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My name is Arsen Poliakov; I am from Kyiv, and I am 13 years old. I practice dancing only for myself and my dad now. On February 24, I woke up to my mom entering the room, saying:

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"Get up, get ready; the war has broken out." We packed our things, and we had already prepared our "emergency bags." Dad said that he would go to Smila to his dad, home - where he was born.

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Dad could not stand apart, and he joined the Territorial Defense Forces (TDF) immediately from the first day. Andrii Mykolaiovych Poliakov, codename Bison. As a child, he was often called "Bison";

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that was his nickname. Even when he gifted me a gaming console, we had two accounts: mine, "Arsen," and dad's, "Bison." Initially, he left, he was near Kyiv in the TDF,

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and then he was in the reserve officer training department when he was on training. He went straight in as an officer, supposedly. Later, when they were just staying in the woods, digging trenches,

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when Kyiv had been already liberated, they said: "Why are officers standing there digging trenches?" He was transferred; he had just been waiting for a long time, and then he was offered the position of combat engineer.

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He agreed and called his brother to join him. Then there were two Kharkivs, one for liberation and the other one for demining. Then he went to Donetsk region. When he went on a reconnaissance mission,

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a drone flew in, and he was killed. He told his fellows to get behind the car, and he went to conduct the inspection alone. The device detonated. At first, my brother came to my mother; he was not in the Donetsk region;

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he was in Kyiv, and he said that my dad was the 300th wounded. My mother already felt that something bad was going to happen. They wanted to go to Dad, but they couldn't find the pass for a very long time.

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Then, a fellow called his brother and told. He died a month before his birthday. I immediately started thinking about what to do. I probably felt that I was the only man in the family now;

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the whole family was relying on me now. When we were seeing my dad on his final journey, we arranged it so that all of Kyiv stood with us. Perhaps you heard about it in the news.

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We showed all of Kyiv how real heroes should be truly honored. Now, after us, many people are bidding farewell in the same way. There were around four hundred people at his funerals.

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Patrol cars were driving ahead of us. We had a big car with speakers playing his favorite songs. There was some guy shouting, "Get down on your knees, get out of the car, honor the hero!"

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My father liked me dancing. Very often, when I came home from training, he would even ask me what we had been learning and what we had been practicing. I had been showing him.

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The most interesting moment was when we went to Zakarpattia for the last time before the war on New Year's. There was a disco there, and Dad started repeating, spinning on his head. That was very funny.

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It still sticks in my memory that he was repeating that he was into dancing, too. I support my mom, my mom supports me. I support my sister, my sister supports me, my sister supports our mom, and each other.

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At the moment, I still have such a period — I think Dad went somewhere. When I was at a dance summary concert for the last time, there was a contest for something. They said: "Parents, come out, you will be repeating, you will be dancing".

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At that moment, it came back to my memory: "If Dad were here, he would have won in everything because Dad repeated well after me and tried to spin on his head".

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I really enjoy talking about my dad because it feels like I'm sharing with other people what he was like so that more people sort of know him and he remains alive in everyone's memory.