We’ve held out so many days, and you’re trying to scare us with tanks?

КА: I want to start from afar. In your story, I was struck by the fact that you lived in Russia? As I understood, you were born in Russia?

АМ: I was born in Moscow.

КА: Is your mother Ukrainian and your father Russian, or vice versa?

АМ: My mother is from Mykolaiv, and my father is a Muscovite.

КА: So you spent most of your life in Russia. How was it for you there? Why did you decide to move to Mykolaiv?

АМ: I lived in Moscow for 18 years. When I finished school, my mother asked me to move with her to Mykolaiv for a while, to her hometown. The thing is, my mother never particularly loved big cities. I think you understand that this is... this is a certain rhythm, pace. And I actually loved it. And I agreed, I finished school and said: "Yes, no problem. Let's go to Ukraine for a couple of years." Additionally, we came to Mykolaiv every summer to visit my grandmother. Somehow it turned out that I stayed here, I fell in love, then I accidentally got my own business and I decided to stay here. I missed Moscow very much for many years, but at some point I realized that I wasn't missing Moscow, but missing my childhood, emotions, people. The move wasn't connected to any political views or financial situations. My mother just isn't a big city dweller.

КА: How did you adapt in Mykolaiv and to a different country?

АМ: Let's even touch on such a factor as language. I was never oppressed here because of the language factor. Perhaps there were some funny situations when I could go to a perukarnіa [editor's note: Ukrainian word for hairdresser/barber shop] for bread, because in Ukrainian perukarnіa is a hairdresser's, but in my head perukarnіa is probably a bakery in Ukrainian. There were such funny little things, but they never hit me for speaking Russian. Moreover, most people here speak it. Adaptation? Well, I was a teenager, what is 18 years. It was quite strange, because if you compare Mykolaiv with Moscow, it's like moving from New York to a village. At first it was hard, but still, I managed to finish Ostankino [editor's note: Moscow media institute], it turned out that I worked almost all day. I worked remotely with Moscow, and with Kyiv, with Paris. I worked all day and didn't really get into any city life. Over the years I made many close friends and everything else. I'll honestly say that I missed Moscow. I missed it strongly until I realized that I wasn't missing Moscow. It's like old people who say it was better before - they just miss being young. That's what I was missing. Before the war, some of my friends from Moscow, who were still around, constantly told me: "Will you return? Will you come home?" But no, even before the war I clearly understood that my home is here.

КА: Do you remember at what moment you realized that Mykolaiv is home?

АМ: No, I don't remember. You just live in a country that's new for you and at some point you understand that you've already integrated, you're part of everything happening. I refused Russian citizenship, and I refused it very long ago. But the understanding that I'm part of this country came, probably, 5 years ago. When I got my carpentry workshop, when the shelter appeared, friends, when I integrated into a new life, I realized that everything is very good for me here. I don't particularly believe that a person's happiness depends on location. Here I felt happy as an adult. That was enough.

КА: When did you refuse citizenship? And how? Did you have dual citizenship?

АМ: Dual citizenship is prohibited, but for some time this issue could be resolved financially. We wanted to keep dual citizenship, but they told us: "No, that's not allowed." And we didn't want to give bribes. We somehow understood that it was very unlikely that we would return to Moscow. We calmly refused, despite the fact that formally I didn't write any papers that I renounce Russia. Nothing like that. You just send the original Russian passport to the embassy and from there they send it to Moscow. So, there are no interesting moments here. I can't say that at that moment I was super conscious, rather I live in this country, so I should have documents of this country. There was a fuck-up with the language, because Mykolaiv is still a Russian-speaking city. There was never a need to really learn the language. And now, for example, I'm slowly learning it. It's difficult because I'm not a native speaker.

КА: How did you realize that you need to learn Ukrainian?

АМ: It came to me primarily because of work. Since I sell my goods through Instagram, I started noticing that clients with whom we previously communicated in Russian write to me in Ukrainian. I understand them, but if I can still somehow say something in Ukrainian with great difficulty, then writing is very hard. I started gradually learning the language. I'm not doing well, to put it mildly, but I started watching series with Ukrainian translation. Because now, for example, I get hit for speaking Russian, but before I didn't.

КА: So, after the start of the full-scale invasion someone began...

АМ: Not someone, but massively. If they write to my shelter page in private messages: "I would gladly help you, but if you don't behave like a whore and don't communicate in the language of the damn occupiers." And then they say: "Therefore I'll help some shelter in western Ukraine." The same thing they write to my work account: "If you spoke another language, we would support you." As a rule, this is written by people for whom a rocket is something figurative, in a picture. That is, people who are very far from the combat zone. I'm not proud of this, but I send such people away, because I don't think that now is the time to breed additional hatred. Everything here is already soaked in hatred, pain. Where the fuck is more needed? My boyfriend is a fixer. He told me a story: somewhere in the west a guy with a bandaged leg enters a cafe, and says: "Please give me a cappuccino and a cake." And the bartender responds: "Vybachte, bud' laska, ale my rosiis'komovnykh..." [editor's note: "Excuse me, please, but we don't serve Russian speakers..."]. And the thing is, this guy who entered with a bandaged leg, he got out from the frontline for the first time in 4 months. You understand? This is just total surrealism.

КА: Considering that most of eastern Ukraine is Russian-speaking. And they suffer the most.

АМ: Yes, yes. We discuss this topic very often here: "Well, how is this? Why us?" There is Kinburn Spit, it's such a peninsula, it's located opposite Ochakiv. It's occupied. I have a piece of land there, I once dreamed of building a dacha there and living by the sea among forests, not bothering anyone. Now everything there is occupied. The locals, since I know them, tell that: "You spoke Russian, you wanted the Russian world, and you were oppressed." Here in the east, south of Ukraine - nobody oppressed anybody at all. That is, if 5% of such situations happened out of 100% - that's nothing.

КА: Well yes. It seems to me that this is the story about most of the east and south. I generally never felt any oppression in Kyiv either. I understand the language, but I don't speak well yet.

АМ: When I speak Ukrainian, I look like someone with cerebral palsy. Sorry, but that's a fact. I would prefer, if I'm going to speak, to speak beautifully, correctly, with proper speech. It turns out, either I'll sound like an idiot, or create a desire to curse me. Well, that's not particularly pleasant.

КА: How do you react to this now? This must be very hurtful.

АМ: At the beginning I tried to explain to these people that it's very hard to learn a new language while being under constant shelling, being in constant stress. They don't understand, they don't want to understand, don't want to hear. Apparently, it's assumed that I'll open a dictionary, sit down, count explosions with my ear, and learn new words with my brain. It doesn't work that way. Most people around me are adequate. Everyone knows that I'm gradually learning the language, slowly, as it works out, but still. They relate to this calmly. But these, who are linguistic armchair critics, for whom war is an abstraction, I either block them or tell them to go to hell. Moreover, I write these three letters in Ukrainian so they understand better.

КА: You also said that you have this plot of land in temporarily occupied territory. Is this close to you or not?

АМ: It turns out, first Mykolaiv, then Kherson and from Kherson such a little offshoot goes into the sea. Everything there is occupied. What my friends from there tell me is that they have to feed the occupiers. There's very little news from there. Very little. That is, about Kinburn they said once in the news that fires were burning due to shelling. Then someone from Kinburn wrote to me that they brought some new installations, that apparently they'll be covering new districts of Mykolaiv. Of course, it's very sad, it's a nature reserve. There are dolphins, birds, wild boars and all this will be destroyed. I don't really think about whether I'll get my land back or not. It's such a thing, because even if I get it back, there's no point going there in the coming years until everything is demined. They were still coming there last summer, miners were looking for shells from World War II times. And what can we say about what's happening now.

КА: And how did you learn that your land was occupied?

АМ: They just called me and said: "Remember, you wanted to build a little house there?" I say: "I remember. I still have such a dream." They tell me: "Your dream is unlikely to come true, because there are orcs there." That's it. Here, probably, such a moment that with the course of the war, when you see what's happening, you hear some stories. Losing a house, losing business, losing relatives, losing land - the further it goes, the more you're probably more or less ready for this. It's impossible to be ready for such things, but you understand that it can happen. If all that's intended for me is just losing a piece of land on Kinburn Spit, then okay, I agree to that. Take it for yourselves, please, build yourselves a dacha, relax. Just leave us alone.

КА: This proximity to occupied territory and constant rumors, how do they affect your condition?

АМ: Rumors that there's a counteroffensive in the south and all the military hassle is moving to our areas are very depressing. You already live in uncertainty. This is your voluntary choice, to live in this uncertainty, but it's one thing when you understand that now it will get dark, the city will be shelled, another thing when you understand that they're coming for the city. Shelling, especially when they shoot at civilian objects, is such intimidation, but when they tell you that they want to take the city, they're trying to advance on the city, this is a completely different story. A lot of people left additionally when such information started appearing. Those who remained are preparing very seriously for winter, considering that they cut off our water from Kherson. I personally think that this was such an act of suppression. But it turned out that depriving an entire city of water, we don't fucking break through, but continue to fight. Very scary about electricity, about gas, because it's winter.

КА: And how are you preparing for winter?

АМ: Someone is buying generators, someone fuel, someone batteries. Potbelly stoves are already quite hard to buy. People are looking for firewood, blankets, warm socks, warm clothes. You can't count on the war going by some, conditionally, military rules. According to the rules, they don't touch civilians, don't touch civilian objects, but nothing prevents them from blowing up any strategically important object with the words: "But someone was there," even if no one was there. So people prepare, whoever can. I'll say this: those who have financial opportunities, they prepare.

КА: And how are you preparing?

АМ: The same way. Blankets, socks, some food supplies, some feed supplies for the shelter. Here you also need to understand a very slippery moment of preparing for winter. If the fighting gets closer to the city, staying here will be much more dangerous for life than now. Therefore, you can't make a really big supply, because there's a possibility that you'll have to throw everything and run. So some supply is made for a month or two with hope for the best.

КА: In case the fighting approaches Mykolaiv closely, will you leave the city with your mother and animals?

АМ: I'll stay in the city until the very end. I think that people like me should stay in the city. But I would like to take the shelter with my mother to a safer place before winter. I'm staying in the city myself. I have a lot of work here, I'm quite a useful person. I would like to take my mother with the shelter away from here. Actually, now we're dealing with me looking for some cheap little house somewhere beyond Odesa, somewhere in those areas, to take my mother, 70 animals and two dogs. I alone, as a unit, will somehow find warmth for myself, I'll manage. When you're responsible for your mother, she's elderly, and 72 animals, then not everything is so simple. It would be easier for me if I knew that they have heat, gas, water, and I'll somehow manage here.

КА: I remember that you talked about the shelter last time. I would like to return to it in more detail. How long has it existed?

АМ: The shelter has existed for about 7 years. Everything was more or less good. Half of it is maintained at my expense, half from donations. When the war came, our most acute problem is medicine. We have a lot of special animals, it's hard to find insulin for diabetics. A huge number of medicines that are used in veterinary medicine are of Russian production. They're no longer in the country. We had medical bases of medicines that were brought to our shelter, they were located in Kherson. A lot of feed was brought from Kherson. That is, it's hard with medicines, better with feed.

КА: How do you and your mother take care of the animals by yourselves on a permanent basis? How do you care for them under shelling?

АМ: Here you need to understand that in principle working in stress and uncertainty is much more difficult than in normal times. Working with animals in a shelter is very hard by itself. My mother spends all day dealing with the shelter: feed everyone, clean up after everyone, walk the dogs, give shots to the sick ones, give insulin shots to diabetics, treat the eye sockets of those who have no eyes. This is difficult. I help, I take the most difficult animals to myself to make it easier for her, because it's easier for me to work with paralyzed ones, with wounded ones. My mother is better oriented with diseases, I'm better oriented in working with injuries. We work together, but somehow over the years we got used to this. You just get used to it, it doesn't become something super difficult. It's difficult, but you get used to it, because this is your everyday life.

КА: How did all this get complicated during the full-scale war?

АМ: At first it was hard to buy feed, then hard to find medicines, then they cut off the water. We order water, because from the tap flows... I'll say it correctly, from the tap sometimes flows tea. We don't give such water to animals. We order water, all animals drink normal water. It became more difficult in such moments. Plus, it became more difficult because the number of animals increased. Many animals were given to us by those who fled from the war. We also gave away all our carriers to those who fled from the war, but with their own animals. Probably, it just became morally more difficult, because you don't understand if you'll be alive tomorrow. You live your usual life today in the moment - my mother takes care of the animals, I work. This fragile system holds like this. My mother writes to me quite often: "Rockets are flying over the house." The whistle of a rocket is very characteristic, you can't confuse it with anything, "we're lying on the floor with the cats." At the beginning of the war my mother writes to me: "Tanks are driving behind the gates." I don't think those were tanks, I think it was just some military equipment. The thing is that we're territorially located on transport interchanges, so military equipment really often drives past us. She writes to me: "Behind the gates, it seems, tanks are driving. Everything is shaking, the scared cats ran upstairs." Naturally, this is all accompanied by some explosions. And my mother just lies on the floor and some cats who don't have hind legs, or are missing limbs, or who are deaf. They stick to her, and this is how they wait out the most terrible moments.

КА: This is horror.

АМ: Yes. This is horror, but you get used to this. I told last time that my super conscious decision, however terrible this may sound, is that my mother and I live in different places. If one of us dies, then the second one deals with family matters.

КА: As I understood from our previous conversation, you live in the premises where you have your carpentry workshop.

АМ: Yes.

КА: You took some part of the animals to yourself? Buklia is with you?

АМ: We have it like this: my mother has around 55 animals, the rest are with me. I can't technically take more from her. I always tried to take the most difficult ones to care for, to unload her, to somehow divide the work, well not equally, but at least somehow. The workshop and shelter are very close to each other, 15 minutes on foot. And this is a district that... well, let's put it mildly, it's always loud there.

КА: You need to care for special animals under shelling, which is always scary, plus, life under shelling for more than 5 months already. How is it lived now?

АМ: There's such an opinion that you get used to this. It seems to me, I said last time, that for me it's very important not to make war a figure, but to make it a background, so as not to live in this constant trembling for your life, in this constant fear. There's such an appeal going around Instagram: "You've all gotten used to war, but you can't get used to this." I think that those who are outside the combat zone can't get used to this. But those who are in frontline cities, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, here people need to get used to it, otherwise you'll go crazy. You don't get used to explosions, your reaction becomes dulled. You already understand what's flying. For example, "Peony" and S-300 differ very much by explosions. You already understand how far this is from you. According to this you somehow act. The reaction becomes dulled in the sense that, let's say, the first three months I prayed every day and asked God to extend my life if I'm worthy of it. Then I realized that I don't differ from other people, everyone is equally worthy, this is generally some kind of roulette and I stopped [praying]. Then somehow this fear of mine weakened greatly. I really don't think that you can run from fate. I can move to Kyiv and a car will hit me there. You can't run from death. And here you get used to this. The only thing is that you adjust your day according to explosions. For example, I'm very afraid to go to supermarkets or shopping centers, because occupiers can be very inadequate, they can blow up anything. At the beginning of the war [there was] a very unpleasant thing, these cluster rockets, clusters cut very badly. If you're on the street, you have a very small probability of survival. I repeatedly saw photographs when at the beginning of the war people weren't let inside supermarkets yet, and the line stood outside. Shelling begins and this line turns into a smoothie of people. I told my mother: "Please, you don't stand in lines at supermarkets. You give me a list, I buy all this quickly and bring it to you. No need for these senseless risks." I try to do everything very quickly so as not to risk. I understand that you can die anywhere, but I don't want to be reckless either.

КА: Did the war introduce these adjustments into your life?

АМ: Yes. I recently went out to the balcony at night to smoke, saw first a signal rocket, then something like a drone, then the sky lit up with flashes and everything started exploding. I managed to fly back into the workshop, fall on the floor, because that's it, if explosions have started, you can't run to the basement if the basement isn't in your building. All you have left is to pray that it doesn't hit you. Because going out onto the street and running to the basement is more dangerous than staying where you were. I have an unglazed balcony, you can't go out to the balcony at night to smoke - it's dangerous. Walking around in the evening is dangerous. There are some districts of the city where you shouldn't go at all, it's too dangerous. Such adjustments. You plan your day so as to both get some things done and not get under shelling.

КА: You wrote in your note that you don't get used to this, but the reaction becomes dulled. What's that like?

АМ: Probably this will sound too cynical.

КА: This is war.

АМ: Well, yes. The reaction becomes dulled in the sense that if before, when a shell fragment hit one person, everyone was in panic, now recently people died at a bus stop, and you think: "Good that there were few of them." 8 people died. This is a terrorist attack and you think: "Good that they didn't shell the city market, where there are much more people, where the number of victims would be in the hundreds." Such cynicism appears. Your human reactions become dulled, adequate human reactions.

КА: This is unfortunately normal. This is war, you live in it constantly.

АМ: This is normal, but this is not normal.

КА: Like everything now. You also wrote that once a rocket hit the neighboring house. Can you tell about this?

АМ: Yes. I slept in the basement for more than two months, the basement in the neighboring building. At some point I returned to my bed, quote with sheets. You understand, my reaction also became dulled, because in the morning I open the window, the building opposite is in smoke, some disputes, shelling. When you're in such a district, you get a little used to it. This was early morning, it banged. You understand, when you live in such conditions, you can determine by the force of explosion, by sound, how close or far this is. Here the number of vibrations, what you feel with your body, very much influences the determination. I flew to the floor, my walls came apart, the floor, doors were torn out, lamps fell. In the neighboring building, the one with the basement, there are shutters there, they were bent in the shape of the letter "Z", mirrors exploded, there was a very strong wave. In the first seconds you don't understand what to do. You don't understand where to run and, what's much worse, in stress conditions you can't determine what this is: was this just a rocket or was this some cluster one, that is, there will be more explosions, is this a single targeted hit or did they direct artillery in this direction and now there will be more explosions. The brain doesn't work at all. Panic, you don't understand what to do. I probably lay on the floor in dust for about a minute, ran outside, I realized that these were neighbors. I ran there because I knew that ordinary people live there, not Nazis, I always confused "Banderites" with bendericks - that's such a dish. I ran there, people come out onto the streets, everyone in panic, because no glass, no roofs. I called an ambulance, firefighters, a fire immediately started. I run back from there because my brain started working. I don't know what hit here. Maybe something else will hit here now if they're targeting this district. Very often a district is shelled not with one shell, but with a large number. The siren went off several minutes after. People are on the street, I run back to my building and shout: "Go inside, we don't know what this is. Hide! We don't know what this is. What if there will be more." They disperse, run back each to their own homes. After about 20 minutes it became clear that this was a single hit and very unclear. Sorry, but these were houses of super ordinary people, private small houses. I don't know, for me it's just very strange. This is again cynicism awakening, but spending a multi-million rocket to destroy what's almost a shed. Damn, shed is incorrect, I just don't know how to write it beautifully. An ordinary person's house. You understand, this is a shed with minimal repairs inside.

КА: A small clarification, you said when this hit happened, your walls came apart. What does this mean?

АМ: It turns out, I live under the roof, my floor is under the roof. Because of this I hear all sounds very well, much stronger. On the street something might not be heard, but I hear it. I'm on the second floor - here's the wall, then a crack the size of a finger and the floor continues. That is, the building shook. The neighboring building tilted, it came apart, the second floor came apart. I got off with just cracks in the ceiling, thick cracks between the first and second floors. I live on the second floor, under the roof, we have a small building.

КА: About the shelter I wanted to ask one more thing. Have many animals been injured from shelling during the full-scale invasion?

АМ: We were lucky in this regard, rockets fly over the house. Our district was shelled very heavily, it's always loud with us, but knock on wood, there wasn't such a thing that our animals suffered. But I worked with animals that suffered from shelling. Here you need to understand that, as a rule, animals that got under shelling, especially on the street, they don't make it to the veterinarian. They bleed to death. At the same time I'll tell you that from destroyed houses, when ordinary civilian houses were hit, they can get out some rabbit in a cage alive. The person died, the rabbit remained. I wrote to you that with a guy I took a cat from some yards, there were very strong explosions there, the skeleton remained from the houses and such a charred playground. This cat is black, his name is Barash, he was burned, I took him. For me burns are nothing scary, we'll inject, smear, everything will heal, everything will be fine. Some time passed, he developed problems with the nervous system, because animals, as a rule, are either torn apart, or get shell-shocked, or cut by shrapnel. Some things don't even appear immediately if the animal survived. Now this cat is in our shelter, he drags his hind legs, but at the same time he eats, drinks, even plays.

КА: These nervous system problems in this cat, what kind are they? How do they manifest?