WEBVTT - Made with VTT Creator 00:05.441 --> 00:23.326 position:50% align:middle First, my son called me, he was in Svitlovodsk at the time, they lived there. This is the Kirovohrad region. And he said: “Mum, are you asleep? Wake up! It’s war.” And we said: “Come on, Maksym, why are you saying that? It’s quiet here.” 00:23.326 --> 00:37.613 position:50% align:middle And about 10 minutes later, my parents – they live in Hlobyne, Poltava region – called: “It’s war. Everything is exploding around us.” And we were like: “Oops!” – we got up and turned on the TV. We hardly ever watched TV, 00:37.613 --> 00:58.080 position:50% align:middle it was just hanging there, and then we turned on the news and realised that it had really happened. Although I didn’t really believe in the full scale war. I thought that we would be pressured from the side, but full-scale war was a bit too much for me. 00:58.080 --> 01:17.172 position:50% align:middle I was also sure that if such a situation arose, they [the russians] would use air power. We’ve all seen Syria, we’ve all seen how they can do carpet bombing, so I was afraid of exactly this scenario. I thought that we would be destroyed, 01:17.172 --> 01:41.669 position:50% align:middle just wiped out right away. But then it was more or less quiet. My brother called me from Hlobyne and said: “Natasha, let me come and get you.” And I see on Facebook and everywhere else on social media that there is no more fuel at the petrol stations, 01:41.669 --> 01:58.057 position:50% align:middle the queues are insane, and I say: “Sasha, where are you going to go? You’re going to get stuck somewhere and stay there. All the roads and highways are already clogged. It will happen somehow, don’t worry.” And I stand at the window 01:58.057 --> 02:15.345 position:50% align:middle and look at the Hostomel airfield. I mean, Bucha, Hostomel – this is the whole landscape from my window. And I see helicopters flying, and I say: “Sasha, helicopters are flying.” – “Are they ours or someone else’s?” – “Who knows? 02:15.345 --> 02:34.213 position:50% align:middle I can’t see them from here.” And then I saw them shooting off heated freight cars, and I said: “Sasha, if they are shooting off heated freight cars, it means they are enemy”. I counted 36 of those helicopters. I saw them and started filming. 02:34.213 --> 02:51.171 position:50% align:middle Then there was a lack of understanding of what to do, because I didn’t have an action plan, to be honest... I didn’t even have anything prepared. I’m either a nonchalant person, or stupid, or naive, but I had nothing packed. 02:51.171 --> 03:04.901 position:50% align:middle Then on the same day I packed everything. I figured out how I could pack the cat, parrot and dog as compactly as possible so that everything could be taken out, and we waited for something. I don’t know what we were waiting for. 03:04.901 --> 03:29.749 position:50% align:middle But when we were evacuated from Irpin on the 5th of May, on an evacuation train, I got the information that they were not taking pets. That is, everyone who came with pets was left right at the station, on the platform. It was a shock for me. I said: 03:29.749 --> 03:49.655 position:50% align:middle “No, we are not going there, we are not with them.” By the way, we even had evacuation... We have several families in the house. I don’t remember which church they are from, I can’t say because I’m not interested in that, I’m an atheist. 03:49.655 --> 04:05.878 position:50% align:middle Their bus evacuated them from their church. And they offered everyone who lives in this house to leave. I said: “With pets?” – “No.” – “Then go with your God, who doesn’t need pets, by yourself”. As it turned out, I am stress-resistant. 04:05.878 --> 04:22.848 position:50% align:middle Everyone is running around. We even went down to the basement on the first day, the 24th. We have a brick house, quite strong, and the basement is not bad, so they started to arrange beds there, people took the canned food there. I went down there, 04:22.848 --> 04:36.889 position:50% align:middle stayed for two hours and decided: No, I can’t stay here. I stayed on the 9th floor until the last moment. Because something exploded, and I couldn’t see what it was. And I can’t do that, I have to be in the middle of the action and understand what’s going on. 04:36.889 --> 04:53.520 position:50% align:middle Planes are flying, and I jump out into the corridor, saying there are three walls between us and everything, but the parrot stays in the apartment. I was dragging it back and forth... It was very cold in the corridor. The house is not very inhabited, 04:53.520 --> 05:14.074 position:50% align:middle let’s just say that few people lived there, so the corridors are very cold. While I could wrap the cat and put clothes on the dog, it was difficult with the parrot, as temperature changes are critical for them. So I made an agreement with my neighbour 05:14.074 --> 05:28.942 position:50% align:middle from the 4th floor that she would keep the cage, because it was lower and safer, and she just moved out. She wasn’t going to move out, and then suddenly she called to say that she had moved out and gave the keys to the head of the Association 05:28.942 --> 05:41.639 position:50% align:middle of co-owners of an apartment building. It was in the evening. I told [the head]: “Serhii, I’ll pick up my parrot tomorrow morning, give me the keys, because now, at night, I don’t want to drag the cage up the stairs to the 9th floor”. He said: “Okay”. 05:41.639 --> 05:53.867 position:50% align:middle And then, at about half past five, he wrote in a chat room: “I’m in Stoianka”. – “Serozha, where are the keys?” – “I don’t know.” From then on, I had one task – to get the parrot, because I couldn’t leave without it. 05:53.867 --> 06:14.407 position:50% align:middle This parrot had been with me for 9 years at that time, and it was a family member. It turned out that a man who had not yet left, Serozha, lived above these people. And I turned to Serozha then. All of us, the residents of the house, gathered in one apartment, 06:14.407 --> 06:29.406 position:50% align:middle started cooking together, and we lived together for two days. It was quite fun, because when there are many people and everyone is trying... Only one woman panicked, all the others tried to hold on, somehow encouraging each other. 06:29.406 --> 06:48.346 position:50% align:middle It was a kind of pioneer camp. And I arranged in the evening that they would... I found a rope. I agreed that they would get me down from the 5th floor to the 4th floor and I would break the window. There was one lock closed and one key sticking out. 06:48.346 --> 07:05.632 position:50% align:middle So we would also lock the apartment, and I would take my parrot out. And in the morning, Serozha comes and says: “I thought, why would you be hanging around there like a ninja turtle? You should also tie a brick to you so that 07:05.632 --> 07:26.853 position:50% align:middle the wind doesn’t blow you away.” I weighed 46 kilograms at the time, I had lost a lot of weight, I was tiny. He said: “Someone may think you’re looting and shoot you. In short, I reject this idea, we will not let you down there. I found some screwdrivers, 07:26.853 --> 07:43.302 position:50% align:middle I have two with batteries, we’ll take the lock apart now.” We spent four hours tormenting that lock, but we did it. And the next day – it was March 8 – everyone was on board, so to speak, and we went to Kyiv. On the other hand, 07:43.302 --> 07:56.799 position:50% align:middle knowing all the moments now, you realise how important it is to make the right decisions in a timely manner. And somehow everything worked out for me. If I had gone on the 5th or 6th... There were large-scale shootings everywhere – on the road, 07:56.799 --> 08:16.327 position:50% align:middle and the shelling of the Romanivskyi Bridge. There were people killed there. We came out. And just as we rounded the corner of the house, a blizzard started, it was snowing, just like that! These were not snowflakes, but some kind of snowballs. Svitlana, 08:16.327 --> 08:29.811 position:50% align:middle who was walking with us, said: “That’s it, it’s a bad omen, I’m not going.” I said: “Svieta, we’ve decided to go, so let’s go.” We picked up Svieta and dragged her. We were walking, and I looked up – everything turned white in a second, snow-white. 08:29.811 --> 08:45.234 position:50% align:middle The smell of gunpowder and smoke disappeared, and we could breathe. And a certain feeling of lightness appeared. I thought: “It’s nature that doesn’t want me to see the wounds of the city. It wants me to remember it as it was.” I had some artistic 08:45.234 --> 09:01.573 position:50% align:middle and romantic thoughts about this. And when we were already working on the project, a doctor told us in the hospital... We just remembered March 8, and he said: “Yes, it was so snowy then! I even called all my friends and told them that the drones were blind, 09:01.573 --> 09:16.738 position:50% align:middle so come out.” And I thought to myself: “I’ve only just realised that the drones were blind then.” At the time, I thought it was all just for show, but it was really the most fortuitous moment. We passed without a single shot being fired at all, 09:16.738 --> 09:35.094 position:50% align:middle we just went to Ozerna, behind Novus. We walked along Ozerna a little bit, and a bus came up, and we were told: “Get in, you two”. We said: “No, we’re all together”. He rushed around, dropped people off and came to pick us up. And he did it very quickly, 09:35.094 --> 09:54.951 position:50% align:middle too. I would like to find that man. I hope he is alive. Or maybe I do know him, because we were all... I don’t even remember the colour of that car. Everything was so fast! And as if it was not happening to us. It felt like a film. 09:54.951 --> 10:13.014 position:50% align:middle There was no sense of reality. The city was empty, but there were still a few bloodstains near the train station, and I noticed them there and didn’t even tell anyone about it. I noticed and thought: “If you don’t see it, then go”, because they will start panicking, 10:13.014 --> 10:37.963 position:50% align:middle I know them. Several houses were smashed on the same Ozerna Street. I mean, mines had hit there as a result of shelling, but basically, the city was just deserted. When I arrived in Kyiv on the same day... In less than an hour we were in Kyiv, 10:37.963 --> 10:53.423 position:50% align:middle and it was such a feeling: bam! – there is Internet, there is connection, shops are open. There were spike strips, concrete structures, checkpoints everywhere. Every 50 metres you drive between them, and you stop. 10:53.423 --> 11:11.454 position:50% align:middle I had the feeling that no one would get through to Kyiv, because Kyiv had already fought hard, had built up its strength, and it would not give up. Because in reality, what was here... There was nothing here. 11:11.454 --> 11:31.586 position:50% align:middle I know this from close communication with people who stood at these checkpoints. The first thing that was brought to Karavan Hala were foam blocks. The first machine gun burst through them, and there were the first wounded. 11:31.586 --> 11:48.031 position:50% align:middle And the people were not only non-military, they had not even served in the army. They had a feeling that they would cover themselves and be hidden behind these foam blocks. And as for the reliability of this structure... 11:48.031 --> 12:09.764 position:50% align:middle The realisation came with the wound that they had to build, to carry something heavy there. So there must have been a lot of luck, some kind of luck... Or maybe the enemy was a little bit relaxed and came here with such bravado, 12:09.764 --> 12:29.588 position:50% align:middle thinking they would be let through, but it turned out like this. And all the guys say that the wings of an angel protected them repeatedly, because a mine falls nearby and does not explode in one trench. Or it does, and everyone is safe. 12:29.588 --> 12:50.365 position:50% align:middle So there were some strange things like that. Although there are many dead. I will tell you this: my beloved man was in the Territorial Defence Forces on the same “Karavan Hala”. And I had no contact with him at all since 4 March. 12:50.365 --> 13:17.825 position:50% align:middle I was reading the pages on Telegram about the fallen. There was a page called “Wanted”, where they simply posted photos of the bodies of the found victims and searched for their relatives. And I was flipping through these pages with horror, 13:17.825 --> 13:40.320 position:50% align:middle so as not to see my friends there. He was wounded, but still contacted me in early April, in the first days of April. And before that, I had this fear. I was afraid of this. In general, the most frightening moments are when you have no communication 13:40.320 --> 13:59.372 position:50% align:middle and you don’t understand what is happening. We got a radio, I think, on the 6th. The same Serhii who helped me get the parrot said: “I have a radio”. So we put batteries in it, and only then did we start to hear something, learn about something. 13:59.372 --> 14:10.775 position:50% align:middle For example, that there was an evacuation, there was this, and there was that. Before that, we were just like blind kittens. We could hear everything around us, but we didn’t know what was going on. Should we go out and ask someone? Who could you ask? 14:10.775 --> 14:22.539 position:50% align:middle People were running away. And in general, no one told anyone anything really. Everyone was afraid of everyone. There were times when some old man would go around saying: “I’m gathering a group, I’m going to lead people through the forest”. 14:22.539 --> 14:41.483 position:50% align:middle Or he would say: “We can even load into a bus”. And everyone thinks: “Isn’t this old man a Moskal? Who does he work for?” These are the first thoughts that come to mind: what for? Where is he going? Who is he? Why haven’t we seen him before? 14:41.483 --> 15:02.356 position:50% align:middle Everyone was alert, because the enemy is really very insidious, and our enemy turned out to be so insidious that you couldn’t tell them apart – neither in speech nor in appearance. That’s why it turned out that we saw more than was actually there. 15:02.356 --> 15:21.691 position:50% align:middle There was distrust. But I was sitting there in the early days... I was sitting there, watching people go by. I was filming everything until my batteries ran out. People were going armed towards “Hala”. I called the hotline. The guys didn’t answer, 15:21.691 --> 15:44.306 position:50% align:middle they wrapped their phones in foil and hid them. They were told that where there was a cluster of mobile phones, drones would fly to that cluster. So they tried to isolate the phones as much as possible. They switched them off, wrapped them up, 15:44.306 --> 15:58.131 position:50% align:middle and hid them. You couldn’t get through to anyone. But there was a hotline, and I called it: anyway, armed people are coming that way, I don’t know if they are ours or not. How can it be clear? But we tried to do something, at least something. 15:58.131 --> 16:14.878 position:50% align:middle We have a large percentage of people who are free inside, who... Someone says: “What does this freedom, this freedom of speech, give you?”, but I feel comfortable, I feel good when I know that I have it. 16:14.878 --> 16:44.851 position:50% align:middle They really want to destroy this gene of Ukrainian freedom. I believe that they do. Because those who are already broken, who are russified, are not so scary for them anymore. When I came back [home] on May 1... Before that, we had stopped by on April 16, I think. 16:44.851 --> 17:02.744 position:50% align:middle We were allowed into Irpin on and off. On that day, we got through, but then someone exploded on a mine, and Irpin was closed for more than two weeks, it was impossible to get here. We covered the windows with film, because our house, let’s just say, 17:02.744 --> 17:22.464 position:50% align:middle , ended up with broken windows and a pierced balcony. And this is the place where I... I have a big zoom on my lens, I didn’t film from a tripod. Everyone who films understands that there is a lot of movement there, and I was shooting in one corner. 17:22.464 --> 17:32.726 position:50% align:middle I have a balcony, and I was fixing myself so that I wouldn’t move the camera in any way to shoot all these videos. And that place is simply not there. 17:32.726 --> 17:48.350 position:50% align:middle And the moment I went up to my 9th floor, and instead of the place where I was fixing myself and filming everything, there was just a hole, I realised that I was lucky and that it could have been me.