Last evening we had dinner with a young couple, maybe in their thirties, dear friends of Anastasia, our Ukrainian friend from Helena. They are both artists, graphic designers, creative souls. Their normal is quite different. They live in a Kyiv neighborhood that is hit frequently. From their apartment on the 13th floor of a 25-story building, they showed us videos from their window. Footage from August, from October, from just two nights ago. Buildings blasted open by missiles. Fire, smoke, debris. The sound of explosions, This is the view from where they drink their morning coffee. Their windows have been blown out more than once.
They shelter EVERY TIME THERE IS AN AIR RAID ALERT – EVERY TIME!!!!! Their shelter is a parking garage. They grab their cats, climb into their car, and wait. Sometimes an hour. Sometimes all night. They told me there is a timeline to these alerts:
Missiles: five minutes to get underground
Drones: ten minutes
Ballistic Missiles: not much time at all
They are war weary. This is their normal. What struck me as well was their family connection in Russia. Many family members. They’ve heard the propaganda firsthand, how Russian media insists that Ukrainians are “bullying” Russians here. I have never seen that. Not once in all my trips. And Deanna and Vladyskiy say it is simply not true. What I have heard, again and again, is how brutal life is in Donbas and in the areas Russia occupies. How Ukrainians are treated terribly. How fear and control are daily.
Everyone I speak with rejects the idea of Russian domination and Russian occupation. No one wants to live under this. Ukraine has a long and painful history with Russia. The scars of the Holodomor, the starvation genocide are still alive in their families. Their grandparents lived it. Trauma this deep doesn’t vanish, it passes down the generations through stories, memories. They are determined to risk their lives to not be under Russian domination in any way. Wars are always so hard to understand, to sort through, to make any sense of. My husband says we are a failed species. Maybe. But we are also capable of indescribable brilliance, of empathy, of love and yes, of unspeakable cruelty. How do these truths exist in the same human heart?
Last night there were no sirens. I should have felt relief, but instead I woke several times listening, wondering if I had slept through one. Checking my phone app, ridiculous because they are loud and long, and the hotel PA instructs us clearly to shelter. But exhaustion makes you doubt your senses. The quiet felt unsettling, as if calm itself is suspicious here. Only two more days in Kyiv.
In an hour we head to the Protez Foundation. I will share more about that later.
