How does it feel to live in a country while a literal War is going on? I have been asking myself that question since the first day of the full-scale invasion in Ukraine. I was asking that question for the first time when back in 2014 my distant relatives from Donetsk came to stay with us for a month, a whole family with two little sons. Back in the day I simply couldn’t understand how is it possible that russians just can come into one’s house and simply occupy it and take whatever they want. I was 15 at the time and since then I truly believed and understood the full reality and horror of this situation only when I saw photograpic and video proof of what these people did – however hard it was to believe that human beings could be so cruel. You know, my mom always said that you should judge people by their actions. So I, to be honest, couldn’t answer myself what should I feel about this when I was younger.

Morning 24 of February 2022 my reflection was simple, it was anger. And hate. I was shaking with uncontrollable anger, feelings of injustice and grief for everyone whose life was destroyed. What else could you feel when you see something that unfair, horrible and cruel? Also, who am I to judge anyone? Well, such things made me simply understand that I don’t want to sit on the couch and hate or judge, I want to act. Since that morning when I woke up at home, my life completely changed. I woke up at home, in my hometown in Belarus. That was the second time in my life I felt so helpless and miserable. The first time was in 2020 when protests happened and I couldn’t go back home because the government simply closed all borders and I was in Poland where I moved in early 2017. It was some days, the roughest ones when I simply couldn’t understand if my family was safe or even alive because all cellular data was shut down. Only after two days, I received an SMS (a very old and expensive way to communicate because as you know Belarus is not in the EU) from my mom that they are alive and safe. I was shacking for those days 24/7 of that insanely painful feeling of helplessness and after that SMS I received I felt relief but at the same time it was so scary to understand that this is so real.

In movies it looks so far away from reality, actors never could make you feel this particular feeling of the possibility of losing your loved ones and feeling that you can literally do nothing with everything that is going on. I honestly felt relief when I woke up home in February of 2022. It was that feeling that everything was so bad that I was glad I was home at least, not in another country. But then it was even worse because no one simply understood what could happen. As you probably know Belarus is technically occupied territory by russia, they use our country diplomatically however they want to. My best friend immediately called me back on the 24th of February that she saw tanks in the city. We simply were lost, we didn’t know what would happen next. It was so scary that I honestly can’t even imagine how innocent Ukrainians felt and feel still nowadays every day under bomb attacks. So yes, I understood that we must decide on what to do if we should leave, and where if yes. But my mother simply, it all happened in our kitchen, calmly said that I must leave back home to Poland alone. She said that she can’t leave my grandma and aunt alone so she must stay but I must go because if things go really bad at least I will have time to prepare for them to come to Poland.

Try to imagine now situation when it’s the 24 of February, the first day of war and you don’t know anything about what will happen even tomorrow. And you understand that if you leave now you might never see your family again. Back in that day, I said no, that I would not leave them alone again. I felt powerful, I felt like if I stayed I would I don’t know, save everyone. But I didn’t know how. Then understanding after one hour slowly came to my mind and in like 15 minutes I packed all the stuff I had and my mom dropped me at the bus station, I got very lucky to catch the bus. As soon as I crossed the border and went out of the bus in the first Polish city Białystok, I simply sat down on a bench at the bus station and started hysterically crying of understanding that I just left my family on my free will. It was one of the scariest moments for me, my life was completely ruined, and all thoughts about the future vanished in one day. That was the last time I’ve been home. I don’t know if I will ever be able to get back because the Belarusian government chases people who are even reposting anything or donating to Ukraine.

My second impression of war were children who slept on the cold floor of Warsaw railway station, I remember it was 4 am and I entered the station to catch a train to Cracow, a city where I lived for the last 7 years. It was nearly painful to watch so many lost, scared and tired people, no one knew what to do and where to go. In that moment it seemed to me that I did. I knew since I sat on a bus in Grodno, my hometown, that I would do anything I could and a little bit more to help as many people as I could. I didn’t know what and how. It was 8 am, 25 of February, I came out from a train, went home to take a shower and took a taxi to meet my friend who already organized a volunteering center to deliver humanitarian aid to people. Since that day I did that every day, and it became my daily routine for the next couple of months. I will not describe how hard it was mentally and physically because every day I saw people who were more tired than me, who lost their families, loved ones, properties, and their whole life. I felt like I must stay strong and positive for all the people around me.

You know what was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced in my life so far? How all the people I know got together and started to help anyone they could. Back in the day, I didn’t know many people from the Ukranian/Belarusian community but I’ve met so many people in the first weeks. After a month we were like family, if u have a call in the middle of the night that there is a family of refugees and they ask your help because they got your number from somebody you just call another person and in 15 minutes you already have transport from the border and accommodation for them. My friends made a refugee camp in a bar they couldn’t finish the renovation when the war started. So for around 6 months, it was a refugee camp, basically a flat for women with kids. It still feels weird to come there for a beer or a concert and remember how it was beds and mattresses all around. But life seems to be going on, everywhere

Since the very beginning I was wondering what life in Ukraine looked like, apart from the bombs and the catastrophe, how do people still live there? What are they doing, what’s their daily routine, how are they going to work or how do they create art or simply partying?

I wanted to go as a volunteer in Ukraine since the very beginning but then I knew that with a Belarusian passport no one would let me to enter the country even as a volunteer. So I was just doing my best in Poland hoping to get a chance at least once to visit Ukraine. And with UKRAїNATV I finally was able to go to Kyiv in September 2023.

I knew that it was not going to be an easy journey and honestly, we thought that we got well prepared with an official invitation from the Kyiv and Cracow administrations. But it was still not enough as it turned out. Soldiers on the border took me off from train and I needed to wait 5 hours and pass an interview with Ukrainian special forces to get access for entering Ukraine. Honestly, it was terrifying but so interesting at the same time! I felt like a criminal just because of my nationality but at the same time I learned and spoke the Ukrainian language so people were more or less polite to me after they heard me speaking it.

I spoke to Pan Bogdan, a soldier who accompanied me from the train in Lviv to a special room in the train station building while I was waiting for acceptance. Such an adorable man he turned out to be. He made me some tea and we spoke about some stuff, he asked me what we are doing in our UKRAїNATV project and thanked me for all the help I provided to refugees for almost two years. Obviously, as well he was blaming Belarusian people for bombing Ukraine and compared me to ruzzians. It was painful to hear that because never any Belarusian person pushed the button for a bomb to fly on Ukrainian territory, but who am I to prove him that…We shared some of my rice waffles and he told me a story that before the war he had with his wife a company of sewing men’s suits and when the war started he couldn’t sell it anymore because well, the answer is probably obvious. I wished him well when he came to the room after some hours and said to me that I could go and catch a train to Kyiv. It was very nice to meet him after one week in Ukraine on our way back and to tell him how cool my journey was. He was smiling when he saw me again and the first thing he asked me was “How was it? Did you like Kyiv?”. My answer was absolutely yes! I showed him pictures and said that I’ve got a possibility even to film an interview with the major of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko. He laughed at it, for him it wasn’t anything special for sure, but for me it was.

Anyway, my journey to Kyiv was surprisingly pleasant! Since Ukraine is not in the EU I needed to get a sim card but to my surprise two guys who were selling different sim cards, from two different providers I mean, helped me to get a sim card very easily. Later I of course ate some proper Ukrainian borsch in some stolovaya(cafeteria) to celebrate my acceptance to enter this beautiful country. After two years in Europe, I swear it was so good to feel kinda at home, everywhere I hear language I know and everything looks way more familiar. The train to Kyiv was fast and so good! Super new, I haven’t seen such trains in Poland even! Insanely comfortable journey. I even ate in a restaurant and I tell you that noodles were just perfect! I was impressed because honestly all these stereotypes and propaganda that Ukraine is an old post soviet country are such a legend! Some countries in Europe look way more outdated.

The strongest impression and shock after coming to Ukraine was when I got out of train Kyiv Pasazyrskiy (main train) station. Oh boy! How many people it was there! Absolutely insane amount, same I think I only saw once in a main train station in Brussels. I had no words also when I was walking out of the station and I realized how big it is! A giant building made in Ukrainian Baroque style with constructivist elements. I was strongly impressed by how all the buildings look in Kyiv, they seem two or three times bigger than architecture in Europe.

I traveled most of Europe by now and I don’t remember what amazed me more than Kyiv, how unusual and beautiful this city is. As soon as I arrived I took a cab to go to Maidan Square to meet my colleagues. When we went out for dinner and then to a bar, I was walking around like a sick person because I couldn’t believe that every third person passing us on the street was a foreigner. Later we even met one guy who was French but he moved to Kyiv from Africa because he was missing Kyiv a lot after he finished his Erasmus here.

For a week straight we were working and meeting an insane amount of creative and enthusiastic people. We had an opportunity to make a “Vexations” project together with Cinema Kyiv in Krakow and Cultural Cluster Krakow in Kyiv! It was 35 hours of streaming between these two spots and in Krakow 35 piano players were playing Eric Satie’s melody Vexations 840 times. Gleb, who was in our studio in Krakow in collaborative work with Roman who was with me in Kyiv was mixing two realities together on the screen at the same time but from different spots in the world. That was an absolutely unforgettable experience to watch our stream on the big screen in Kyiv.

From left to right Mykola Noha, artist, writer, volunteer and major of Shostka city; Svitlana Evdokimenko, director of cultural claster Krakiv in Kyiv; Me 🙂 ; Roman Dziadkiewicz aka founder of UKRAiNATV and professor at Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow; Serhii Anzhyiak, director of cultural department in Kyiv.

We were working a lot that week so I couldn’t enjoy the city properly but I understood the main thing- I want to come back here. We did a really important project with UKRAiNATV at that time and even some television came to film an interview with us, polish journalists. Everyone who Ive met on that journey was absolutely lovely, I was truly surprised by the hospitality of Ukrainians and their desire to live a happy life. I remember one day I was driving back to my apartment with a director of cultural Claster Krakiv in which we were making our project, pani Svietlana and I asked her main question for me, “How could you still just live a life here when it is war ongoing in the country?” Her answer was simple but it showed me the whole power of the Ukrainian nation itself. She answered “Well we simply don’t have any choice, do we? It’s our country, our home, we love it. We must live our happy life here because otherwise we will lose this war and show russians that they succeed in their purpose of destroying our nation.” And she was absolutely right about it.

After six months I went to Ukraine again, in April 2024. We had another project in Lviv upcoming but I decided to visit Kyiv again for networking because since my first visit, I still had a lot of plans and people to meet.

I had some free time so I explored the city, met new people, and even helped some cool creative ones to realize that they are ready and want to establish a project similar to the UKRAiNATV we made. I was absolutely happy to realize that Ukraine is full of creative potential and people are insanely talented here. I also met Borys who is a co-creator of Pererva studio and Ceramic Beats studio in Kyiv. PERERVA is a grassroots initiative founded within an audiovisual studio located in the Podil district of Kyiv. They function as an open art space dedicated to the exploration and development of interdisciplinary artistic practices and cultural education. Their program is based on a comprehensive approach, designed so that the audience can interact with art through various registers of cultural events. Within their walls and beyond, they organize exhibitions, lectures, workshops, film screenings, performances, concerts, and audiovisual shows. Project team: Oleksandr Yeltsin, Dobrynia Ivanov, Oleksandr Huziy, Vlad Kononok, Borys Echenko and Liya Tripilska.

Borys was telling me a story about how when the full-scale invasion happened he went to the army and when he was sitting in the woods between shelling he was dreaming of making music again which he did and when he came back from war he had even more inspiration to create and establish new projects. It was during our chat on the first stream we made together in Ceramic Beats Studios. Also, I’ve met Vlad who is doing technical stuff mostly but also he is very passionate about creating new tools for experimental audiovisual opportunities. Alyona Ivanova who is a part of our UKRAiNATV team also helped me to have a very intense network there because she is a researcher and kind of old member of the Ukrainian creative community. Together they established ReFrame TV which so far already is going very successfully. On Drone Day they made 47 hours of hybrid drone event with interviews, drone music, and other stuff connected anyhow to drones.

The next thing they banged by showing what Ukrainians are capable of was their audiovisual performance “Forced Anatomy” which they performed at Sonar Festival where we as UKRAiNATV had an exhibitor slot. A touching mix of traditional Ukrainian music instruments together with experimental electronic noise gave us a full spectrum of emotions together with an urbanist landscape. That’s what they say about their performance: “We romanticize our experience with frequent power outages due to the war. We envision it as a post-apocalyptic anarcho-syndicalist utopia—a world without states, corporations, authorities, or any forms of coercion. A place where, on the ruins of the old world, we create our own: where we find balance in our relationships with nature, consciously consuming as much as we need, not as much as the market offers.

During long blackouts, we often find ourselves in situations where one person has certain storage devices, another has different ones, and when you meet, you realize that by using them together, you can work for several hours. Someone has a generator where devices can be recharged, and then you go to another place to help someone else charge their devices. You sit and think about how to assemble a system from solar panels and a powerful charging station. You exchange experiences and life hacks on how to consume more efficiently and less, and how to optimize your daily and work processes. This chain of thoughts and horizontal interactions continues.

The work was filmed in the territory of a factory where our studio is located. This post-industrial location has been abandoned for many years, gradually destroyed by time, and, in some places, by the efforts of developers planning to redevelop it eventually. During the day, as long as the sun is shining, we make the most of its light. Outdoors, we use string instruments, where the strings evoke associations with highways and networks. In the dark, relying on autonomous power sources, we use various custom sound devices: piezo elements, and induction motors. The name and idea stem from the fact that we didn’t make a choice; the situation and circumstances push us toward ideas of decentralization and autonomy. We continue to dream and act in the moment, here and now, using available resources, amid absolute uncertainty about tomorrow and the future.”

Because of war, many people are stuck in a country but even if war wasn’t happening, most of them won’t leave the country, they simply love it here. I will never forget that particular feeling Ive had when I heard a bomb alarm going on for the first time, or when Ive been partying on a huge techno rave and realized that actually any minute bomb can fell here and we all will die, or when Ive heard from a friend with who I went on a party that “well if a bomb will fell now what is possible it’s gonna be hilarious but also gonna suck.” He was smiling when he said that. I asked him, “How do actually live with that feelings here all this time? “He simply said that they were used to it. And that he realizes and accepts the thought that if it’s meant for him to die now at least he will die while he is having a good time with his friends in his motherland. Another friend said that they all are getting mentally ready to go to the military because that is simply their duty and they know that they might actually die. Those words made me enjoy every second I spent there with them, honestly. Seeing this acceptance of possible death in people is something very special, but it’s also a scary and very sad experience.

I wish I could just click with my fingers and stop all these terrible things, but I can’t. I know that all I can do is strongly support Ukraine and its brave and amazing people who deserve to be seen and heard. Of course, war affects everyone, no matter their age or city. In Lviv, at the afterparty after the event we as UKRAiNATV did together with the Radical Sound community in Dim Zvuku, everyone came to our house and after some time people just started to share insane stories about a war they have, everyone had to say something. It was a routine for them to share and discuss and reflect on normal stuff for them now and such a strong memory for me, to understand, again, how painful and cruel war is. They all try their hardest to keep going, to create new stuff, and simply live their life but there are some days when they are broken, lonely, and feeling miserable because war took them their best years of youth and probably even something more. If you ask literally anyone in Ukraine I assure you that this person will tell you some insane story of how because of russia something went wrong in their life.

Trips to Ukraine made me realize even better the deep purpose of our UKRAiNATV project which is giving an opportunity to people who seek for it and it’s the possibility of hybrid coexistence and co-creation between geopolitical borders. Our project shows people from all over the world the true power of the Ukrainian nationality and how actually amazing, powerful, and creative these people can be. The Ukrainian nation have something russians will never have- the feeling of unity and a common goal to protect and raise a beautiful, independent, and strong country. I hope I will have more chances to show the world how great and powerful Ukrainians are. Slava Ukraini!