Elizaveta

full interview

Lisa, could you please tell us where and with whom you live now ?
I currently live with my mom and younger brother. We have a dog.
Where do you live now?
In America, in New York, in Brooklyn.
How do you spend your time here? What are you doing? Do you work or study?
Yes, for the most part I work all the time. 
What makes you happy now, while being here? What brings you joy?
Well, I would say that I really like to develop, that is, in different directions and always really find out. When it seemed like these were the limits of what was achievable. And you’re surpassing it, your capabilities. This has always been an indicator for me.
Tell us how your life has been since you arrived here.
Well, it was very difficult at first because we didn’t have a job or housing. Fortunately, I have an aunt, my mom’s sister, who lives here, and she sheltered us for a month. And then we started to get away with it ourselves; it was very difficult to find a job. So I found mine only after six months, all this time we were living on the money my mom earned and it was just enough to cover the rent.
Do you remember any good moments that have happened during this period since you came here, what was so good and memorable?
Sure. First of all, I saw my aunt because I only remember seeing her once as a child; she came to Ukraine. So we all went to celebrate my birthday together in a huge mall. They also tried to take us out, see New York, and see different places. By the way, we live pretty close to the ocean, so walking the dog when it has a huge space, run and jump. Very nice, actually, but surprising, sort of like a new extreme.
This is great. What is the dog’s name?
Nyasha.
Please tell us what has been difficult during this period while you are here?
Well, the hardest part was getting all the paperwork done, because no one in my family knows English but me. So even my aunt who lives here and my uncle don’t really know. So all the documents were dumped on me right away, and I started working on them, and there was also for a long time, waiting for the documents, some getting lost somewhere, and you have to go there again for that, then they didn’t have time to accept them, or there is a paper missing and so on. This took a very long time, as they say, “no document, no person,” so you come when you get a job, they say, phew, why did you even come, you don’t have social security or work authorization, and it doesn’t matter that they are in process.
Did it take you long to get all this?
Very long. In other words, we could not process all this for six months, because when we just arrived, there was no fast-tracking. So we submitted for the housing, but we didn’t really understand yet, no one was guiding us, because it seemed that there were a lot of Ukrainians here but they were also still getting confused, just sharing among themselves and everyone pointing to each other: “Go there ask, go there ask.” So I had to find out everything. Here it is.
Do you still have a family in Ukraine?
Yes.
How do you feel when you realize you’re far away from your family and home right now?
Well, honestly, it’s hard, because when, for example, I just talk to friends and they talk about what’s going on there, it’s like something familiar to them. And when I was there, I understand why they feel this way. But when you’re far away, it’s more difficult because you can’t see anything there, you don’t know how it happened, where it hit, where, was it close to your loved ones. Was any of them passing by there and so on? And these are the constant concerns. And as soon as I read a new thing that it hit somewhere in my city, is in some part of the city, the first thing I do is write to everyone right away, write to everyone.
If you say you’re here right now, yeah, you know you’re from a different country. Have you ever felt during this period that you are here that you do not belong to this country, this society, this place where you are now?
Well, I’ll tell you at first I really thought so, because then I adapted, and somehow I stopped caring of what anyone thought of me. The main thing is my goal. But when I first arrived, I noticed such a dual attitude, because it seemed to be just people, on the contrary, you came from Ukraine, and that’s it. On the contrary, we support your country, we are for you, and so on. And the others just shout after: Why did you come here? You live off my taxes and so forth. Of course, you will get your food stamps and cash aid now, then will return to Ukraine and build houses. And you think: Dear Lord, sorry. But they give us $200 a month as a cash aid, it won’t even cover the rent.
Won’t even cover grocery shopping.
Yes. Well, like, there are food stamps, but those can only be used for groceries. They cannot be withdrawn, cashed out, and so on. They cannot even be spent on household items, only on food, and not all stores accept them.
How do you feel or felt, if it is not happening anymore, when you hear comments like this about yourself?
Well, I can’t keep my mouth shut. I can bark back, let’s say. Because in fact, the people who tell us this, they came here from another country themselves, and there is no point trying to prove anything to them. Even if they arrived five, ten, fifteen years ago, so what? This is not their country, they did not grow up here, this is not their culture. They came in large numbers, as they say, just like we came here. But our and their reasons for coming here are different. But for some reason they blame us, this is already interesting. 
Well, I see. Can you please tell me, looking back at you past, have you ever imagined that you would have to go through all this experience that you are going through right now, and that you would be able to cope with it?
To be honest, I’m still very narcissistic about this situation, because whenever I recall the whole experience, I think: God, wow, Elizaveta, good job, clever girl, how did you do all that? I think it was a different person. And I’d like to tell my past self that I couldn’t do it. And then I think so for a second, but that’s Me who did it. Here it is. Well, that’s exactly the thing that’s like this, maybe because the experience was traumatic, it gets blocked as if it was a different person to me. It’s like I didn’t do everything that happened, someone else did it, and I admire them just like this.
It feels like you’re looking at it from the outside.
Yes. As if this is yesterday’s fish and chips. And it happened to someone else. But I know this story very well. Well, that’s it.
Knowing this story well, what do you think helps you cope with this experience every day now? What is your strength in ?
I think in people, in people around us. So at first, when I first left the country, I was filled with hate; I could neither work nor concentrate, nor relax, nor talk to anyone, simply because my thoughts were so clouded by hatred, aggression and anger that I simply didn’t have energy for anything else. So it turns out that as soon as people gradually started, piece by piece, something like “hey, look at it” just to distract me, let’s say, I started to dive more into life again. And when I realized that I was so immersed that I was already starting to push it all away, as if it had not happened to me, I stopped for a moment and thought about it, analyzing that now I, on the contrary, am trying to escape from this situation, as if it had never happened. I just don’t want to remember that you’re denying it. But then you still come to the realization, but how? How do I block this? It did actually happen.
I understand.
You can’t cut it out of life. And most people who also experience this kind of thing also feel the same way. On the one hand, you don’t want to share, but on the other hand, you think you should share because there are people who don’t share because of that very reason. 
Because they understand that.
Yes.
It is something common, personal, but common. Can you please tell us, what do you think about attitude towards refugees here in the USA, in New York, in particular?
I would say so, 30 to 70. Well, that’s it.
What is 30?
30% are people who really want to help, the organization, people who are present here. So these are people you’ve already met, even on friendly terms, I would say. Or they are just people who understand what is needed, and they help the organizations. 70% of it was I just threw them into one mess. These are people who are either neutral or biased. But they either don’t say it directly or they say it directly. So that’s all of them, I just cut them off.
70% is also correct.
Yes? Because each one of them has something on their mind. I don’t want to deal with this. This is their choice.
I understand you. Let’s now go back to the past before you left Ukraine. If you can, could you please tell me why you left? What happened?
Anyway, I can tell you right on the first day how this happened.
Yes, tell me.
All in all, it was around 05:00 a.m. I get a call from my grandmother, I’m sleepy and she says: “Elizaveta, the war started, quickly, pack up. All tanks are already coming in there”. “What?”- I am saying,” Grandma? What kind of war? What are you talking about?” I’m looking out the window. It’s all good. Then I say: “Grandma, that’s it, I need to get ready for school. Sorry, but I can’t talk right now.” She: “No, no, no” and I say: “That’s it all, Granny, for now”. So I didn’t listen to her; I hung up the phone, supposedly going back to bed, but I feel something strange. She calls me again in half an hour. She says “No, Elizaveta, look, you should pack now. Wake your little brother up.” It was only two of us. My mom was out of country to earn a living and my dad lived in another part of town. So she’s telling me to pack and everything else. I say: “Well, we’ll see now, we’ll figure it out now.” I hang up the phone. So I am standing in the middle of the room, I don’t understand. It seems like I want to lie back, but it seems that something is incomprehensible. Why would she start talking about it so abruptly? I mean, my grandmother used to talk, but we didn’t believe it. So I go to the window for a second, and I understand that our city is not the city that woke up to the sirens, because all the sirens in Chernihiv did not work, so they fired fake signal shots, that is, in the air so that people would understand what it was real.
Something’s going on.
Yes. That it’s not just like that. So I see this grey smoke in the air, I can hear them on one side of the city, second side of the city, third. I’m running to my brother in panic. My little brother, he has hearing problems, so he can’t hear without a device.
Is he much younger?
For 7 years. Here it is. So I wake him up suddenly. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. And it turns out. So I’ll give him the hearing device, and all the rest, he has a lot of health problems. Therefore, I am trying to pack all medications and some of my documents as soon as possible. But I don’t know where his documents are. So I also understand that we need to go somewhere now, but where should we go? And actually, I didn’t want to go to my dad, because my dad is not my little brother’s father. In fact, I understand that war is a very emotional part. I don’t want this to affect the kid. So at first I thought I would even stay at some point, and my mom’s friend suddenly calls us and she says: “We’ll pick you up now quickly, let’s go out. We will now go to a village there.” That is towards Gomel, closer to Belarus. I say: “OK, that’s it, we’re going out now.” I’m picking up the dog, quickly picking up our things. I also had a rat. At this point, I also throw it somewhere on my shoulders. All two bags we had, only two bags, and we are just coming out and she says: ” No, leave the rat, there cats and all. Pour her plenty of food. We’ll be back in three days, everything will be fine.” I brought back the rat. I gave her as much as possible, and we left. There was already a very big family there, there were a lot of people there. So it was herself, her son, her brother, her husband, and a little kid there.
Was everyone in the car?
This is their family of five people and two of us and a dog. So in total it makes seven people. There was a big kind of minivan, and so we rode it there. And we’re going, and we see that tanks, that is, we’re going one way, and the tanks seem to be coming back from there. Well, it’s not at all clear what this is for and so on. I don’t understand why we didn’t know right away that something was wrong. Since the tanks are coming from the other side, we went there, we went… By the way, I don’t remember the name of the village, somewhere near Riabtsi, this village is called. And so we were there. And as soon as we arrived, we were still kind of confused about it with some chuckles, but it seemed like something was incomprehensible but a little scary. I mean, well, usually giggles are a defense mechanism. And that’s the first day. So we were still roaming around for the first couple of hours, having fun, eating something, and we stopped at the store. So it was all good. And then we start listening. There are explosions not far from us. Periodically.
It was when you were already out of town to the village, right?
Yes, we went to the village towards Gomel, specifically. So it was Chernihiv Oblast. So it turns out that we hear that explosions are not far from us, but it’s like they are. Well, it’s pretty close, we understand, and we started quickly running to the basement, and it was just a small recess. So it didn’t even go down just a recess in a brick building, that was just very close to the house. We run in there and we start watching tanks pass by us, that is, tanks, those in helmets, and so on. And we hear shots from time to time. So we hid, closed the doors, sat very quietly, because we were afraid that God forbid they would stop and start entering people’s homes. But luckily they passed, we sat there for more than 2 hours. We look out and we realize that, well, something really weird is going on. We didn’t understand where they were shooting, what happened, and so on. We’re, we’re waiting. So we just sit there, wait, and we realize that it has gotten a little bit calmer, that there’s no one here, and so on. But we constantly hear explosions a little bit in the distance, and we were actually very scared. And on the very first day, we ran to our neighbor, who lived just across from us, and she had a dip, that lead to, like, this cellar, it goes down and it goes pretty deep, and we ran to her, and we hid there right away, both their family and our family. So I still have a photo of us sleeping on potatoes with lots of blankets, all dirty. Yeah. In general, we spent there, since that evening, we did not climb out of there because we heard that a very heavy bombing had begun and that fragments were falling right on. So first of all, the shed was made of wood, we just heard these shards fall on this wooden shed and were just hoping to survive, just to survive. I was most worried about my brother because, in fact, he… he has trouble hearing, he started talking late, he didn’t quite understand what was going on. And I mean, well, I didn’t even really want to explain it to him. He understood partly, but partly didn’t not, I guess. But in this situation I seemed to turn off my emotions and I focused on him to make it easier for me. 
And how long did you end up staying in there?
Well, more than a day. We stayed there for more than a day, we were just getting out to use the toilet, to go to the toilet, and we had previously took some food with us there, and we didn’t eat anything except what we took there. Then we left early in the morning, it was quieter for a while, and we decided to return to this family’s house. And we noticed that windows and cars were shot through. And those electric poles that transmit communication were damaged, but we haven’t seen the rest of the houses because we haven’t been around the village yet. So we just moved around. When it was getting very dangerous, we ran to this neighbor, when not, we were coming back because we didn’t want to be too annoying. Because, well, this is their home and so forth. Here it is. And for the first three, no, the first weeks, we lived mostly in the basement, lived mostly in the basement, periodically climbed out, cooked something and climbed back in, because it was so strong. And then I noticed that my brother had a very bad asthmatic reaction to what was going on, and I started asking this grandfather to allow us at least stay at nights. So during the day we would naturally move around, if everything is quiet, but at night we would sleep in their house. So if something happened , we would run straight to the basement. But idea was for us to sleep in their house. Grandpa was the only one sleeping there because he didn’t care, everyone else slept in basements. So it turns out that when we slept there, there were always some explosions, and the child was sleeping peacefully. I just listened to every single explosion. I couldn’t focus on sleeping. And I was just finding a quiet moment during the day, because nights are when they were bombing the most. In addition, they were constantly rotating, tanks were constantly passing in columns, coming, and at that time we were hiding. This is actually how we lived at this pace for about two weeks, the first two weeks; after that, it seemed like it got a little calmer around us, as if everything had been moved. As we found out later, it turns out that the battle for Chernihiv was just across the village or two villages from us. There was a big field there. And that’s where, in fact, the battle took place. In fact, it’s clear that there were air strikes on the city and so on. But as for those near us, military operations were taking place there, so all tanks passed through this village. So it turns out that over time, all the food we bought in stores has run out. So, of course, they had some canned jars in their basements, and so on. But there was no potatoes or anything. And then the village started feeding us. Someone from the village will just give potatoes. Some summer residents who lived there, they started breaking into houses. So not at home, but other people’s cellars to get some potatoes and some pickles, or something else. That is, they took it and then divided it into other families that also came like this so that people would not starve to death. Over time, I started to have very strong conflicts with this family, because I felt very marginalized. So if she, well, this woman, treated her children, helped more somewhere, gave more food, told them to take a rest and would do things by herself, but when it came to me she was very strict. I mean, God forbid my brother took this girl’s toy, and they would immediately start a conflict with me. Actually, then, well, all this was accumulating, accumulating, accumulating, they just over the time gave us a separate bucket containing several potatoes and onions, carrots, pork fat, a small piece like a handful of buckwheat, rice, a couple more jams, something else. So they told us to cook for ourselves. And, by the way, this is also despite the fact that they had some products. Because I was trying to get justice, because I felt so sorry for, well, my brother, because he is also a child. He sees this cookie that they gave to this girl. And he’s asking for it. And she says it’s her cookie. Like, this isn’t for you. And when it’s actually her son, it was a very unpleasant situation, but… I went out, and this girl’s cookie was left on the table. And my brother, he took a little piece into the corner. He took a bite out of it. And her son, he came on purpose later when he kind of sat back, took a photo and went out. And when my brother did it again, a small piece, as he was biting off this cookie literally by crumbles, he took a photo and brought it to show me. And I am thinking, what dirtbags you are. Not only do they have some products that are not limited to their families, that is, they milled some… somewhere they got some grain and milled flour, and so on. And they just gave us this package of products and that’s it. So I’m not saying that her husband threatened me several times that he would beat me up. If I were his daughter, he would’ve already hit me off, and so on. I had very strong conflicts with him because these requests were minimal. Like I asked us to at least get some kind of rag because my brother and I shared one towel. And he said we’re in a terrible generation because we can’t wash the towel, hang it up to dry. Wait a second, the temperature is below zero in February. We’re washing in icy water. The stove isn’t really heated because smoke, that is, smoke and light, have covered all the windows. So, in fact, it was impossible to do this. And so it couldn’t physically dry out. I’m trying to explain that he starts yelling at me very aggressively, he throws slippers at me. But I am tough, and I threw back at him, and he cursed me and I cursed him because I knew that I might make him mad, but I’m just not going to let anyone keep abusing me. I’ll show you that I’m going to start a big fuss for everyone here. But they don’t dare treat me or my brother like that. I understand that they sheltered us there out of the goodness of their hearts, and so on. If you’ve taken control of the kids, you’re adults, well, why are you acting like animals, that’s the way you separate children’s food. A grown woman. common. Well, it’s unthinkable in my head.
I understand.
And also to threaten a child, well.
Can we go on with this? Or are you…?
Yes. Yes.
So how long did you stay there?
We’ve been there for over a month and it’s only been piling up. It spread all over the village. Some folks took our side, some took their side, the hatred grew, grew and grew between us. And at some point I just got tired of crying; my phones were no longer charging. That is, we first charged from the car battery and then. It’s just that the batteries are all dead. And it turns out that our phones were also not a priority, like charging the phone for their child to play something so that she wouldn’t annoy everyone. So it turns out, at some point, I completely lost contact with my mom, my grandmother, and all the people who helped me. I had a friend who talked about being on the defensive, like he would help us.That they will pick us up to the neighboring village Khmelnitsa, across from, well, we were near the village Ryabtsy, and after Ryabtsy is Khmelnitsa. And he says: “I have relatives there, like, we’ll come and pick you up somehow.” Because since the military was passing through us, humanitarian aid couldn’t get to us. 
Which military?
Russian military. So we were occupied. Why is that? Because they were passing by. And then after us, there were military actions.
I get it.
Yes, but I want to say that there was actually a time when they gave us their dry rations. So it was just a rotation. They arrived and saw that out of all units only one person had survived. And then they realized they were just going to die. And they gave to our village all the medications they had, and their dry rations. But some people didn’t take it because they understood that they were like an enemy after all. But some people took it because, well, the situation was dire. This is the moment I remember, well, it was hard to look at them at all, because you could see that they were all… well, I was then 19 years old, they were all my age, same age, only in oversized helmets.
Remember how you felt at that moment?
Yes, at some point we stopped being so afraid. So you just sit and see them pass by in tanks and they look back at us. And even at this point, I didn’t believe that we hated each other; it was probably a doom, in all of our eyes. Because we’re powerless, we’re locked in this situation, we can’t go back to town or leave, and somehow we’re just locked in here. And they also don’t have the chance to leave, to run away. So they were just sent to do it. I mean, well, at this point we just kind of stopped being afraid of each other. So we all understand that they are militants and so on, they’re going, like, they’re destroying our city. Well, it’s just about these people. So the first ones to arrive actually destroyed the city. More precisely, it is not a city but a village. Then, when we started going out and walking around the village, we saw a bunch of houses that were raided on purpose, right? On fences to break ruin them, huh? On the barns purposely to crush animals. There were a lot of them. In other words, everyone had a damage from shooting by the first ones, but the ones who came later, those just had no way out. Here it is. And we simply did not contact them any other way, didn’t approach each other. But, well, you could just see that and that was it. So they’ve already seen me sitting there in the bushes trying to call someone, when I still had signal. They would come, and they would see that, well, like, there were a lot of rumors that they broke others’ phones there and so on. And at the same time, I talked to my mom; they came by, they noticed me, but did nothing. At least the ones that have passed by me.
How did you get out?
I just wanted to move on to this right now. Over time, I lost contact. I realized that I can’t be with these people. So I need to go somewhere, as I didn’t know when humanitarian aid will be available, when it will arrive, then I couldn’t contact anyone anymore, and so on. My face was constantly swollen from tears. My pants, skinny jeans, were getting wider and wider turning into sweatpants. And for a moment I just approach my brother, hold his hands and ask him. “Please tell me, do you want to leave these people or not?” He says: “I really want to.” I’m saying: “That’s all I want to know.” We still had buckwheat, carrots and potatoes. Actually, we ate buckwheat, we decided to splurge. We ate the buckwheat, made jacket potatoes, and peeled the carrots; and we took our jacket potatoes and carrots with us because we didn’t know how long our journey would take. We packed our two briefcases and took our dog on a leash. So I was waiting for the moment. So I hid our briefcases; no one paid much attention to them. And I waited for the rest of the family to go somewhere, they often went to their neighbors, and so on. And as soon as they left, the only only left was that man. And son of that woman. I’m saying: “Thank you guys, we’re leaving.” They’re like: “Where are you going?” I’m saying: “I kept telling you they will take us to Khmelnitsa.” They kept mocking us over it, saying that we will only get picked up by the cars going towards Russia. And that now no one can save me, no one will take me away. I say: “Well, no one comes, I’ll go by myself. That’s it, so long.” So they’re in there, they were trying at the time… well, their son was trying follow us to see where we were going. Now I’ll tell you how I found out the route. Near this grandmother, who had us hiding, there was a field near her, and we went there once, and in this field we found a shell, a bunch of holes, and so on. And while we were looking at it, we were looking at it from the outside, and someone was saying that this way is this village, that way is that village. So I knew, well, that the only thing I knew from the information I had was that on this side, in a straight line, there was the village of Ryabtsy, and somewhere near it was this Khmelnitsa, where my friend might have relatives. So I don’t know their name, I don’t know my friend’s last name, I only knew his first name and that’s it. So this is all the information I have that I had. And as a kind of pictured the direction, I took the child with a briefcase; took the dog in my arms. I was hot, then cold. You go out into the field, it’s cold, you enter the forest, it gets humid, then the sun, then the wind. So it was already spring. So we went through a good month, and the end of March was the end of March and the beginning of April. So it turns out we’re going with him. If at first, plus-minus, I knew the way, then I realized that I was, well, I’m just going straight to the target and that’s it. I go straight to the nearest settlement. Then I’ll know where to go from here. The biggest problem is that I knew that there could be mines, tripwires and so on both in the woods and fields. So the way we walked was just awful, because I yelled at my brother madly and bawled out. I held this briefcase and the dog in my arms, and I’m just yelling at him with all my might: “Right in my footsteps. God forbid, you start…”
Did you go first, and he followed you?
Yes. I’m saying: “God forbid you don’t step on my footprint.” I’m just screaming: “You will lose your leg, you’ll just die, you bleed out, you’ll just explode and your remains will be all over the trees!” I mean, I kept scaring him on purpose to make him follow closely in my footsteps. And then I was making a step, then I would just stop for a few minutes to look around. To check if there are any trapwires, or anything covered, somewhere, maybe some traces, something else.
Did you see anything? Did you come across any trapwires? Or, thank God, you were lucky?
I didn’t really see, it would never be that visible. You’re never going to know that. So if I just saw some suspicious place, as if something was covered, and so on, I tried to get around it. Let’s pause for a second, I want to blow my nose.
Tell me how you got out at the end. How long did you walk?
So we were just walking through this forest, then there was a field. We actually ran through the field, because I was very afraid that I would be in sight, so we ran across it very quickly. My only hope was that they would see we are just kids and wouldn’t kill us because of this. So as we ran through this field quickly, I knew that there were snipers and others near the field. We ran across it and then again got to the forest. So it took us a very long time to get through the woods. Really long. I mean we were running, but in woods we moved slowly, very slowly. We ran through the field, as there were tire marks there and I realized that there can’t be any.
Mines?
Yes, mines. Because they are there. So if those can be in some places in the forest, it’s just like running across… there are a lot of skid marks here. So I understood that it was good and bad, that is, I had to run but very fast. Actually, we have passed about 10 kilometers by then. 
How much time did it take you to do that?
Well, I can’t even remember how long, long time went by now. Long, long… So the sun was already setting. 
Did you start early in the morning?
No, we left at lunchtime, left at lunchtime… No, I am wrong. We left just in the afternoon around 2:00-3:00 pm. So the journey even took several hours and a few hours for sure, because it’s not the whole road. In other words, this also includes the fact that after this forest we reached the first village, the one called Ryabtsy. And people also, they led us through their yard and told us how to get to Khmelnitsa. So, all together, it took all this time. Well, I guess I don’t know, I can’t tell you. I have no sense of time. I just remember that it was getting dark. And so they told us which way is Khmelnitsa, these people. By the way, when we entered the village, the columns were passing through and we hid in some bushes. Then the second one passed by, we were also hiding. Then we ran into these people. They took us through a very large courtyard and walked us through and told us to get out right away and there’s a highway, there’s a highway. They warned us that there’s a highway, there’s just a field on both sides, with nothing there to hide in. This was the way to get to Khmelnitsa. I’m saying, “Well, that’s it, thank you so much, we will go.” And we’re going. And so along this highway. And I’m calm now. The dog is out of my arms; I can relax, we’re already walking, we’re walking in the middle of the road because, well, we have nothing to lose and we just walk along the road. And I feel like, well, like because I scared my brother so much that he’s worried, I need to comfort him. But this situation is stressful, and affects your memory, so I only remember one song, and these are only four lines. And the song by the Russian band is “Not Yet” called “A Coat”. And there’s just a part where it says something like… they came to blow up our house, where we could walk barefoot. So I only remember six lines from this song there. No, it’s just no songs, don’t remember anything, no lyrics, can’t remember anything, just saying six lines of this song. So we’re just going, and I’m singing it, singing it. And at some point, a car comes from behind, and stops. They were two guys who were, well, grown-ups, just under thirties. And they were taking flour to this village, to this Khmelnitsa. And they see two kids on the road. They’re asking, in fact, what are we doing here, where are we going? We say: “We are going to Khmelnitsa.” They say: “We’re going there, get in.” This man who was sitting in front, he moved to the back, sat on the grain sacks. We sat in the front seat. My brother and I, there is also the dog and two briefcases. And the only thing the driver asked me was: “What are you doing here?” I said that we left the family we were with. And he just asked one question: “Well, did you leave over something trivial or something really happen?” I’m saying, like, if it were crap, we wouldn’t leave. Why would we end up two of us on this highway? He says: “Well, I got it.” He didn’t ask any more questions.
So did he get you there?
Yes, he got us there. While driving, he was asking us where we were going. I gave him some information that I have a friend Danya, who has a house with two cows. I don’t know his family’s name. It’s just a big house, two cows. That’s it. His name is Danya. They were like that, my God, they had no idea who they were. So we are arriving. While we were trying to find Danya and two cows in the big house, we come to their garage. And he asks: “Are you hungry at all?” And we’re just silent, it’s kind of awkward to answer. He said he understood everything and took us to his mother’s kitchen. His mother is honestly the holiest woman in the world. I didn’t talk to my own mom like I did to his mom. So when she fed us some soup and there was bread. So for how long we haven’t seen bread? And I’m eating this bread with soup, I’m not finishing it. I just wrap it up like that and say: Can I eat it later? She just started crying right there. And after that, well, the humanitarian aid was reaching them and each family was getting one loaf of bread. Therefore, they had bread and people shared it, in general, they helped each other’s food. Plus there it was then.
So the village wasn’t under occupation, right?
It was partly because all this villages are next to each other. The only thing that they went passing directly through our village, so no one could even stop by there, to deliver something, and cars didn’t ride at all. People didn’t even ride bicycles, they just walked. That’s why nothing was getting there. But the villages that were a little further away, well, they could drive some cars that could bring something from neighboring ones, and so on. You could meet military personnel there periodically, but in ours they were always present, so no one could take anything there at all.
It’s clear.
So when they just found out about it, about what we were eating there, they… They collected, brought it, another loaf of bread and said eat everything you see, there was butter, jam, some candy, there’s something else, eat everything, like, whatever you see. So we started talking to them about what we were going to do with this person. And he says, what is your goal anyway? Why were you heading to this Danya, to his family and so on? I say this in general, I really counted on humanitarian aid, because we have relatives closer to the border with Belarus. These are villages around Blue Lakes located near Belarus. So literally a tiny distance to the border. It is 10 minutes to get to the border. I’m saying I should actually go there because my aunt is there. She will take care of us and my mother will be able to come and pick us up safely from Slovakia. And he tells me: “We go to Belarus to buy groceries, we know where all the checkpoints are located, and we go around them, we can take you.” And we were, like, maybe he wasn’t even planning at that moment to go there but we, well, we ran to collect everything. We stayed with them for about 24 hours and they helped us charge our phone. They had a battery there. We arrived at the tower, and I called my aunt and I’m saying: “We’ll come to you tomorrow. Please tell my mom,” I’m saying: “I can’t talk for long, reception is very bad and so on”, but she says that she understood everything, and will wait tomorrow. So we all went back to her, this woman. His mom was even very kind to my dog. So she would give her more food, and so on. In that other family they fed dog some leftovers, anything they wouldn’t eat, and it was a food not suitable for the dog. If they had meat, the dog didn’t get any meat at all. But here on the contrary, she tried to give her some meat and cottage cheese, and also porridge. So she was very gentle towards us. And it turned out that we would be traveling by mopeds. She sewed a bag specifically for my dog so that she could sit front of me like this. We rode three mopeds, on one is my brother; on second one is me. And the third one had the guy holding the dog. 
Did you know how to ride mopeds?
Oh, no-no, they were riding, and we sat behind them, we just held them as if we hugged them. So they went with them, and some of them were just planning to go there to buy something, some of them just came to give us a ride. So we were traveling as a group, that is, four grown men. So two of them are taking me and my brother, and the third is the two of them on the he moped and they have the dog, or did we have the dog? Well, these are details, it doesn’t matter. So we are on our way, and we go around all checkpoints along the way. It’s very cold and windy. So my hands were so red because of the cold. I just realized at some point that I don’t feel them. And I’m also trying to check on my frail brother, and I think, goodness, how does he hold on like this, even I can hardly stay here. At one point, one moped breaks down. We go to some grandpa’s door. Ask him to leave the moped there. And if I’m not mistaken, the two man stayed behind, and they called a friend to come and pick them up by a car. And I guess we even waited, or I don’t remember, but we got on our way. And along the way we stopped at some other people’s place. We were all wet, it was raining, it was slush, everything was dirty. That is, they fed us, they even gave us some change of clothes. 
Did this already happen on the way to the border?
No-no, not yet. We were still on our way to the village, about 70 kilometers away. So we left at 7:00 am, because they knew there would be a rotation. And that’s when they realized it was the right time. Rotation usually takes place in the morning when you need to leave. That’s why we left at 07:00 in the morning. Even at six something.
Was it scary?
Yes, it was scary. The worst thing was thought that what if some checkpoint they knew had moved. What if they show up here right now, and so on. And it’s just the terrible fear of falling down. While this crazy rain is drizzling, dirt all around us, the cold, everyone is wet. So yeah. But there was some confidence behind it. I thought, no matter how hard it was, we’re going to get there. We’ll get there, we will make it. All the other thoughts were just getting brushed off. So when we came to this place to fix the moped, and we stopped there for some time. They couldn’t give us their clothes. There were other kids, they’ve sheltered some other families. They just gave us change of socks, some kind of towel to dry ourselves, they just stuffed our jacket pockets with candy. So we moved on. If I’m not mistaken, we probably even, we moved to a small car because it’s in the same place. So you were already close to this village and should have arrived there, well, in about half an hour away on this road. That’s why we’ve already taken a car, there’s already a border there, well, not quite at the border, they still had to get us to the relatives and there was some kind of a safer road. So they decided to get into a car, at least they warmed up a little bit. Here it is. And they’re driving us, and my aunt just greets us with these tears and hugs, and so on. She is trying to offer them something. And they answer like this just to keep the kids safe. And they’re handing us over to our aunt. Well, my mom’s on her way to pick us up. And we end up staying there for another 3 days.
Does it mean that the aunt is in Ukraine or you are now in Belarus?
No, my aunt is in Ukraine.
In Ukraine, is just closer to the border.
Yes, her village next to Blue Lakes is located very close to the border.
Got it.
So it’s also about half an hour to get there. And that is, in order to… I’m going to tell you now. Anyway, we came to our aunt’s place and stayed for about three days while my mother got to the Ukrainian border because my brother had no documents. So I didn’t find them. I didn’t have time to get those. My documents were there, his weren’t. So she was the only one who could help him cross the border. So it turns out that we realized that mom is already close. We could only go to this border at night because we didn’t know. Also, we didn’t know about the rotations, that is why we were driving there at 4 am.
Who were you with then?
I was with my aunt, my second aunt and my uncle was a driver. So they are also relatives. They were all very concerned about us too. On the other hand, they were happy. So they drove us closer, but they got afraid they would think they were crossing the border, so they dropped us there and told us to walk a little further and border will be there. They said our mom had just crossed the border and she was coming to meet us halfway. So we kissed them, hugged them, said goodbye, and we walked away. So we are going, and the road is huge, so wide, you can’t see anything, because it’s a dark night. And then we see very far away, we see my mother’s silhouette, and we just ran. And mom just sees us dirty in our torn shoes; the beige jacket is just dirty. And mom just cracked a beat. She just hugged us and we stood like this for a few minutes. Then we went straight to the border. By the way, we had to leave our dog because, unlike Poland and other countries, Belarus did not let us in, so it turns out.
How did they even let you in, how did you cross the border?
We sat at the border for more than 8 hours because they were checking our documents. And, in fact, the big problem was that my younger brother was undocumented. That is, they had to check all my mother’s documents that they wrote in her passport. And all this is just to warn you. They asked me how my mother came to the country and that you should leave the same way so that we wouldn’t be detained at the border.
This is the Ukrainian border, but you say it took a long time to check you?
Belarusian.
Belarusian.
Yes, it was empty on the Ukrainian border; no one was there. So you just go through and then you walk on the Belarusian border. So 8 hours later they pick us up. People were already waiting for us there; our friends went to Minsk. And by the way, what really surprised me in Minsk was that, by the way, people in Ukraine hadn’t noticed before. So now everyone has abruptly switched to Ukrainian, but before that everyone spoke Russian and did not prohibit anyone from doing so. And now in Belarus they don’t have any signs in the Belarusian language at all, and their schools don’t even have the Belarusian language. And you think so, my God. And if this were to happen to us, it would be terrible at all.
Yes, it’s horrible, I agree.
Yes, because people are so negative about their own culture. Here it is. But in fact, we accepted the language; we all spoke it. They also accuse them of being harassed in some way. But this is all weird. It was just such an internal shock for me when I was in Belarus.
How did you get here later?
We’re here. So it took us a long time to get there; we went to Poland through Belarus, where even because the child did not have documents, all the trains and buses refused to take us. There we had to pay about 200-300 € to the taxi driver per hour to cross the border and take us to the first city.
This is already from Belarus to Poland.
Yes, yeah. As soon as we arrived in Poland, there was a huge refugee camp right next to the train station in Warsaw. It was some kind of sports complex. There was also a shower, there were disposable cot beds, and there was food. So it’s not like they were feeding them there, they were just on the tables, because there was some food all around. And I think so, yeah, they seemed to be feeding them there. And what they were feeding was there. So you could also change clothes there. And then we had already changed our clothes. That’s why when we were in Minsk, our relatives already looked OK. And it turns out that you will stay there in this camp until then. So you get a ticket somewhere, you go somewhere else. And as long as your ticket isn’t available, you’ll be staying there. So we had a ticket for tomorrow, so we just spent the night there. So we arrived in the evening, we went to bed at lunch. Somewhere in the morning we went, so it turns out, by train or train. Oh, we’ve been driving for a very long time. That is where we went. We went to Slovakia because this job was like a dormitory there. And we went there because we were living and working there right at that moment. It took us a few hours to get there, then they took us to the car. And it turns out that this is how we selected something from the first point in which we lived for some time. It was Slovakia. So I’ve been there for a month. After that, I wanted to go home to pick up my dog at.
Chernihiv?
To Chernihiv. So already people who were occupied and so on, they, first of all, they’ve already returned at one point. Here. Plus, the lights have already been slightly restored there, and so on. But it was very difficult to get there and it took more than a day to get there, because there are no planes on buses. That is, I’m not going to Poland by train at first, I’m lying. I took the train to Austria. There was a direct bus from Austria that went to Pervy, to Lviv, if I’m not mistaken, it went to Lviv, and it turns out that the road took more than a day to the border.
When was it already, how long was it?
But it was.
Has it been spring already?
Yes, it was already somewhere in May, but it happened in May. So it took us, we, to get to Lviv for a long time, because the border there is a plus. Well, all these buses are from Lviv. So there was supposed to be a stop there and so on. Well, I mean, no one is on the bus while it stops. Here it is. And, in fact, we spent more than 24 hours getting to Lviv. After that, I had to change it, thank God, I also stayed with friends.
Did you go by yourself this time?
Yes, I was driving. Absolutely no one wanted to let go. I say, I can’t do this. I can’t, she’s my dog for 7 years. While there were all these explosions, she was with me, not you. I love everyone so much. But the thing is, I can’t live without her. And she’s still with me. So now I just understand that I have to go and that’s it. She’s there with some relatives who also have dogs; she’s not used to these people, she’s a little aggressive. I think it’s a lot of stress for her. And it’s still in there and I’m safe. But I can’t live like this while I’m here, she’s there. And it turns out. After that, I still got to Kyiv for several hours. and the longest road. Well, it’s short and it’s simple. This road was hard. from Kyiv to Chernihiv. So normally it takes 2 hours, we traveled 7 hours by bus, because most roads were simply destroyed. We were driving in such a roundabout way, through such bumps, we stopped to use the toilet once in all the time, and in the forest we were told to just go toilet after stop, because there could be banner mines, something else. They said don’t go far, just take turns doing your business. All this is actually how I got to Chernigov and he got to know his city. First of all, we weren’t on public transport at that time, and I see that every second edition was simply destroyed. Just near my house, plane fragments hit all these buildings, most of them burned down, there was also a large supermarket, where my house was also damaged. I live on the eighth floor, and only the windows on the side of it were damaged and the balcony was damaged. So there was an explosion on this side, but if it were lower, that is, if I lived on the lower floor, that would be critical. So not only would everything be fine there, but most likely, there would also be a big deal (?) Something else would have knocked everything out there. So the rat was dead a long time ago, right? When I come home, I just see all these things that are scattered around, just in the same position as we left. And it was tough. And my friend had a dog. And on the very first day, I kept waiting for him to bring it in. At the same time, while I was in Slovakia, he did all the paperwork for her so that if we could safely go from where we would go through Belarus, we wouldn’t go again, but still, wherever we went, so that no one would stick to us. And at that moment, we had already started applying to go to America and get them. So I realized that I would need all vaccinations and so on. Just in time for my friend there, with doctors and so forth. And Voton really went with her to do all this during the war, when there was no public transport, it’s just that, yes, a great man is just great then, because Eldar, who also lived in a village during the war, was brought to the city later and… Actually, I got my dog and I’m studying. And now the technique is underway, and the practice of exams is beginning. And as a result, I stayed in Chernihiv. It’s a month now. In other words, in order to complete our studies after crossing all year, we already understood that we were unlikely to return home. And we’ve already taken some things with us, and so on and so forth, so that this apartment can just take them away. That’s it. Therefore, I have a lot of relatives who can live there, for example, during this period. That’s why I spent a month studying at night, we were still in the gym, everyone around me was watering the windows. That is, if you look out the window, you can only see such a faint light in some windows, and so on, up to 10 people see out of 06:00. That is, if the lights are on at home, all the windows should be closed, you can’t see anything. It was still a time when you were under occupation, and for us to do this, it is unusual in the city. It looks strange, because there is such a cheerful thing during the day, but in the evening no one goes out, there are no people, as if the city is empty, and there is no light anywhere. So I’m not talking about any flashlights at all; there was nothing there.
How long have you been there?It was a month and then for another month you stayed in Slovakia.
I stayed for a month, I took exams and, and I completed my internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And right after that I left. So I had socialized with my relatives and friends, spent some time with him, we shared our stories about who was doing what during that period. After that, I returned to Slovakia, where I worked at a factory, I worked there for two months to provide and help my mother with tickets as well. to have some money for first days, plus the dog had to be prepared and everything. Therefore, everything was being processed in Slovakia, permissions, authorizations. We had to pay for everything. And so the day before our flight my dog gets hit by a car. And I already think that we are cancelling the whole trip to America. It wasn’t a priority anymore for me. I was so broken about it, and I was screaming so loud that everyone around could hear me. We took her to the vet in the middle of the night  and they amputated her tail. And she had a broken paw. So I am telling my mom: “No, she should stay at the hospital. I can’t fly tomorrow, she won’t be able to fly in her condition, So she holds my hands and tells me calmly: “If anything happens to her, it will be on my conscience.” And I say, that if she dies during the flight, I’ll never forgive you for this. She said OK, and we flew under these conditions. The flight was very hard, it took about 11 hours.

And the dog was with you during the flight?
Yes, she was with me. She was lying at my feet. She has just came out of anesthesia, all swollen. She was very scared any single time I moved. She was getting through so much stress that I couldn’t even go to the toilet during the flight, she would start whining and yelping as she was in constant pain. And when we finally arrived, we met all our relatives there, and so on. They promised me that she would be cured. But in fact, nobody took care of it. Everyone has to go about their lives. People would often say they would help out. But in fact, they only took her for a check-up. It turns out that if the injured area of her butt where her tail was amputated, was gradually healing by itself, she still couldn’t step on her paw. And I started looking for a job right away well to help out my mom, but the big goal was to heal my dog. And I found a job. I just kept $20 a week for myself and that was it. Everything else I’ve earned went towards dog’s treatment. And then I went to see a doctor who instead… instead of a fracture needle inserted a hollow needle and the paw got infected. And after that I spent all money, I spent all $3,000 that I earned, I spent all to get her examined, to extract this needle, to understand what was going on. And everyone was telling one thing: “Amputate.”  Quoting $10K, $6K, $8K… So I am thinking, that’s it, I cannot save the dog? How is it possible? America, so many organizations, we have just arrived from Ukraine. In other words, as they say there are people who take advantage of it even if they didn’t actually go through a lot, but with us this was a real situation. we have just arrived, we have nothing, we don’t have any money yet to just go buy garments. Well, the problem is that the dog’s paw started to decompose, it was already critical, and I understood that this is not right. And thank goodness, there was actually an organization that helped us. Now, I do believe in people who live here. But these kind of organizations helped us survive. They helped us numerous times. And I am not sure how people who live here feel about all this. I think with some envy, because they didn’t get this kind of help, although we’ve been through all of this. I understand, it might feel unfair. But on the other hand, OK, it’s understandable, they don’t have to help, but to add fuel to the fire towards people who have already been through so much, I think it’s too much. Anyway, after having finished with the surgery with amputation, everything is well recovered now. And she running perfectly on three legs. And luckily there are folks at my work who really help me. And there is even a person who works in robotics. So we agreed with him to get her prosthetic leg. Of course, this is a very difficult project, but I believe in him. And, frankly, over time, things started to get settled. Starting from the job, which at the beginning was just a startup and earned very little money. And for us, it was just for getting out of house. Then it grew into a… I would say a  family, which keeps growing and we participate in their development and growth, we start earning more money ourselves, like we travelled somewhere and allowed us to do something else later. Now I am able to help my relatives in Ukraine. For example, every month I transfer money to my grandmothers. And every time she goes: “No, you don’t have to… thank you.”

Please tell me all these events that you’ve had to go through, do you often think about them?
From time to time, from time to time, it just comes in waves.

So how do you feel when you think about it?
Mostly it’s always some details, some details, some anger at people, at situation. I’m very sorry that my brother was going to start a family and now he can’t do it simply because of this situation, because of the war. How many people are there like this ? They’re just limited. So they don’t want to fight. And I don’t understand our president’s position, among other things. I don’t understand their authorities so much. So what is the reason for this war? I mean, yes, profit, I understand the profit, but is it worth it? And the fact that our people are fighting so hard to return back all the borders  that existed a long time ago, and people just want peace. They don’t care about those borders. Now I understand that this is a big loss for the country. But I think that people are a greater loss than territories.

Speaking of your personal experience, how does it affect you? Do you feel that it changed you somehow, well it definitely changed you, but in what way?
Definitely, it definitely did. First of all, and it might sound very selfish, but majority of people for me now are like “crybabies”.
Like who?
Like crybabies. I mean, when… well that’s wrong, it’s absolutely wrong. When people say what, like, what can I do? This is a phrase that, but what can I do? Yes, I’m very negative about it, really bad. So what can I do? Because in all the situation that I found myself in all my story I could have said to myself, What can I do? And do nothing. But I never acted like that, and that’s why. 

Do you feel like you’ve grown out of this experience? 
I think that this experience was ultimately traumatic. Because it changed my attitude towards people, and not in a good way. Something like that. So now I cannot comprehend problems of a normal society, I just don’t get them. They sound like, pfff, real crap. Look, you guys have a roof over your head. Water, light, food. Please calm that you don’t have some tablets or consoles. Goodness, why do worry about it? Just go, work and everything will be fine.

What do you think helped you get through all this? Who helped you, maybe, got some support from somewhere during this period? Did you have any?
I would say bit-by-bit, because. Well everyone did to some extent. That is, someone would say something, and it motivated me, someone else’s words would comfort me . So people played a huge role. That’s why I always had people next to me during my journey. Well, except when I was going to pick up my dog and was alone. Although, even during that trip someone always helped me. While I was still there I had my brother, my dog. When I got out of there I had my Mom. When I was going back, there was a bunch of relatives, friends. That is, a bunch of people supporting me. I would say, in part, they had an impact on my will to continue living, to live with those memories. And the more I was talking to people, discussed my situation, the more I felt that I wasn’t lonely. 

I understand you. Thinking of yourself before all these events, before the war. 
[Timer alarm] It’s okay.

Before the war, if you remember what you dreamed about, and share it. Start your response with: ” Before the war, I dreamed of…
Before the war, I was dreaming about living with my little brother without any problems. That’s how I used to live. I was very comfortable living and I really wanted to stay in the city all my life. Honestly, I love it so much and I even wanted it to become like a tourist destination. This is a very quiet city. There are a lot of coffee shops, a lot of parks, and every alley is there… you can just walk around around the city, enjoy yourself, drink tea and coffee. If you for example go to Kiev, everyone is bustling, running and so on. There is no such thing in Chernihiv. People are all there, they all work somehow, everyone is doing serious things, but everyone is a little bit laid back. Honestly.

Do you miss that now? That socializing?
There were also a lot of forests there. It was such a mighty combo. That it was quiet. But at the same time, it doesn’t mean that people weren’t busy. there was no such thing there. There were no lazy people there. This is not a city of lazy people. It’s just that it’s calm place, people go about their business there, some are fast, some are slow. So this is comfort, there is a forest, there are always picnics, fresh air. I used to live right next to the forest; we would always go there for walks with my dog. Constant barbecues. That’s it, we would just decide in a whim in the evenings to go and make barbecues, to get out of house. A bunch of rivers. I’m saying a bunch of parks, so much stuff. And the city was actually constantly developing, they built constantly a lot of new things. Like fountains so much was added. In fact, I was very excited to watch the development. So I loved it so much that, well, I had never been abroad. And in other cities, it’s just a passing by. I loved the city so much that. Well you can say, everything else was closed to me and I didn’t see it, and that is why I didn’t want anything else, But I was actually so comfortable that I really didn’t want to leave. Well, I mean, if it weren’t for the war, I would probably have lived in my city all my life. 

Moving on to a difficult period when you left Ukraine, I am forced to say the words: Finally, you managed to leave then. Do you remember your expectations then? I can’t call it a dream, but what were your expectations? Again, if you can, start your phrase with “At the time I dreamed or expected that… 
When I was leaving the country at that time, I expected me to come to some kind of calm, only calm, and people would treat this with understanding. I often thought that everyone around me are adequate people, and they understand what it’s like when this kind of people arrive. A person who escaped from the occupation, came out of basement, didn’t have food and so on. When I arrived, I was very disappointed. That is, when foreigners treat us better than our people. Because people who lived there could say, like, as a joke: “Oh, and I’m a poor refugee”. Something like that back then, in fact, there were some people who talked negatively, but some who were very supportive. I remember when we were going to Poland by train, there was this funny woman. She was saying something in English. But all her words about Putin were completely clear. And we spoke, and she understood that we were traumatized. And she didn’t ask a lot about the experience, just some minor things. But during the whole trip she was just joking, just trying to cheer us up.

It’s great that you met her. 
And we actually met such people, and it was felt really nice. And it was kind of strange to be in places when you never been before, because you’ve been living in this city all your life and then you go here and there and here, and different people are all around and so on. Everyone says things differently. And you think: Goodness, where am I? You get confused.

You went through a lot of difficulties, had a tough experience. And it’s clear, as you said, this experience changed you, it influenced you, it made you grow up. Was there anything that was good or positive emerging from this difficult and terrible experience? Is there anything you can say right now that thanks to all these horrors, you now have something good, at least something good? Is there anything like this? 
Well, I can’t say thanks to. This is not something to be grateful for, but because of the war, its impact, I went abroad, I had a chance to see the world. I dreamed about visiting Europe, wanted to go to Austria. Slovakia is very close to Austria. I went three times because Salzburg is my most favorite city. There is a lot of architecture there, big palaces, vast territories. Getting to know other people’s cultures, understand how they live, what they live for, and how. In Slovakia for example they are very relaxed, don’t even care that much at all. Let’s say they come to work and learn that they were fired. Their reaction: Ok so what? I’ll go have a beer tonight, wil come back to talk it over with them tomorrow. This doesn’t work out, will find another job. So they’re generally just tranquil. To be honest, there’s really nothing to do there. They had very little entertainment, but they were so soft. They joke so kindly among themselves, and sometimes they make fun of each other too. So they’re just like…

Probably comfortable?
Well, I wouldn’t say … I don’t even know how to say in Russian, they are carefree, just don’t worry about anything at all, don’t bother themselves . Sometimes it’s not very good when you work with them, but it’s just amusing to know about it. Just like with all the countries I’ve been to. But by the way, what I want to say is that when I was in Europe , it was very difficult for me to understand their languages. I don’t understand Polish very well, know some Slovak, because I’ve lived there for a long time. But because I liked English, I’ve always studied English, and as soon as we arrived to the US I read and I realize that goodness, I understand everything. And they’re talking about fingerprints already at the airport. God, yeah, I understand everything you are saying. How is it even possible?? I’m in a foreign country. Therefore, in this regard, I adapted to America even easier than to Europe, because it was extremely difficult for me in Europe. I wouldn’t order anything. Here I figured it all out so quickly.

It’s good.
Yes, all the rules, how it all works, and so on. People are here as well… So it’s not that they… Well, I like the fact that people here don’t pass on negativity. Even if they think something is negative, they’ll not always tell you about it, and sometimes it’s good when you have a bad day and you just say hi to your neighbor. How are you doing? How is your dog? Everything is great, how about you? And it is really uplifting. So if at first I took this trait as something odd… you think, goodness, why do you care how I am doing, leave my dog alone and then you think, damn this really somehow improves your mood a little bit, even if you just talked to your neighbor. Sometimes about dog food, about some trivial things, some plants. So, honestly, I’m comfortable. If at first I looked at America, like… Well , I came here because my mom wanted me to, I just followed her. I wasn’t interested in living here. People would tell me about Statue of Liberty, but I didn’t care for Manhattan, I didn’t care about anything. Well, yeah. It’s kind of cool, a tall building and so on. But when I settled down here a little bit, and so on, my mom then realized that it was difficult for her, and I realized that I was comfortable here.

Do you have any dreams right now? Now , today? if you have any, you can also share. Start your phrase with: Right now I’m dreaming about … 
My dream is to actually get some kind of status in America. But this has its purpose. I just really want to go home. At the same time, I understand that if I live there now, I will not be able to help them as much as if I live here and even just help financially. Moreover, I understand that I will not be able to live in my town anymore. I love it madly, but whatever is left of it, is not my town. My town is in my head in my memories. And what’s left now are the remains there is now, just a ruined city. It’s not the same. I miss people, I miss them madly, I really want, and this is my big dream to see them. I just can’t go now. I really want to advance here and earn as much money as possible, maybe even somehow be more useful for my country. I don’t want to help with weapons. So I would like to help people who once helped me by sharing food with me, someone who helped my dog, someone who supported us. So this is an important aspect. I understand that now people will say that they there is a need of weapons, but I’m not going to help like that. I’m not the type of person to be in favor of guns. 

We’re basically already almost finished with this, I am really grateful for the interview and for all your answers. And I understand how hard and painful it was to tell and remember things. I only have one question left for you. Rather a request. Is there anything you didn’t say today that you would like to add to your interview so that people who are fortunate not to have a similar experience, could understand you better?
What I would like to say is probably that for me most of all.. I’m mostly concerned about… Let me quickly share a brief situation about a recent birthday party a girl was having. There was a girl there, from Western Ukraine. And this kid didn’t see everything that was going on there. So, let’s say, she didn’t live this experience. So she was frightened so badly by stories about well, roughly speaking, the air alert and all. This girls was so angry at everyone, at entire Russia, at people from Russia, and all that. And she just doesn’t seem to be able to talk about anything but that. So, roughly speaking, she spoils another girl’s birthday by arguing with everyone about politics. I understand her feelings because at first I gave up everything related to Russia. And here it is also important to understand that the people who are there didn’t start this war. Even if they can’t stop it, even if they don’t support it, it wasn’t them who decided to attack you with guns. And here I know a lot of people from Russia who helped us, and who are now helping Ukraine. Even our school, it helps to conduct online classes for children from Ukraine there, including .. some go there to help Ukraine, the refugees there, and so on. And it’s all while this people are from Russia, from Moscow. Most of their lives they spent in Moscow, and they support us. I know a lot of such people. My aunt’s husband is from St. Petersburg, he loves everything they bring from Ukraine, he has a small flag there, some kind of keychain, that’s it, he’s very happy that they brought it to him. And these people, they have common sense, they understand that whatever is happening is wrong. But how can these people, who are sensible, want to support you, somehow help your nation and your kinsmen, when they haven’t even told you anything yet, but you’re arguing with them, you’re arguing simply because they are from Russia. Without knowing about their position. So this factor has become a very key factor for me, because if I used to be very strong in this hatred, I was able to somehow curb it. After that, I was able to move on with my life the way I want to live. I don’t divide people into nations. I just don’t divide them. So this is a very important position for a human. And It doesn’t matter even if he used to be a Russian soldier, I would still like to talk to him. I mean, even to just learn what is going on in these people’s minds at all. I understand that there are some who do terrible things, they rape those little girls and purposely ruin the cities. But not all people are like that. I gave an example of those soldiers who gave all their supplies and medicines there. For example, I have diabetes and there were medicines for diabetes. In other words, they even sent such soldiers there and were there meds for asthma. In other words, they had a wide variety of medicines. And these people just gave them away. They didn’t know if they would survive or not. They gave us those anyway because they could see what was going on there.

I understand. Thank you. 
You are welcome.

I’m really thankful to you.