understand you”. And I’m thinking then: “I wanted for you to understand me, how that felt,
but not this way”.
Yes, people start feeling empathy not because they’re so emphatic, but because they are going
through the same shit.
Then I studied in Kharkiv. For me, Kharkiv is more my city. I liked Donetsk less. For the first
three months of study, my classmates thought I was from the west of Ukraine. Because I spoke
Ukrainian. I remember, we’re standing in line to hand in laboratory work, and a fellow stu-
dent says “Sveta, where are you from anyway?”. I say: “from Yasynuvata”. “Is it somewhere
on the West?” he asks. “It’s near Donetsk,” and the whole group turns to me.
My parents had problems with this: and quite often there were instances when they, for exam-
ple, went for a walk, were talking, and some man was coming up to them, saying: “Why the
hell have you all come here…”. And they responded: “We’re locals, from Donetsk region”.
He didn’t believe them: “It simply can’t be true…”.
There was an instance when my mom reached the regional administration. She has cancer
and she needs to see a doctor regularly. And she had fights because her medical record was
filled in in Russian. She raised a scandal, they re-filled it in in her presence in Ukrainian, and
when she came next time, this page in Ukrainian had been torn out and filled in in Russian
again.
Hence, I’ve been much luckier in this respect than my parents.
We’re gradually coming to 24 February 2022. What happened then?
Andrii and I fell sick. We had coronavirus. And after February 20 we started feeling better.
I remember on February 23 I talked with my friend :“It just can’t be. There can be no war”.
Consciously I wasn’t worried about anything, but my body was trembling. I fell asleep only
at about 3 o’clock at night… And I still remember that I had a dream about Kharkiv being
snowed in. I awakened sharply: our windows are trembling, it should be dark outside, but it
wasn’t. Andrii told me: “Go to the corridor, now”. I went out, I had fever, I felt cold. I went
to the bathroom to wash my face – and my pupils were dilated, covering the entire eye, only
the pupil, I couldn’t see the iris.
I’ve had very different experiences: during the first time everything was calm and I was leaving
my home without realizing that I was actually leaving it, while during the second time I had a
clear understanding: explosions, war, evacuation. It was easier for me the second time: since
2014 I haven’t remembered how it feels to have a home. It’s quite easy for me now to move
from one place to another.
But it’s an interesting feeling: you just know what to do now. It’s not a guarantee of your sur-
vival, not a guarantee that you won’t be hit by those rockets, but you know what to do. You are
sort of a stabilizing factor for those who experience this for the first time.
My mom is from Kramatorsk, my father is from Lyman, everyone is from Donbas. But I spent
my entire childhood till 2006 in Crimea.
Before 2014 I was focused on school, I lived in the suburbs of Kramatorsk and we went to
the city a few times per month, I had never even been to the cinema, Maybe that’s why I
perceived Kramatorsk merely as an industrial town where people worked in a factory, drank
beer, and watched TV, while working in a field during the weekend, planting potatoes and
killing bugs.
I didn’t even know what Kramatorsk was at the time.
In 2009 I went to study to Horlivka. Therefore, Kramatorsk became a “weekend town for
me”. I felt there at home, but I spent my everyday life in Horlivka. I was observing the Revo-
lution of Dignity through the TV screen, computer screen, I don’t know why, but I didn’t even
think that I could become a part of it – that I could go to Kyiv. I supported it, but through
the screen.
In the university we had drastically different opinions: there were people who also supported
it through the screen like I did, but no one thought that it was so serious, that it was the start
of large-scale changes at the national level.
Back then our dean was quite supportive of Maidan, but there was the attitude of ‘preserving
calmness, so that people don’t get into trouble’. People at managerial positions didn’t feel power,
didn’t know that they could influence and that their words meant something. But I remember
another lecturer from our faculty, she participated in these protests, she took part in a pro-
Ukrainian protest in Horlivka and she said there “I’m from Horlivka and Horlivka is Ukraine”.
Latershe left the town like most lecturers.
How do you remember 2014-2015? What were you doing, how did you flee?
My son was in Kramatorsk, while I was studying in Horlivka. That’s why I remember myself in
spring of 2014 in buses all the time moving through the russians’ checkpoints to Horlivka and back.
Our men in Kramatorsk were shooting back. It was very loud in the town, there were hits from rus-
sian shellings, so I took my child to Horlivka.
Not a typical situation: evacuation from Kramatorsk to Horlivka.
Now I don’t even understand how it could happen! Occupied Horlivka – probably then I didn’t
realize yet that it was occupation.
They built a new bus stop there with a TV. And I was so naive that when I saw russian TV channels
there, I called the Security Service of Ukraine : “Do you know that russian news is being broadcast
there?!”. And they said: “Yes, of course, we’ll sort it out…”.
I went to Kramatorsk in June of 2014. We realized that there were men at the airfield, our
men… We tried to understand whether we could help them. What to do next.
We with our pro-Ukrainian reputation would not be able to withstand the occupation.
I left the city, not knowing obviously that it was going to be de-occupied on the following day.
And on July 4 I moved from Kramatorsk to Kharkiv. I remember the experience of passing
through the DPR’s checkpoints – when my son who was 3 was pointing his finger into a win-
dow, yelling “Mom, look, separatists!”. And I was shaking: “God forbid, they realize that I’m
pro-Ukrainian, and I have a small kid with me”.
And when I was driving and seeing Ukrainian flags in Kharkiv in the streets, I could not but
cry, I was very touched by it – finally, finally, I was safe, I was home, in Ukraine.
In Kharkiv news that the town had been de-occupied reached me. And we returned.
How do you remember Kramatorsk over these 8 years? Did it change in your opinion?
You’re asking this question and I’m on the verge of tears now. I think that it was the most
active time and the most… drastic. The one which completely changed not only the life of the
town, but also of every separate person. This was a jolt which we all needed and we finally felt
this narrative “East and West together” in action. Volunteers came to us to change something
in the East and to initiate here support programs for affected people, business development
programs. This was such a breath of fresh air that these 8 years changed us forever – I can’t
even describe it…
Before the start of the large-scale war, I was thinking: “Not now, I don’t have time for it, I’ve
just started studying in the driving school, I have to finish it and get my driving license”. That
is, all channels were telling us that invasion might start tomorrow, and we were like “Sorry,
you can’t do that, I still have lots to do, wait”. As if everything depended on us.
On February 23 all Kramatorsk residents were standing on the square with flags and the
anthem… As if till the very last moment Kramatorsk was saying “no”. I was among those
people with flags. We all were a bit lost, but there was no hysteria: overall, it was clear that
everyone was ready to act in case “what if the invasion starts tomorrow”.
After this meeting my son and I were going home and singing “Chervona Kalyna” (Red
Arrowwood). And I was thinking: “Kramatorsk has finally accepted me and I don’t want to
lose that”.
And how did the next day look like? How did February 24 go for you?
February 24 was a shock. When I heard explosions, I realized that it had started. When I
opened the internet and saw the scale, I was really shocked. No one thought that they would
be bombing Kyiv. It was the feeling as if the sky was falling down. I understood that I had to
save children.
In 2014 no one knew what to expect from russians. Now, when I know who these people who
were attacking us are, I understand that they have little from humans in them. That’s why on
February 24 I started packing: I got scared that Kramatorsk would be occupied – I was play-
ing the worst-case scenarios in my head. We moved to Dnipro and I realized that we would
be moving on further – to the West.
War is not only about occupation of towns. War is actually about where to live, how to save
your child when hostilities are taking place nearby, as well as about still remaining an inter-
nally displaced person even when your town is de-occupied. It’s also about moral burden and
about security. And this issue becomes even more sensitive in case you have children. The
experience of 2022 proves that: the town seems to be not occupied, but we all are internally
displaced persons because the war is very close – it’s breathing down our necks.
You’re now in the Czech Republic. Obviously, we are all looking forward to our victory. But have
you already thought about your plans after victory?
I’m very grateful to the Czechs’ support… they all help a lot. But all Ukrainians I know want
to go back home, most of them don’t do that now because of children as it’s not the best idea
to bring them back under bombs. I have no plans to stay here or in another country. I used to
dream about coming to Prague, but….
But it’s not Kramatorsk!
Yes!
I’m from Crimea, I was born in Simferopol. And before 2014, I had never even left the bor-
ders of my native city. I associated Simferopol with Salhyr river, with the train station with
a high tower, Shevchenko Park, Haharin Park because my art school was not far from there.
During the last days when I realized that I would probably never come back to this city, well…
until it would be de-occupied, I decided to go on a walk around the city. To try to get lost in
it. Well, I couldn’t… I was amazed how close everything was. And how well I knew the city
where I lived. I was wandering like that for couple of hours and went back home…
If I am very honest, I realize that I don’t remember the city that well because I did not feel
safe there anymore.
Did you realize what specifically evoked the sense of danger?
I felt that I was in a hostile environment. I mean a very charged informational space, brown-
and-black St. George’s ribbons, russian flags… overall, all people were quite aggressive. At
first because of Maidan, because completely different ideas had been put into their minds:
they were talking about banderites (Bandera’s supporters) from whom they had to be saved.
When I was trying to find out who those banderites were, they just responded aggressively.
There was one moment which made me smile: there was one guy who put tricolor around his
hand. But he was walking around with it for so long that it faded in the sun, and he had white,
blue, and yellow colors left. When I pointed this out to him, asked him “Are you wearing the
Ukrainian flag?”, he got scared!
And do you remember well all these events – protests?
In fact, I was at home. But my parents were following Maidan events, watching live broadcast
of the Crimean Tatars’ protest. I felt very sad watching the Crimean Tatars who were always
represented as very angry, but all people whom I knew were not like that at all – they were
pleasant people! Cultured, intelligent…
And how are you explaining this to yourself – that all these people were caught in russia’s informa-
tion space? Or, in other words, how can you explain that your family was not caught in it?
My father has always been interested in Ukrainian history, politics. He has been buying books.
When there was the Orange Revolution happening in the country, they more or less decided
for themselves whose side they were on back in 2004. We had a breakup from our relatives.
Since childhood we have watched cartoons, movies in Ukrainian. My mother tried to buy
encyclopedias, magazines so that Ukrainian would be in our everyday life. Therefore, when
there started talks that Crimea was russia, I didn’t understand that even from the historical
perspective.
You’ve said “I went walking around the town when I realized that I would have to leave”. And
when did you realize that? Or did it happen gradually?
Occupation was quite painful for us because we didn’t support it. We didn’t have that many
pro-Ukrainian friends. Therefore, it was becoming very uncomfortable to live there… My
mother and her sister decided to go to Maidan. She said then: “We need to go to Kyiv, we can
be free there”. And after my graduation we clearly knew that we would leave in a few days.
Before departure I went to grocery shops, buying some stuff: separately in yellow and in blue.
I went to Kyiv with yellow-and-blue manicure on my nails…
I told myself that I would come back to Crimea only when it became free. And, hence, almost
9 years later… I haven’t been there. And I won’t come until it is de-occupied.
We stopped at our friends’ place in Boiarka. My mom organized for us a tour to Kyiv – I rode
in the underground for the first time in my life :) I saw the escalator!
Because in Crimea we had an escalator in a shopping mall only from a ground floor to the
1st one. And here was… the underground where you were riding for about 5-7 minutes. My
mom was laughing at me: “There’ll come the time when you’ll love underground stations
where you need to take stairs only”. I didn’t understand her :)
I was impressed that people were talking in Ukrainian. Posters, ads – in Ukrainian. Names of
the goods in Ukrainian: “sunflower oil”, “seeds”...
When the summer was over, I entered the jewelry college and studied there for a year, believ-
ing that I would become a jeweler. But then I realized that I wanted to work in the sphere of
law – to be a prosecutor or something like that. However, people were telling me: “You are
a woman, you’re going to have a family, it’s dangerous”. I was thinking: “So what that I’m a
woman… this cannot influence my capacity to work”. Then my friend offered me to come to
the mock trial of the International Criminal Court. I had the case on genocide on Rwanda…
And I realized: “Wow! International law!”. So, now I’m studying at this specialty and think:
“This relates to everything that is happening in our country…”. This is what is needed.
Can you please tell me where you are right now and under which circumstances you left Kyiv…
How did it feel for the second time?
When everything started – on February 24, I didn’t even hear explosions. My mother came in
at about 5 o’clock in the morning and said: “It has started, we’re being bombed. But everything
is fine”.
And my first thought was: “My hair is dirty! I should wash it while I have time, while we still
have water”. I was washing my hair and thinking: “Why have these bastards attacked us?
They are taking away my home for the second time”.
I packed my stuff in about 15 minutes, I didn’t forget anything. In the apartment where we
live, we have a nice view of the region, Kyiv. Therefore, we heard what was happening, we
saw rockets falling… My bed is by the window. It felt quite uncomfortable to sleep there…
I didn’t sleep for the first few days, listening to the radio. We didn’t hear the air raid siren in
our neighborhood… My mom sent us together with my sister and nephew – he is 6 months
old – to the office at Maidan. It seemed that it would be safer there than at the 21st floor.
When I heard the air ride siren for the first time, I felt terror – animalistic. We didn’t go down
to the bomb shelter in the underground because the curfew could last 2 days. And we had a
baby… We wouldn’t have enough pampers or food. I slept in the bathroom during the first
night. I wanted to feel at least some safety. We took a train from Kyiv to Przemysl. Adaptation
was happening during the first month – the sense of danger didn’t disappear at all… When
you see something flying in the sky and you realize “This is a passenger plane!”, but you have
this idea in your head that you should run. We were walking around Warsaw and it was full
of glass! And I was thinking: how dangerous it is! If something hits it now…
Do you plan to come back? If you’re making plans.
Yes, I have those plans! I have the goal: to buy a flag and put it over my bed back home. And
the world map – and to hang it over my bed as well. My mom is telling me: “Don’t be in a
rush to order, the map of our world may change a lot…”. I have nothing against that (if russia
disappears from the map)! I still need to defend my diploma. And to find a job in my field.
For me and my husband everything started with rallies. I was going home back from work and
saw people standing by the church, it was a small rally, they were holding flags and chanting
that Donetsk was Ukraine; I was so impressed by it that I was standing utterly still there and
realized that I had to be there, together with them.
I remember that difference between people which existed there, there were two groups that
really resembled black and white for me.
During the second rally we were saved by a call from our older son, we had to leave earlier,
and only later we learned that a tragedy happened there, a boy died. On the following day
I was passing by the square, it was fenced off, I was trembling, I came to work and my col-
leagues asked me “What happened?”, and the day was so nice, it was very sunny, and I told
them: “Are you even normal to ask what happened, don’t you understand what is going on?”.
And then we like many other people from Donetsk went to the seaside to wait until it would
pass, we thought that we would wait there for three months and then would come back. But
we returned later only to pack up our belongings.
My husband worked in small town Ukrainsk, and we went there, it was 40 km from Donetsk.
We returned home every Friday as we wanted to be home, something had to change, it had
to get better. Then checkpoints appeared, we could not pass them without problems, at first
once per week, then once per two weeks, then once per three weeks, and then I realized – that
was it.
Passing through checkpoints is a separate topic. The distance between Ukrainsk and Donetsk
is 40 km, sometimes we were driving through Bakhmut or Mariupol because of long lines. We
spent nights at checkpoints, came under shelling. My husband always kept distance so that he
could drive away or jump out of the car if something happened, but now we were trapped.
We were third in the line, the checkpoint was closed, and cars behind us were standing in the
form of a fir tree, which is why we could not drive away. And then a battle started, everything
was flying over our heads, exploding, people jumped out of the cars, lied down on the ground.
And I told my husband: well, will it save us? No. So, let’s stay inside. We waited, spent the
night, stayed alive, arrived to our destination. And it happened more then ones.
We came to Donetsk rarely, bringing something to our parents, because prices soared there
at once, so, when we were coming, we were bringing an entire trunk packed with different
things. Oil, potatoes, eggs.
When we visited them, even air felt wrong there for me. It seemed that the city had fallen sick.
It was sick, it could not recover.
Before February 2022 it was clear that something would happen, because it was very loud in
our area. It had been loud for 2 weeks before that. My older son was panicking because of that –
‘what are you doing there, you can’t be there’. In the evening on February 23 I sent him a
video, saying: “I am fine, I’m packed”. On February 24 nothing happened in our area be-
cause our town is small, my friend from Donetsk who is also pro-Ukrainian called me in the
morning, saying: “Are you sleeping there or what? We are at war”.
I got up, packed my bags, and when we were leaving, I realized that I would never come back
there.
The first time we were leaving it was very difficult because I realized that I was losing work,
people, the entire world which I had gotten used to. I was also losing relatives because we were
on the different sides..
But when we were leaving Ukrainsk in 2022, I felt better because I had already gone through
that, I knew what it was, but it was hard as we both were losing jobs. This time we did not feel
sorry for the house because it was rented, not ours. We packed our things and left. Imagine,
you held some place, were doing something, had community. Now we don’t have that. But it’s
okay, life goes on.
We were going to Kremenchuk, to our friends. We had discussed this plan a week in advance.
Then another family friend took us to Dnipro, we spent about two months with them.
So, this is how we’ve come to live in Dnipro, and we’re still here for now. I haven’t gotten used
to this city, still.
Are you from Donetsk, were you born there?
I was born in Makiivka. I got married in Makiivka, then we divorced, and I and my son
Dania moved to Donetsk to live with my husband. There is a phrase “small Motherland”,
i.e. the place where you were born, but for some reason I never thought of Makiivka as my
Motherland, I don’t know why. There is this feeling inside that it is either yours or not. In turn,
Donetsk was mine. That much that I could not do anything with that. When I finally moved
there… location was really great, almost in the center of Donetsk, everything was perfect, my
life was starting again, everything was awesome. And then no.
You’ve mentioned your friends with the pro-Ukrainian position who lived there, has anyone stayed
there till now?
No, they have left. One of our friends is still there because of his mom. Others left a year or
two before February. Very unluckily. To Bucha. They bought a house there, renovated it, were
inviting us “come, we’ll be happy to see you”. Thank God, they are fine, even their house is okay.
Another my pro-Ukrainian friend faced difficulties. She almost never could voice her opinion,
and she is a photographer. She used to work with schools, kindergartens, she witnessed all that
propaganda. Almost every day during these 8 years, when her son was returning from school,
she was talking with him, explaining what he could believe in and what he couldn’t believe,
that he had to think critically. A year before February they bought an apartment in the center
of Kharkiv, moved there, but her husband didn’t manage to leave Makiivka on time, then
mobilization started, he hasn’t left yet. Their family is divided.
Would you like to come back to Donetsk?
When my parents were telling me: “we’re waiting for you, come back”, I always replied that
I would come back, but only together with Ukraine. Then my husband and I thought about
selling the real estate because Donetsk seemed to be different and people who stayed there
were different.
And then after de-occupation of Kherson, it was such euphoria, I started saying “Listen, if
Donetsk is de-occupied, I will make great renovations in that house”. Maybe, yes, I would
come back to Donetsk.
But I realize that there is now a new generation of people, children who hate Ukraine, no
matter which shelling instances they had there, they were told that Ukraine was doing that.
And it will be necessary to work with that, it will be necessary to talk with them, explain to
them and break down this wall.
interviews and illustrations
Mariia Zivert
studio Seri/grapf (Yevheniia Polosina, Anna Ivanenko)

translator
Dariia Pimenova

corrector
Anastasia Mits

The interviews were conducted between June 1, 2022 and January 1, 2023.
The project was implemented with the support of the ARTIF program.

авторки проекту
Марія Зіверт
студія Сері/граф (Женя Полосіна, Анна Іваненко)

переклад
Дарія Піменова

корректура
Анастасія Міць

Інтервʼю бралися в період з 1 червня 2022 по 1 січня 2023.

Проект реалізовано за підтримки програми ARTIФ.