Where is my home
I was born in 1988 in Crimea, the region of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, and in 1991 the independence of Ukraine was proclaimed. My parents had three children at that time, they lost their jobs, and found themselves in a complete misunderstanding of how to live on. So, at the age of three, I found myself trapped in time and witnessed the ending era when the old things died, and the new has not born yet.
In 2014, Russian Federation annexed Crimea. These are very difficult feelings as if an abusive maniac in dirty shoes suddenly enters your house and says he lives here from now. And neither you personally, nor Ukraine and the rest of the world can do nothing about it. You only have two options, to leave or to stay. To leave - your home, family, friends, your roots, and everything that you love so much. To stay - save the house and family, but betray yourself.
In 2022, a full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine began. I got awakened on my grandmother's call at 5 am:
- Tanya, your sister Sveta called me from Washington and told me that the war has begun. Kyiv is being bombed. Tell Sveta it's not true, I watched TV and there was nothing about it…
Grandmother said something else, indistinctly. That Putin will save us all. I put the phone away, then hung up.
War.
My grandmother's sisters survived the WWII and the Holodomor in Ukraine. How would they look at their younger sister Nila, who who has been fooled by propoganda, and who shouts: Ukraine should be destroyed!
Her sisters and herself are Ukrainians. She was born at 1941. A war child who now justifies the war herself.
We don't know the whole truth, they say.
We don't know the whole truth
Everything is not that simple, I'm very sorry, war is awful, but…
Russian propaganda has invented the eternal engine.
I'm hurt. I'm angry. I'm confused.
My family was stolen by TV propaganda in 2014.
My home was stolen by russian soldiers in 2014.
My freedom was stolen by the dictator's regime in 2014.
This is my anger.
I listen to Ukrainian refugee children, eleven-year-old Sasha and nine-year-old Kira, talk on where to hide from shelling, on gypsies who stole a tank in the neighborhood, and the most important things they can never tell their parents but always tell their dog.
No battlefield for soldiers. The battlefield is all of us - the children, the dogs, the adults, the refugees.
I can never explain this to my family.
I left home with one bag, my family stays in Crimea, a land occupied by Russian Federation, and I never know if I ever get back, if ever see my family, and if I ever talk to them about our future.
I want to go home, but I don't have a home.
