June 5-16, 2022 Olena Stiazhkina, Mychailo Wynnyckyj, Oksana Stomina, Taras Prokhasko

Flash essays from the collection “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” tell about the insights, experiences, and beliefs of Ukrainians, which ignited their society in 2022, when the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine began.

The Cultural Hub community and curators carefully collected, translated, and illustrated these texts in order to capture the values ​​of Ukrainians — Freedoms, Bravery, Dignity, Responsibility, and Humour. 

A series of publications in partnership with Chytomo introduces this collection to the English-speaking audience. Volume 21 continues to present the series. You can get acquainted with the previous collection here.

Olena Stiazhkina: Kyiv. June 5

“Can you help me find anyone who could sign a rental agreement with me?”

“Come live with us. It’s no problem at all. There will be enough room for all of us.”

“Is it your own apartment or a rental?”

“It’s a rental.”

“It won’t work. By the way, we do have a place to live. We’d even have enough room for you. But I need a stamped confirmation of proper living conditions.”

“I’ll try to find someone. Can it wait until tonight?”

Trust is when you don’t ask why. You just do it because you know: if they ask you something, they’re pressed for time, they need it fast, they need it yesterday, it’s a matter of life or death — or both. Usually, both.

Trust is when they tell you about it, when they feel like it; when they’re strong enough; when the time is right. But nothing will change even if they don’t tell you anything. It’s also about trust.

She will tell all about it later, once a “confirmation of proper living conditions” is submitted to the “relevant authorities” along with a heap of other “incredibly important” papers.

Mychailo Wynnyckyj: Thoughts from Kyiv. Sunday, June 5

This morning, after a pause of about a month, russian missile attacks on Ukraine’s capital resumed. Logistical infrastructure on the left (eastern) bank was targeted. In the Podil region where we are, the night was loud (antiaircraft fire), but no explosions.

During the past month, the war had become a bit distant. Receiving tragic news of the death of friends or acquaintances (most often — former students) had become an almost daily occurrence, but the actual battles are 400–500 km away, and so the distance is numbing. Today, the war came close again.

Our younger girls (13 and 15) waxed philosophical this morning: if a rocket were to hit our apartment, would it be better for us to be together or in separate rooms? Separately, there would be greater chances of survival, but then we’d have to live our lives separately too. These are not questions young girls should be discussing.

We’re off to church in an hour. Maybe that will help.

Watching the western news channels, it’s obvious that russia’s war in Ukraine has become one of many stories — no longer the center of global attention. The media likes dynamism. This is a meatgrinder.

The turning point seems to have occurred after the surrender of Mariupol. The heroic defenders of that city were ordered to surrender “for the sake of saving lives”. I fear their existence in russian captivity is far worse than death, but that story will again become news only sometime in the future.

In the future, many stories from this war will need to be told and retold: massacres, rapes, torture… It will all become known and documented. But for now, death rages outside of camera range. No video = no news.

For those who may have forgotten, we are now in a classic “frontline war”. Ukrainian forces are valiantly holding their ground in Severodonetsk and Zaporizhzhia, gradually counterattacking near Kherson, maintaining pressure on the enemy along a frontline that now stretches almost 1300 km (800 miles).

Such wars are won and lost by artillery (or so we’re told). The speed with which guns and shells can be brought to the front determines the result. No wonder the russians hit the railway lines in Kyiv this morning. Weapons from our western friends are (supposedly) on their way, and some (at least) were likely channelled via the capital. This morning’s missile strike was logical, if not completely expected.

Yesterday, during the day, I tuned out for a couple of hours to veg in front of the TV. One on the channels was showing “War of the Worlds” — new version, starring Tom Cruise (Ukrainian dubbing). The analogies to our current reality were not hard to spot: the alien ships that had been buried in our midst for years, waiting for the right time; the chaos and futility of any attempt to flee a marauding invader; the absolute commitment of a father to his daughter (and rebellious son). And of course: the bloodthirsty enemy.

The story ends with a happy ending: evil is destroyed by a virus. Not by weapons. By a virus.

Freedom is a virus. But only if we actually desire it.

H.G. Wells wrote something on this:

“It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they did.”

#ThoughtsfromKyiv

  Oksana Stomina …What they do to our people. June 7

I am looking at the family photo: ordinary people who dreamed of living long and happy lives. An ordinary couple, ordinary human desires, an ordinary photo. It’s only that it’s…the last one. There won’t be any more photos because one russian freak decided to launch a war, thousands of russian freaks obediently rejoiced at the opportunity to kill people, and another freak, with a particular name, pressed the button on the dashboard of a particular russian bomber plane. It happened so that it was flying over an apartment block on May 1 Street. That house was not picked out for some specific reason, no. The people who had been hiding in its basement for two weeks simply were unlucky to stand in the way of the russian pilot. This way will take him to the war crime tribunal, but it does not make it any easier. The tribunal for murderers won’t bring their victims back.   

The apartment block on the city’s left bank was not a strategic object. It was home to ordinary residents of Mariupol, to ordinary Ukrainians. But it turned out to be a good enough reason for the pilot to drop a deadly bomb onto it and continue on his way.  

But it’s not the end of the story, far from it.

Olia O., who lives in Mariupol, shared her story with me. I am not calling her by her real name because she’s in town, and this might get her in trouble with the occupiers. But Olia did ask me to publish her story.

“If you need it, if you can use it somewhere, I’m ready to confirm that it’s true,” she texted me.

A few days ago, I didn’t know Olia, but now the story of her and her family is my story, too, because I’ll never be able to erase it from my memory. Olia tells me that at least 17 people died under the rubble of their apartment block on the morning of March 13, 2022.

“I survived because I was hiding in the shelter of a house next to it,” she says. “There was no shelter in our apartment block, only a basement, but people were hiding there anyway. They didn’t have anywhere else to go. We returned to our flat every day—to wash up or do other things. That day, we went there, too, but just before the bombarding, my daughter, my grandson, and I left. Some people stayed behind.

“A bit later, we heard a terrible sound. When we hurried outside, we were shocked to see what had happened. Our house simply folded. People had no chance to survive.”  

The body of Olia’s brother and another six people, including three children, were dug out of the rubble immediately. Their neighbours did that.  

“It’s terrifying, just terrifying to see children being pulled out and their mothers and grandmothers screaming. To see men break down and cry quietly, digging up the dead bodies. And to go outside later and see their graves in the yard. Two children, one teenager, and a pregnant young woman died there.”   

Olia tells me the children’s names and sends me their photos. It hurts to look at them, but I don’t look away. The photos show sweet, cheerful children—still alive.   

“This is Dima. He was ten. His mother was raising him by herself. They died together. This is Roma, nine years old. And this is Bohdan,” Olia says, counting. “A total of 17 people. All of my neighbours. You can’t bring any of them back. You can’t rewind time either. Life stopped for many people.”

Olia and I talked for the first time a week ago. Olia was still hoping that her husband, Yura, was alive. That day, he was planning to visit his parents, and Olia thought that the occupiers might have detained him on the way. She was searching for him and asked me to help her. A few days ago, Olia still had enough strength to believe in a better scenario. I am sorry to say that, but it was a russist prison that would have been that “better scenario” for her husband, who never even served in the army.    

Last night, Olia texted me again.

“My husband is gone. They found him under the rubble of the same house where my brother died. It was hard to recognize him. There were only remnants of bodies, different bodies. But his clothes…

“My friend saw that. He called me later and told me about it.

“The russian rescue workers took away all the valuables they found under the rubble. Money, tools, gadgets. Right in front of other people. They put bodies into bags.”

“The most terrible thing,” Olia went on, “is that I can’t bury them. I can’t even find anyone to talk to about it at Metro, where they do registrations now. They told me to go to Mariupol and search for them. Or merely wait. If they find documents in dead person’s clothes, they enter the name into the database, and people can take the bodies away and bury them.

“In fact, our friend recognized Yura when his body was pulled out of the rubble. He recognized him by his jacket and some other special marks. He asked them to write Yura’s name on the body bag. But they either refused to do that or just could not find that bag later: too many bodies for them to look through…

“It costs 25,000 rubles to bury a person.

“My daughter, my grandson, and I are now in Georgia. Our friend was not allowed to take Yura’s documents or at least a photo of his body parts that were left intact. But I do have a shot.”

“What kind of shot?” I asked, terrified.

“Of Yura’s remains. Our friend secretly took the photo of the body bag contents,” Olia said and sent me the photo.

While I was trying to get over what I’d just seen, Olia kept talking—she just could not bottle it all up inside.

“That’s how most people look like. Just fragments of bodies.”

“In two weeks, I am going home. I want to see it all for myself. I won’t be able to live unless I try to do something about it. If I have other videos or photos, I will send them to you. I want people all over the world to know what is happening in the occupied Mariupol! Yes, they pulled dead people from the rubble, but it’s not possible to identify them, let alone bury them. We are ready to do a DNA test to find the person we love! But it’s not possible. We want to know where our Yura is! We want to know what they do to our people!”

#mariupol #маріуполь #мариуполь

Taras Prokhasko: …following the early thunder strikes… June 9

There is no joy without alloy (there is a blessing in disguise). That’s what always happens. It is an unbreakable law for one’s stay in this world. Whether you believe or not in the evolutionary concept, you have to admit that any mishap rather adds the diversity of properties and abilities than takes them away. In that sense, even the so-called degrading is of benefit because it offers the simplified adaptation to all challenges and threats of today’s age.

After all, the civilization assumed certain functions of natural evolution. Even if it is a full-fledged confrontation. For what nature recognizes as false will be adjusted by the civilization to the defining evaluation scale. After all, the entire history of civilization is a system protecting those who could be considered failing in the course of the evolution. 

There is another dimension that does not apply to either evolution or civilization. It is totally covert, and can be revealed only to those who go beyond statistics. For example, it is about understanding disability as an added value rather than the reduction of abilities. In other words, when I have a disease or a pathology, or a disorder (and I do have plenty of them that is why I think of them as of infinitely big numbers), I treat it as an acquisition rather than a loss.

In that case, every war taking place on our lands is cancelling certain things, but at the same time, it is an open chance for other things. Sounds cruel but calamity and tension can not only exhaust you but also inspire. Like cutting the Carpathian virgin forests. That’s it, this forest will no longer exist. It’s even hard to think of it as it used to be there all the time, and it was everything. You could make so many things of that beechwood… And the new saplings will grow here in some ten years from now. And they will be left in peace for another hundred years, while they grow big enough, but we will no longer exist. 

Some ten years ago, when on the train from Vinnytsia, I was watching the landscapes passing by and thought, oh, my, why do they look like the war had raged over.  The more to the east, the more war-like it looked. The cities, very beautiful cities, because they are all grown in greenery, look like the reclaimed ruins. And people looked like veterans discharged from some uncontrolled army.

That is why the horrendous destructions that moskals dare to cause in our steppes, when no one can convince them out of it because they are moskals, should be taken as a chance. It is not only about the nation building, not as a dramatic opportunity to change the entire lifestyle you would never try in the agreeable settings, and you would have kept struggling with things that had, in fact, long gone.

It’s clear that nothing is clear. What will be Ukrainian over there, in the open steppes? What shall we stay with, and what shall remain under the ongoing threat of new destructions? And for how many more years to come? And those coming years – is that a lot or a little? Is it enough or does it even pay to start all over again?

But. When thinking about the future, I keep in mind several thousand decent and talented Ukrainian architects. Despite any ideas about the common experience, the war always divides people into millions of shatters. Your abundant war experience will never compare to the same grand experience of another person staying one step away from you. Several waves of defensives and offensives pass. The deminers will pass collecting explosives from hectares of land; they will be taking out the explosives-mutilated children for several years to come…

Meanwhile, decent architects have already started thinking about the future beauty of the country, when in lieu of destroyed monsters, they will build something we have long been waiting for. We’d better not make the artificial haste. And the new construction concept should rather match the readjustment of artillery to new calibres.

Olena Stiazhkina: Kyiv. June 11

Tomorrow is my friend’s birthday. She would have turned 54. She stayed in Donetsk; she died in Donetsk; she asked not to bury her body in the soil raped by the orcs but to turn it into dust or ashes. She always laughed when she said that. She found it hard to choose, but ashes appealed to her more. “At least I know what I will look like. Not my best, to be honest. Gray color does not suit me… But dust sounds too outdated.”

She asked to cast her ashes to the wind in Mariupol over the Azov Sea.

She’s somewhere out there now, in the wind and water, on a cloud above the dead city that certainly would not suit her, this bright, courageous friend of mine.

That’s not how she likes it. And if someone does things not the way she likes it, the bastard will end up bad.  

I know for a fact that Mariupol will be liberated. She, my dear friend Inna, is living there now in rain and snow, in the streams flowing into the sea, and in the sea itself.

Our dead, who never got a chance to choose how they would like it — the dust, the ashes, or the body in the ground — are living there too.

The hell awaiting the russians will be eternal.

 Olena Stiazhkina: Kyiv. June 13

A German historian said that Ukrainians were fighting with irony and elegance. I get what he means. He’s talking about our desperate jokes, memes, cartoons, songs, and photos of school proms among the school ruins.

But I am not sure I can let him say this.

An inscription on my grave saying, “She died with irony and elegance,” would look more or less alright. Not a bad taste at least.

But when it comes to our Ukrainian soldiers and civilians dying, where is the damn irony in that? What kind of fucking elegance is there?   

The Germans seem to be hit with an outbreak of “the Merkel virus”: everything looks right, but in fact, it’s terrible.  

Olena Stiazhkina: Kyiv. June 16

She says: “You know, when my older boy went to war, I knew what could happen. My chances of seeing him back alive equaled…my chances of seeing him dead. From day one, I knew where he would be if he didn’t return. I had a place for both of us. A horrible, dark, damp place for myself — and a warm, shining place for him. I just knew that it would be like that. A warm, shining place. He would feel good there. He feels good there now…But my younger son died under the rubble. And I keep screaming and screaming. No one can hear me. Even now, talking to you, I am screaming, but my voice drowns in some kind of a swamp… I’m screaming and screaming and screaming… I don’t have a place for him. I can see him only in that basement where he trusted me and trusted that everything would be alright. And now I’m only screaming and screaming.”

***

“Alright, let’s count one more time before hiding it. Don’t pull it out! Count inside your bag. Then we’ll hide it in your bra… Ninety-one by fifty equals four thousand and fifty. Correct?”

“I think so.”

“Let’s count again. Ninety-one by fifty equals… four thousand and fifty. Right?”

“I guess it’s right.”

“Oh no! Girls, we’re 500 euros short! The train is leaving, and the SUV is already waiting at the border! And we’re 500 euros short! Oh no! What are we going to do? Call someone, do something! Ask someone to bring us the cash right now! Or they’ll snatch it right from under our noses and give it to another unit! What should we do, girls?!”  

“You should’ve learned maths better at school,” the train conductor says, grumbling. “You have all the money you need. Ninety-one by fifty equals four thousand five hundred and fifty. Come on, get on board, or I’ll call your teacher…”

The editorial “rule of small letters” or the “rule of disrespect for criminals” applies to all the words related to evil, like names and surnames of terrorists, war criminals, rapists, murderers, and torturers. They do not deserve being capitalized but shall be written in italics to stay in the focus of the readers’ attention. 

The programme “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” has been created by joint effort and with the financial support of the institution’s members of the Cultural Business Education Hub, the European Cultural Foundation, and BBK — the Regensburg Art and Culture Support Group from the Professional Association of Artists of Lower Bavaria/Upper Palatinate.

Authors: Olena Stiazhkina, Mychailo Wynnyckyj, Oksana Stomina, Taras Prokhasko

Translators (from Ukrainian): Hanna Leliv (Olena Stiazhkina & Oksana Stomina’s essays), Svitlana Bregman (Taras Prokhasko’s essay)

Illustrators: Victoria Boyko (Olena Stiazhkina, Mychailo Wynnycky & Oksana Stomina’s essays), Yuliya Tabenska (Taras Prokhasko’s essay), and plasticine panel by Olha Protasova

Copyeditors: Yuliia Moroz, Terra Friedman King

Proofreaders: Iryna Andrieieva, Tetiana Vorobtsova, Terra Friedman King

Content Editors: Maryna Korchaka, Natalia Babalyk

Program Directors: Julia Ovcharenko and Demyan Om Dyakiv-Slavitski