My name is Kateryna Savienkova. I am a first-year at PLU. I am Ukrainian. And I have not been to my country or seen my family for 3 years.
I have witnessed the destruction of Ukraine through the news like many. The difference is that it is my country, my people, and many have stopped. I had too. Until I chose to look again.
One Saturday night, I was watching a movie with my friends. The choice fell, not accidentally, on 20 Days in Mariupol, a film about the war in Ukraine that won Best Documentary Feature 2024 Oscar Award. Brutal in its transparency, the movie must have made me feel something.
The range of emotions and thoughts I’ve experienced through the last two years is hard to narrow down. I remember clearly the day when it all started… again. It was February 23, 2022. I was in high school, studying away as an exchange student in Illinois. I remember going to bed in my host’s family house that night: seeing one news headline about explosions in Ukraine, thinking it was a scam, and turning my phone off. When I woke up the next morning my phone was exploding with messages from friends, family, and news channels:
Russia invades Ukraine.
The number of victims is uncertain.
Some cities don’t have mobile services.
Civilians are recommended to clear their basements and save bottles of water.
The scene was surreal, like something from a movie. For me, the world I had lived in for 16 years ended that day. Now, two years later, the world has forgotten about Ukraine and our struggle. But I don’t blame them. There are too many bad things happening to pay attention to only one.
I have experienced living through this war “indirectly.” I want you, the reader, to know about the constant fear that my parents won’t pick up their phone. About the guilt I feel knowing that I am safe while they are not– like walking through grass that cuts you just deep enough to irritate your skin. About the rage and pain that can’t be described. But even more, I want you to know about the feeling of emptiness that replaced the anger once I accepted the situation.
I am Ukrainian.
I am a Ukrainian who never had to go to the basement to hide from bombings or spend weeks without electricity. I am a Ukrainian who never had to be scared for my life. I am a Ukrainian whose entire family went through hell, while I was just… studying away. Yet, I was scared and unwell. Lost and hurt.
The hardest part of it all was people’s attention and genuine care. I lived in a small town while studying away, and without exaggeration, everyone knew me as “Kateryna from Ukraine.” They wanted to help. But neither 20 polite silences, nor 20 polite “We are praying for your family” did much for my broken heart.
With their help, I ran educational campaigns and fundraisers. I was proud of what we had done. I was also tired. No successes put me a step closer to being able to come back home safely.
So I watched 20 Days in Mariupol to remind myself where I come from. To remind myself of the feelings I pushed so far away that people around me think I don’t ache for Ukraine.
I do and I don’t. I used up so many tears. I had to let some of that anger go. What is not visible to people around is that giving up strong feelings of irritation also means just giving up– giving in to a still feeling of frustration.
Like many of us, I feel like there is a certain expectation from society on how a person in my position should act and feel. I am Ukrainian. Of course, I should run fundraising campaigns every other month, repost every news article on my Instagram, and donate to all my friends’ fundraisers for the military or refugees – maybe those expectations are not coming from society, but from within. The problem is that no one would reassure me of the latter.
That is something people don’t talk about as often. That it’s good that we let this baggage be in the past. It’s not that we don’t care. It’s just that it’s not an open wound anymore. And someone has to tell us that it’s okay. I have to tell myself, that victims of situations might stop being victims one day.
Editor’s note: Title taken from lyrics from “Obiymy” by Okean Elzy
