4 hours ago
2
Before Russia invaded in 2022, a red dog collar arrived in the post. I’d bought it for my rough collie, Pippa, but it was too large. So I drove to Bucha, a 20-minute drive from my village of Klavdievo-Tarasovo, to get it resized by a leatherworker there. He was very kind and said he could fix it and to come back later that week.
The next day, the war started. I managed to escape the bombs and food shortages of the early weeks of the war, I left Ukraine and came to England to be with my then 27-year-old daughter, Sasha. Arriving in March 2022, it took me about a month to come to my senses – I didn’t realise how deeply in shock I was.
I needed something to keep me busy, to stop my mind from running away with me about things back home, so I began dog sitting. It was like therapy – the dogs were adorable – but it also made me yearn for Ukraine. I realised how much I missed my own dogs, Pippa and Varya, a black labrador, who stayed behind with a friend.
In May 2022 I decided to take a short trip back to Ukraine. Sasha was worried but I needed to collect some things and work out taking the dogs to the UK. I’d seen pictures of the destruction in Ukraine, so I thought I was prepared. But driving through the country, seeing it with my own eyes – buildings with no windows, the debris and rubble of destroyed houses, a collapsed bridge I drove over near Borodianka – was a huge shock.
But when I got home to Klavdievo, I immediately realised I’d never loved it so much. It was spring and the flowers were blooming. Before the war it was a large village, about 5,000 people, and when I got back so many had fled – but those that stayed through the occupation became very close, and rallied together.
When I arrived, about 100 people gave me a hug. There was so much warmth. As if the world had ended but we had survived. When I saw my dogs, I cried, they cried, then they were smiling from ear to ear.
I called Sasha and told her I’m staying here. “But you promised me!” she said. “It’s so dangerous, and you just escaped! I don’t want to be an orphan.” I said to her: “Don’t worry, I’ll visit the UK, but being here feels like I’m in the right place.”
Klavdievo is right in the middle of three sites that have seen horrific action in the war – Bucha, Borodianka and Irpin. Bucha was the site of atrocities [paywall]. Borodianka was devastated. The houses in Irpin were almost all damaged. Seeing it, I thought: what did these people go through? My blood was frozen. It was like a nightmare.
I wondered what had happened to the man in Bucha who ran the small leatherwork business. He was so kind. I decided to go there and check if he was alive. I drove there, and he was! We hugged. “I thought about you,” I said, and he said he’d thought about me, too. Then he fetched the collar. “I fixed it,” he said.
He told me stories about the occupation, which lasted more than a month. The Russian paratroopers in Bucha were very cruel.
The thing that struck me was that the man was 100% calm when describing to me. He said: “I was so scared when it happened that I stopped being scared of anything.”
I have a similar feeling, in how the war has changed my relationship to dying. When you get close to meeting death, and then it doesn’t happen, you think: OK. It’s not that you feel immortal, but you lose your vigilance around death. Some people go the other way and have constant panic attacks. But for me and lots of people, danger just becomes normal. You get used to it. It’s a bit insane.
Russian drones still fly over our village almost every night. But now I can sleep peacefully – I close the windows, cover my ears with a pillow. It just feels annoying, like the sound of a noisy lawnmower. But in January there was a close call when a drone exploded six houses away. Luckily, everyone survived, and I was away visiting Sasha, but I saw the news on Facebook.
As the invasion dragged on, people started to smile less and cry more. After the initial surge of defiance and togetherness, we realised this is our reality.
The political questions today are difficult. On one hand, I’d love nothing more than for the war to stop right this second. But freezing it now would be so unfair, would favour the Russian side so much. I can understand the young men who don’t want to go and die. We all want an end to war. But we also want justice.
On a personal level, I feel stronger. If you go through a trial like this, it makes you realise what’s important – enjoying life, spending time with friends, loving your close ones. And now I work for a Finnish reconstruction company, helping with private-sector rebuilding in Ukraine, which gives me hope that the future will be better.
When the invasion began, I stopped looking in the mirror – and I felt like every day of the war had aged me another year. But now, the first shock has passed and life goes on. I have a good relationship with the mirror again.
