The occupiers act like they’re tsars

КА: Katya Alexander

ПО: Panteleimon Onopchenko

КА: Hi, can you hear me okay?

ПО: Seems to be fine.

КА: Aha, excellent. Thank you again so much for agreeing to talk. Let's probably start with, do you have any questions for me, maybe you want to clarify something before the interview?

ПО: No, not really.

КА: Super, excellent. Then first of all, congratulations again on getting out to a place that's as safe as possible.

ПО: Yes, thank you.

КА: Tell me from the very beginning, do you want this interview to be anonymous or are you ready to give your name?

ПО: Ready to give my name, no problem.

КА: So, let's start slowly then. We won't be talking about the entire full-scale war, not about all the months of Kherson's occupation, but about the recent period, we'll pay special attention to the last month and a half. And we'll talk more about Kherson rather than your departure, since you just came from there. Is that okay with you?

ПО: Yes, no problem.

КА: Please tell me, how was it in Kherson? What was the atmosphere in the city in the last month, what changed there and did anything change?

ПО: Yes, everything changed very drastically in the city, it became empty. The city only lives in the morning, by about one in the afternoon the streets are already completely empty, transport runs with very long intervals, until 4 PM and that's if you're lucky, usually until two - until three and that's it, no more transport. Now, since it's summer, let's say: there are no particular problems with food, because it's the season, our farmers aren't taking anything anywhere, and everything is very cheap and there's a lot of everything. But what will happen in winter? We all thought about this, that now everything is good, of course parents, the older generation, started making preserves, buying up everything as much as possible, stocking up on food for winter. But there's a very big concern that in winter everything will be super expensive, that we'll just be sitting and starving.

КА: And these products that farmers are selling while it's still the season, are they sold for hryvnias or already for rubles?

ПО: When I was leaving, they were still for hryvnias. You have to understand them too, because where else can they go?

КА: If there's such a boom in farm products now for obvious reasons, am I correct in understanding that stores either have inflated prices or don't work, and now the main place where people in Kherson shop is markets?

ПО: Markets 100%, because it's much cheaper there. In the stores that the Russians opened, Crimean ones or whoever came, the prices there are 3, or even 4 times higher than at the market or than what was in the city before. We have one painful topic - household chemicals, that is, a half-liter shampoo will cost 600 hryvnias, that's 1200 rubles. Deodorants at 300 hryvnias, that's 600 rubles. All this was sold for a maximum of 50 hryvnias before the war. These are detergents, all kinds of cleaning products - everything costs approximately in this price range.

КА: And you can't find such household things at the market, right?

ПО: They exist, but they also don't cost much cheaper.

КА: So how do people buy such things then, if they don't have, for example, 600 hryvnias for shampoo?

ПО: Most, like me and my family, stocked up when the big stores were having sales, which are now already closed. They sold goods first with a 50% discount, then the discount became bigger and bigger, and the last discount was 80% on all goods completely. Naturally, all kinds of shampoos and such were grabbed up in the first couple of days. They just don't exist, what to do now - I don't know, people will probably wash with household soap. Possibly, there's hope that now this peak will pass, when there's a shortage of goods, and some cheaper goods will flow from Crimea, or they'll just lower prices on the same goods.

КА: And the sales at big chain stores that you're talking about, when and how did this happen?

ПО: This was when the military came, somewhere from mid-March until today, but the stores close after moving goods to some one store in the center, so the entire chain gradually closed. Now it's completely closed.

КА: So these were Ukrainian stores that immediately began shutting down?

ПО: Yes.

КА: Can you try to tell me more about these markets? Did they exist at all before the start of the full-scale invasion? Or were they smaller? How are they organized in general? I want to understand this principle of trade under occupation.

ПО: Okay, look, there were no spontaneous markets in Kherson, because they fought against them. We got a new mayor, and he specifically took this on, demolished all the flea markets, he shoved them all inside the market, everyone paid rent, everything was good. When? This probably started at the end of March, when people began going to Crimea for goods. Somewhere, as usual, just a table, any goods on the table, you could buy cigarettes there, household chemicals, food and there were a lot of seafood: all kinds of shrimp, crayfish, crabs. This isn't controlled by anything at all, for sure the first couple of months. Now the military police asks, doesn't ask, but demands permits for trading, individual entrepreneurship [editor's note: ЧП - private entrepreneurship]. About a month ago they seized a building, in short, they seized the tax office. They demand that entrepreneurs start individual entrepreneurship. Individual entrepreneurship, naturally, they can only start if they have a Russian passport, that is, they're forcing people to take citizenship. There are such horror stories that for illegally trading, they take you away, beat you and all that. But this is all untrue, because there's so much spontaneous trade that there just aren't enough people. Maybe they take away and hold some particularly brazen ones, but basically they don't bother anyone doing spontaneous trade. At the markets there's a very large turnover of alcohol, alcohol of all kinds, from cheap vodka to all kinds of premium wines and such. You can buy absolutely everything at the market. This is just contraband or moonshine. My girlfriend worked in the emergency department at the hospital, and she said that at first a lot of people came in with alcohol poisoning, and really severe intoxications.

КА: Individual entrepreneurship - that's private entrepreneurship, right?

ПО: Yes.

КА: Aha-aha, I understand. And besides alcohol and some food products, what else is sold at these markets?

ПО: Of course. Something specific?

КА: No, just in terms of typology, for example household chemicals, is there less of it or is it expensive. I just want to understand the scale of what they sell at these markets. Is clothing sold there, for example?

ПО: Absolutely everything in approximately equal proportions. Of course, there will be more food products, because we're an agricultural region, and we have a lot of products. Then household chemicals, then the alcohol segment, we also have medications sold on the street just with a little table. In general, any without any proper storage: antibiotics, injections, and pills. Absolutely everything that's in a pharmacy, you can buy everything at the market for, again, triple the price and without any understanding of where it came from, what's mixed in there, whether it can be sold, maybe they just change the expiration dates and sell it.

КА: And how do pharmacies work in general, and do they work?

ПО: From the beginning of summer, Russian pharmacy chains opened. Of course, they don't have all the medications that are needed. There are many Russian analogs there, which aren't very good themselves. Prices are approximately the same as they were before the war, but the trick is that they take both hryvnias and rubles. There the exchange rate was 2.25 rubles to a hryvnia, and now, when I was buying pills for myself, the rate was 1 to 1.5. That is, they're greatly inflating the ruble and gradually want to equate the hryvnia to the ruble. Prices in rubles don't change, but in hryvnias they become noticeably more expensive.

КА: So, this is more or less clear. How many of these spontaneous markets are there now in Kherson?

ПО: We have several main markets: Central, Dnieper and, let's say, in the neighborhoods. Basically all the spontaneous markets are around these markets themselves. There are fewer of them now compared to what there was in April. In April they worked from 6 AM, curfew ended at 5, at 6 the market was already full, and it worked until 7 PM. There were always a lot of people there, everyone really stocked up with bags, bought a lot of everything in advance. Now they already work until two and there are fewer of them. Some stretch across the city, near every bus stop there are a couple of stalls and they trade there. In principle, this was already in the city before the war. In principle, these are people who used to go to the office. Just all the office workers who can be entrepreneurial, they just went to Crimea, stocked up and went out on the streets to trade, because there's nothing else to do in the city.

КА: And you say that there's nothing else to do in the city, many enterprises closed, people lost their jobs, right?

ПО: No enterprises work at all, only food ones work - bread factory, all kinds of bakeries and that's it. Otherwise production completely shut down, those who tried to work as long as possible, the military took everything away from them now. Today I read the news, we had a cement-brick factory there, they came, just fired all the employees and said: wait for special orders and that's it.

КА: So most city residents now work at these markets, there's no other opportunity really, right?

ПО: Well yes.

КА: Or are there still some options?

ПО: Look, let's say, I took money from one acquaintance, I just cashed it from a card, because ATMs work. If you exchange money at the market, then there, let's say, the commission was 7-10%, and if I exchange 30 thousand hryvnias, then just give away 3 thousand of them to someone for conducting them through a card - that's just not cool at all. I took 1-2% maximum, I had such experience. Now there have already been cases that if you cash out hryvnias or exchange rubles for hryvnias, then uncles in masks come, put a bag over your head and take you somewhere.

КА: Specifically when they try to cash out hryvnias?

ПО: Yes, they want to get rid of the hryvnia as quickly as possible. In their supermarkets there used to be two price tags - in both hryvnias and rubles, now there are only rubles and that's it. That is, they take hryvnias, but price tags are only in rubles, they convert at whatever exchange rate they want. They want 1-1.5; they want 1.75; they want 1.4. They're just moving toward equating the hryvnia to the ruble, like it was in Donetsk.

КА: I understand you. Listen, let's talk about these, let's call them gently, military. How do these Russian occupiers behave in the city in general, what do they pressure, are there many of them on the streets around the city, what's the atmosphere with this in general?

ПО: There are a lot of them. The actual military, military contingent almost none left in the city, they're somewhere on the outskirts closer to places of clashes with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They only come to rest, they have several buildings where they live, they move from them to others, because there were several shelling of the city from the direction of Mykolaiv. They hit their positions, they had a lot of losses, so there aren't many actual military in the city, but mostly FSB agents of all kinds sit in the city. There are a lot of them, they're on every corner, they do their job so poorly, they walk in civilian clothes, but you can still see them. They're all the same, they walk in formation, once they even, we saw them, they went in a designated box formation? We were like: well you guys are kidding, you're, of course, just super agents, you don't stand out at all. They walk around, listen to what people say, sit down somewhere nearby on a bench and just listen. They behave quite freely, they came and now this is ours, and you're nobody here. They go to quite expensive establishments, took away a lot of cars from salons and just. Let's say, someone's driving, starts showing off and they take the car for themselves. They took mainly all kinds of elite cars. Around the city, sometimes they drive like schoolchildren who just bought themselves a Zhiguli - open windows, music blasting, they have electronic cigarettes, lowered glasses - they're, in short, kings. This concerns FSB agents. Those who are military, they mainly perform the function of guards for these FSB agents, they're always in uniform, in full gear, in helmets, in masks, given that in Kherson in summer the heat is very strong, +35 - that's the average temperature in summer during the day. A lot of them come to hospitals with heart problems. They themselves say that we want to get checked, we feel bad, we have dizziness, just so they could somehow be written off and sent home, because they don't want to be here, the actual military, not FSB agents.

КА: And how do you know that they don't want to be there?

ПО: My girlfriend works in the emergency department, they came to the hospital every day, they needed MRI, or to check their stomach, or their head hurts, or they have blood pressure, or something else. In short, they constantly had some problems. An MRI costs us 1300 hryvnias, 50 dollars, they, of course, got everything done for free. Seven of them would come per day and they'd all get MRIs. Again, there are different military: there are Buryats, there are Chechens, there are Russians, there are people from Donetsk. Chechens are brazen, Buryats barely know the language, they don't understand what's happening around them and what's wanted from them. Russians are polite, they're normal, it even happens that they're ashamed to be here. You look them in the eyes, they turn away. The angriest are those from Donetsk. They, of course, here, they do everything with anger. Just give them the command to shoot, they'll shoot. No problem at all, without any pangs of conscience. I live in the city center, and some big shot came once. DPR fighters stood at my intersection, stopped a car, a guy and girl get out of there, they ask them to get out of the car, show documents and show what's in the trunk. They had some kind of verbal altercation there, the policeman said that you smell of alcohol, come to our car. The girl got worked up, saying you're going to take him now. In short, a scuffle started, and they beat this guy with batons, feet, hands, knocked him to the ground, put him on the asphalt and just kicked him.

КА: What horror. Here I want to slow down a bit and ask: these FSB agents who walk in formation in civilian clothes, do they just listen, do they not interact with people at all?

ПО: They just like observe.

КА: And the military or conditionally the military police of the city, they're already like attack dogs, they do something?

ПО: Throughout the city all the locals are afraid that they'll come for them sooner or later. And they do come. They come early in the morning, they come late in the evening, they break into apartments. You hesitate for something and that's it, they knock down the door, and you're there putting on underwear, let's say. They look at everything. When we had rallies, they photographed the first rows, the most fervent ones. And now, after some time, when they already had some power, well not power, they're already starting to do some of their business, let's say. They started going to the addresses of these protesters. They took them away, we have a sobering-up station, they took them away, and held them for different periods, both weeks, and a couple of days, up to a month, or even two months. I had a friend's father there, they held him there for a month and a half. They beat him there, they returned him, almost all his ribs were broken. He lost 13 kilograms, because they just gave crackers and water there. They kept several people in small cells, the toilet is just a bucket. They poured cold water from a hose on them and that's it.

КА: And were there cases when they didn't return people?

ПО: I don't know about them.

КА: I understand you. Did you have any encounters with Russian military?

ПО: None at all. I tried to stay away from them, I never even talked to them once.

КА: As far as I understand, you still kept a quite pro-Ukrainian position on social media. I understand that you cleaned up before leaving and when I found you on Instagram, there was nothing there. Is this true and if so, tell me why you decided to keep such a position?

ПО: Because I lived in Russia for a year and I didn't like it there. I didn't delete anything from Instagram, because when I was leaving, I have several work pages, on my main page I changed the name, username, photo, closed the account, so that even if they somehow got to this page, they wouldn't see anything. Moreover, as it turned out, they don't have internet at the border at all, they couldn't even read my messages. Regarding Instagram, I posted all the horrors there, let's say, I posted mostly in stories. Stories are more useful, there are more views there. Moreover, on my Instagram, only my people sit there and that's it.

КА: Can you tell me what you posted in your stories? Try to, let's say I didn't see your stories, explain what you posted.

ПО: Bucha, Mariupol, help. Mainly there were all kinds of fundraising, we're collecting money for something there. Or something terrible happened in Kherson, orcs climbed somewhere, just the situation in the city. The most, probably, creepy thing I shared in stories was Mariupol, when they were just entering, when they were just wrapping peaceful people who got under shelling in bags, just burying them in trenches. Then, when they hit the maternity hospital in Mariupol, that was also such a nightmare. Somewhere, probably, from the beginning of April I stopped posting anything like that at all, because there were cases when for similar stories, posts and position they took people away and where people went - unknown. So I completely stopped doing this.

КА: So from April you completely stopped posting anything on social media?

ПО: I'm looking now, I also posted Saldo, where he [inaudible] once long ago, then from mid-May, it turns out.

КА: And until mid-May you weren't scared to post such things on Instagram?

ПО: No, because we didn't know what they were capable of yet. At every rally, we went to every rally... because how is it even possible that some other people come and say: that's it, we'll put Lenin here now, you'll have the Soviet Union here and there will be rubles. At rallies they played Cheburashka for us from their loudspeakers, this is just. Moreover, on the first day they put up this thing of theirs, and the next day several thousand people came to say, what kind of friends are we to you? And after that the shelling started, they started shooting at protesters. Which made it clear that it's better not to post anything special and not express yourself on this topic, at least publicly.

КА: Am I correct in understanding that you stopped posting precisely after they started shelling rallies? I think this was a bit earlier, no?

ПО: Our rallies ended at the end of March, it didn't even get to April, on March 25 they started shooting at protesters.

КА: And you stopped posting in May?

ПО: Well yes.

КА: Can you try to remember what was the catalyst, what made you think, damn, I better not post for now?

ПО: It wasn't that there was some kind of click, everything faded away, I understood that now it's not worth doing this, moreover work appeared, other worries and moves from apartment to apartment, because it was unclear whether you could stay in one place, we tried to live somewhere closer to basements. Everything just faded away. Moreover, when cases of visits became more frequent, the desire to post something like that disappeared quite quickly, although there were cases, it really itched, I really wanted to say that they're complete scum, but, in principle, everyone knows this.

КА: Did you have any way, especially in recent months, of some kind of internal, maybe not so obvious resistance to the occupiers?

ПО: Most likely there wasn't really any, just constant passive hatred towards them, lately I didn't even hesitate to show them the middle finger or spit in their direction. I understood that I shouldn't do this, I can't do this. Mainly these were some cars that were driving along the route. Specifically large military vehicles that can't stop. They couldn't do anything.

КА: And why can't they stop?

ПО: They move around the city according to schedule, and if they start to delay somewhere, they start calling them asking what happened, why are you delayed? Military, they have to have everything precise.

КА: Okay, I understand. So you expressed your protest, that you showed the finger to passing cars, right?

ПО: Roughly speaking, yes. You know, for some time I didn't care, well they're driving and driving. Very strong dislike, rejection of the fact that they're here at all, they walk around the city where I've always lived, they just barged in here with weapons and do what they want. You don't want to get used to this.

КА: Can you remember from what moment you realized that they came to your land, occupied your city and generally behave like scum?

ПО: Probably after I moved to friends, because I lived in an apartment alone. A big apartment in the city center and I was like, well, it'll be completely no fun for me here, and I went to friends. We were sitting, the apartment is also in the city center, we're sitting late at night, watching some movie, smoking hookah, and we hear how everything just shakes around. We go out on the balcony and see a huge column of tanks, which is just ruining our fresh, newly laid asphalt and soldiers around, all armed. They all raise their weapons up, look at balconies, at windows, all through sights. That is, if anything they're ready to shoot even at those who are filming all this on phones. There was such a case that they shot from a tank at several houses for the fact that people were just filming on phones how they were entering the city. I can basically send you quite a lot of photos. How they entered the city, shot at houses, I'll also look for markets.

КА: Send everything you have about Kherson, I'll sort it out myself. So you went out to rallies, you posted pro-Ukrainian posts until a certain point, showed the finger to cars. Were you afraid that they might come for you at any moment?

ПО: I got scared the last couple of weeks when I was in Kherson. Before that I wasn't scared, because I thought: well they'll show up now, so what? Just what's next? They'll take me away, beat me, I won't love them because of this. They're acting absolutely wrong. They, like most law enforcement in Russia, act by intimidation, and this never works. This didn't work under the Union, this didn't work under the tsar. In no point in the world does intimidation work. If they had come in, so good, here's free connection with tons of internet. But they have connection for 10 GB, half an hour of calls and it costs 400 rubles. And we're like: lord, are you kidding? In general, they come, they have high prices, no connection. Can't drive, can't go out, can't sleep peacefully. Nobody will love them for this.

КА: From what moment did you get scared? You say that you weren't scared, that they'd beat you and what's next? From what moment and why did you get scared?

ПО: There just became very many of them in the city. They approached passersby, looked at phones. Of course, in private correspondence nobody loves them and we say how bad they are, don't hold back in expressions and wishes for their health. There was fear that they'd somehow stop you, take the phone and something would happen. But somehow you want to live, so I got scared. Then, I live in the center, at night they drive back and forth. I constantly hear these cars, if someone stops somewhere near the intersection, I immediately wake up and run to the window to look. Break-ins of apartments at night became more frequent. Something banged somewhere, you immediately wake up, run to the window, if they're walking around somewhere, you already get dressed, wait for them to call so they don't break down the door, yes, they'll come in, look, won't find anything, but at least the door will be intact. This was like a snowball, this fear accumulated, it becomes more and more. Really the last 2 weeks in the city I just didn't sleep at all. I slept during the day, after work. All night you sit by the window or on the balcony and just stare into the yard, they sometimes walk through yards at night. There was a case when some drunks during curfew were sitting at a bus stop and drinking, a BTR drove up, one of them ran away, the other tried to run, stumbled and fell. In general, they combed through the yards, they walked there for an hour, shouted, shone flashlights at windows, went into entrances. When this happens, you inevitably get scared and want to get out of there somewhere, even when they were at rallies, there was some kind of fighting spirit, let's say. You wanted to come out the next day with greater force, show them that we don't agree with you here, go home. Already recently it was such that you think: better not to stick out, there's no fighting spirit, because they'll just point machine guns at you, and you'll just raise your hands and won't be able to do anything else. Throughout the city revolutionary-military moods are falling, and everyone tries to be quiet or not express themselves.

КА: Am I understanding you correctly that by July-August there were even more of them? They became tougher, and raids became more frequent?

ПО: I don't know if there were more of them, but they already relaxed, intimidated the population and feel their power, that they can do anything here, and nothing will happen to them for it. Maybe there were even fewer of them, but their power increased, and people are intimidated, afraid to do something wrong.

КА: So this revolutionary-military spirit that people in Kherson initially had, it subsided because with each month they increased some kind of power, took away more and more people, that it was a cumulative intimidation effect?

ПО: Well yes, of course yes.

КА: I understand you. You also said an interesting thing, that you lived in Russia for a year, when was this?

ПО: This was 2017. I needed, let's say, to change the environment. It so happened that my godfather is from Russia. I was working as a tour manager then, I was organizing concerts for a children's magic theater. Something didn't work out there, either they were scamming me with money, or everything was really very bad. I came home after a month of trips to various villages in a depressed state, because I did a bunch of stuff - didn't earn anything. Everything ahead is unclear, New Year's ahead, no work and everything is not very good. I come home, my godfather came for a few days: let's go to Moscow? And I was like: let's go, nothing's keeping me here. And I left literally in a couple of days. I understand you want to ask what I didn't like in Russia?

КА: Yes, you're thinking right.

ПО: This moment - cops, metal detectors, total some kind of... they're afraid of people, they're afraid of their own people, their own nation. Constant fences, fences everywhere. Administrative building, police - you can't approach, everything is in wire. This is not cool at all. In every underpass there's a patrol. In the metro there are metal detectors, at stations there are metal detectors, everyone looks, turns out backpacks. Just a police state, which always wants to tell you: we see you, we know what you ate for breakfast, although you don't remember yourself. And my main question is: what's the purpose of this? What are you afraid of? Then it was a calm year, and then, when there was some rally there, I don't remember when it was, but after I left. There they very harshly dispersed protesters with water, and it was winter. They gave a girl several years for hitting a helmet. Well this, damn, what's the conversation about? How can you live, work in this state, and in principle it's unpleasant to be there. Here's another case: I went to a concert, and my phone was stolen there, just pulled out of my pocket. I come to the police in the morning, a girl met me at the checkpoint there, everything seemed normal, I even relaxed. I think everything will be good, I go in, I'm late to the reception, let's say, I don't remember what it's properly called. A cop sits there, just a cop who hates you. You say a word to him, he'll pull out a baton and beat you, because you're distracting him from doing nothing. I say: such and such situation, I want to write a statement, so you finally do some work. Well, I didn't say that. He threw this paper at me, this form and said: there's a sample, in short, go. I filled it out, there was an unclear point, I ask him: what should I write here? I, you know, have never in my life seen such unjustified aggressive reaction to a banal question. He was really ready to get up and just hit me for daring to distract him with such a stupid question. I wrote, submitted, the investigator came out. [He says]: we can, of course, accept the statement, but we won't look for anything, because it's obviously a cold case, you won't come for the phone, we don't want to deal with this at all, people are being killed here. He just said, like get out of here. And there was also a situation when I came out of the metro. Five meters ahead of me walked an Uzbek or whoever he was, Tajik, doesn't matter, someone from those regions. Patrol officers ran up, said: please, your documents. And they stop me: yours too. I show a Ukrainian passport. He says: let's get in the car. I say: what do you mean, why all of a sudden? "Where's your registration?" Well, okay, let's go for a ride. They brought me to the station, put me in one room with a bunch of migrants, I sat there for about two hours, they were checking databases to see if I had registration. I say: I do, such and such address, enter it, I see you have a search line, enter it and it will show that everything is normal. No, we'll go through the entire database, we'll look, sit here for two hours. I sat for two hours, some cop comes, takes me to some dark corridor, very dark. He says: we found your registration, everything's good. But since you didn't have it with you, we'll start some administrative thing, there will be a fine, or community service.

КА: Forced labor.

ПО: Yes, these 3-4 hours of work or several days depending on how much you'll show off. Or you can give me some money, more precisely, he said "or you can give me something" and we'll let you go. Okay. And I really spent my last 35 rubles, put it on metro, I have nothing at all with me. I was supposed to leave from here with my godfather. He's like: what, nothing at all? Take out your wallet. I took out my wallet, there was some change and 200 hryvnias lay in another pocket. He just opened the wallet, took out the money, said: "oh, I don't have these yet", put it in his pocket and let me out. Fuck, you just mugged me, you just robbed me in broad daylight.

КА: Yes, that's Russia. I understand you about Russia. I want to return a bit to Kherson and its reality. Can you tell me how people in Kherson communicated or didn't communicate with the occupiers? What happened? In general, how were relationships between locals and occupiers built or not built?

ПО: There were people who welcomed this very much. Surprisingly, there were even young people who welcomed all this very much, went to May 9th, I don't know, it's very hard to call it a parade, because grandmothers with red balloons sang, danced to military songs, which they specially made even more hoarse, as if still from that time. In short, a nightmare parade of victory obsession [editor's note: "победобесие" - a portmanteau of "победа" (victory) and "бешенство" (rabies), referring to obsessive glorification of WWII victory]. There was quite a lot of this all the time. There were many who were happy to see them. Still, the real majority understands what Russia is, how life is there, that 20 years of one person's rule is not normal, that he created a war from scratch twice, just because once these territories weren't even Russian, but were just part of some union. And it's very offensive that people who for some reason are nostalgic for the Soviet Union don't understand that now it's really cooler. You can do what you want, say what you want, go where you want, buy what you want. This is incomprehensible to people, those who are for Ukraine, who went underground, who quietly in the kitchen say that they're all complete bastards, need to cut them. Some understand something, and others are nostalgic.

КА: Listen, they write a lot about partisans in Kherson, did you see any leaflets maybe? Tell me about partisans.

ПО: I didn't see leaflets, I saw inscriptions. Once I was riding a bike through one neighborhood around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, that is, it's light, people are walking, everything's normal. Three girls aged about 15-16 were walking and pasting Ukrainian flags, apparently they printed them on a printer at home. Such small stickers, and they stuck these stickers on every pole. On every tree, on poles they hung ribbons. I thought then: wow, these are our partisans? Actually, this is cool.

КА: This is really cool, but how much of this is there in the city?

ПО: In the center there's none of this at all, because FSB agents walk around the center. You can see them, of course, but you don't always follow them. And so people mainly somewhere there, in residential areas, where patrols don't go, where everything is more or less quiet and peaceful.

КА: And leaflets appear there, something like that?

ПО: Yes, everything is published in public pages. At night our partisans hung leaflets, where are our collaborators, that death will soon come for you, you're next. Or Armed Forces of Ukraine are nearby.

КА: Did you engage in this yourself?

ПО: No.

КА: How are things with communication and internet in general? ПО: Until May 30th everything was fine. No, on May 1st-2nd they cut off communications. On the 30th, around 2 PM, they cut the cables or turned off the switch that cuts all communications. In general, communications disappeared. The funny thing is that they started giving out their own SIM cards a week after they cut off communications. That is, the city was 7 days without any communications at all. There were some points where the internet worked. Let's say, we have this company Nova Poshta, they handle delivery throughout all of Ukraine. It's like Ukrposhta, but it actually works normally. They had internet in their offices, but again, not everywhere. People just came to these points, sat, caught Wi-Fi and shared other points. Like there-there there-there there's a store and there's internet there. You come there, and there are another hundred people standing there, there's not enough internet for anything. Essentially there were no communications at all.

КА: And the last couple months did any Kyivstar or Vodafone work or was it already Phoenix?

ПО: There was their "Na Svyazi" [editor's note: "On Connection"]. Phoenix is from Donetsk, as far as I know. And we had "Na Svyazi," which works in Crimea. But the funny thing is that the numbers that were given out in Kherson, they only work in Kherson and in the oblast. When I arrived in Crimea, that's it, no connection, the SIM card doesn't work. In Crimea, in Dzhankoy, we asked at a gas station if we could buy a SIM card. They say you can buy it, but when you drive into Krasnodar, it won't work. That's it, Crimean SIM cards don't work anywhere except in Crimea, Kherson ones - only in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia ones - only in Zaporizhzhia. And the entire rest of the world uses normal communications, but these are such gray zones.

КА: I'm trying to understand, there's no more Kyivstar or Vodafone, there's this Na Svyazi, but home internet works and Wi-Fi?

ПО: Home internet exists, they just switched it to the Crimean stream. Not all of it, of course, let's say Kyivstar doesn't work, the company Volya doesn't work. Where are you from anyway?

КА: I used to live in Russia, now in Georgia.

ПО: Alright, I just won't name companies then. There were all the Ukrainian operators that simply stopped working because they can't afford to work in occupied territory. First of all, they'll be written down as traitors, secondly, they'll take away their business. They simply ended their activities in the occupied territories. Local providers immediately switched to Crimean networks and the internet works. Again, I had Volya, which was Kyiv internet. I needed to connect at least some internet. I call the operator, give the address, he says: we can connect within two weeks, 3-4 months. In the end I never waited and left. Half the city has no internet, the queues for connection are cosmic. You can, of course, pay, my friend got internet for 3500 hryvnias, 100 dollars. That's to bring a cable to the house from a pole, connect and set up.

КА: Given that this is a strange provider, not Ukrainian, was there fear that it was being listened to, monitored?

ПО: Of course, of course.

КА: And at the same time, as you say, you were texting somehow...

ПО: For us by phone - it was purely hello, let's meet there-there - ok. I'll come by at such-and-such time - ok. Buy bread for home - ok. Nothing was ever discussed by phone. As soon as my parents relaxed and started saying: a BTR [editor's note: armored personnel carrier] drove down our street today, I'm like: whoa-whoa, quieter. Let's somehow talk about this next time. It's being listened to, and I even think they monitor Telegram, because there was such a thing that a message comes, I'm like: ok, I'll answer later. I go in later, open Telegram, and the message is read. I looked at what devices it was open on, but from those devices no one could read anything because everything is password-protected. There were such suspicions that they were reading Telegram.

КА: You also said before that you moved from your apartment in the center to friends. Why did you decide to move?

ПО: Because my parents live in the suburb, near that ill-fated Antonivskyi Bridge, they sat in a basement there for three days with COVID. They came to my apartment, since they were sick, it wouldn't be comfortable for me to be with them, and for them with me. We would argue again, as always happens with children and parents, especially when the children are already approaching thirty. I just went to friends, and friends had other friends. And somehow we all lived in a bunch, it was easier to get through all these moments.

КА: Do I understand correctly that your parents went to your apartment?

ПО: Yes.

КА: I see. Can you tell how the situation is with curfew? What happened the last month? How long does it last? Do many violate it? What generally happens when curfew begins?

ПО: Curfew from 10 PM to 5 AM. Mainly at night there's patrolling of equipment movement. And that's basically it. If there are violators, of course they tell them: stop. But if they started running, they'll shoot at them of course. You don't need to be some kind of genius to understand that you shouldn't run from military during war. They're armed, and curfew, which you knowingly violated, well come say that you were late, lost track of time, give me a ride home. There were cases the last month that I lived there. There's an industrial zone there, on one side of the street are private houses, on the other side industrial zone, warehouses, bases and all that. Down this street some smart person was driving around 11 PM, and apparently patrol saw him, said "stop," and he didn't stop and so they simply destroyed the car, shot it up together with the driver. This was around 11 PM, and the car stood until morning, that is they shot it up together with the guy and just drove away. Well and after curfew you hear automatic gunfire, but it's unclear whether at exercises or at violators. They shoot often, what are they doing there? At night you hear automatic shots.

КА: Listen, about passports. Do they force people now to take Russian passports?

ПО: Of course yes. They, of course, went to beat on unprotected layers of the population - on pensioners, on disabled people, those who sit on pensions. To receive a pension, which is already in rubles, you need to get a passport. It turns out pensioners and disabled people stand, get passports, with passports they give another 10 thousand rubles. And only then they go get their benefits. Again, businessmen through the tax office are forced to take passports, through registration of individual entrepreneurship and payment to the tax office. But at the same time those who want to keep Ukrainian passports, they don't tell them anything. You just come, submit an application or something, I don't know how it all happens. You just come to the passport office, fill in all your data, they give you ten [thousand rubles] and after some time a Russian passport. With pensioners it's understandable, but there's a lot of young people standing for Russian passports. Even when you drive by, you give them an extra look, you'll say, what don't you like? What did Ukraine do to you?

КА: And what do they answer?

ПО: Nobody answers anything. You just threw that phrase at them and went on your way. Nobody really talks to them much.

КА: And are there many people standing for passports in general?

ПО: Yes, every day there's a queue of about a hundred people. I go to work in the morning, about 100 people are standing at 9-10 AM and during the day the queue doesn't really decrease much. New people approach, during the day, I don't know, maybe up to 500 people pass through. They even put up some statistics on passport issuance there, they really have about 500 people pass through per day.

КА: And did you talk to anyone who agreed?

ПО: No, among my acquaintances there was no one wanting to join the Russian world. If any such conversations appeared, then with that person, at minimum, no one would communicate anymore.

КА: How over so many months of occupation has the atmosphere in the city changed, what in your view changed the most?

ПО: The city is simply dying, nothing happens in the city. At first there was looting, no, first there was panic. Like in some films, when something happened, and people run in circles and wave their hands. That's approximately the same thing that happened in the first 2-3 days of war. Then there were rallies, then there were looters, they blew up the shopping center, carried out goods, household electronics, things, bags, sneakers - everything in a row, whatever they got to. Then there were rallies. And then complete stagnation of everything possible began - closed stores, windows boarded up with plywood, covered with metal, signs "everything looted, store evacuated, we no longer bring in medications." People just write that there's nothing here and please don't climb in here. People are also just tired, they don't seem to be doing anything particularly special, but due to constant stress people have very strong fatigue, dejection. Essentially the entire city is in depression, if you can imagine that.

КА: Horror. And here I'll immediately move to the next question, why didn't you leave Kherson all this time? What kept you?

ПО: I can't say that something kept me. That's still my home and I didn't want to leave my native little apartment, which I furnished, loved, cleaned, renovated. That's my corner, where I feel good, and I didn't want to leave from there. Then, when almost all friends had left, my girlfriend already said "that's it, I'm leaving" - well okay, I don't dare keep you. Essentially I only had one friend left with his girlfriend and that's it. At work layoffs started, they began saying: either you move to Kyiv, or we fire you, because we don't need you in Kherson. And we have such a company, we had a big office, the company deals with selling gadgets: phones, scooters, tablets. Like you have Euroset, we have Kibernetyky. People were needed in the office so everything communicated quickly - opening stores, we agreed on a location, so we make blueprints, design, furniture arrangement. And in the end they told us: either you move to Kyiv, or we say goodbye to you. This was also an additional factor to move, just to keep the job, keep normal psychological state, because lately the roof was really going. From complete apathy to incomprehensible aggression, you just throw yourself at people for nothing.

КА: And your parents?

ПО: Parents, like everyone, all our parents don't want to go anywhere. They have their household there, native home, they feel good there and they want to stay there.

КА: And can I clarify, the work that you do, I don't really understand what to call it?

ПО: I'm listed there as a designer, but they also put blueprints on me. I don't do detailed visualization, in a super simple 3D editor I do furniture placement, layout for product display. Just as one more job responsibility. Mainly I'm a designer - Instagram stories, print products, price tags, banners.

КА: I'm just thinking in parallel, we make a small reference for all heroes, that is I'll write for example Panteleimon, designer from Kherson. Is there anything else you'd like to say about yourself, some self-defining things, like profession, age?

ПО: Profession designer. I make money from this. But I'm also a musician, I had a cover band, we rode around the south of Ukraine very merrily. We played music that people liked, not us. We also liked what we played with this collective, these people, we had a good and fun time - rode around, met people. A little bit musician too, in short.

КА: And how old are you, sorry?

ПО: 28, tomorrow 29.

КА: Oh, I won't congratulate you in advance.

ПО: Yes, don't, I want to live to see it.

КА: We move to the last question. Please tell about the last weeks that you spent in Kherson - how much did you think that de-occupation would happen soon, that Ukrainian troops would come to liberate Kherson? Because these rumors were increasing recently, what did you think about it? How often did people talk about it?

ПО: They talked often, I have an acquaintance who knows something. She's in contact there with various SBU [editor's note: Security Service of Ukraine] people, and she told me that now you need to be more careful, prepare some water, canned food and be ready, if something happens, to run to the basement. I was always warned about such things, so there was no fear. I was ready for this, if something - took a little suitcase, ran. Here it was important to prepare yourself so there wouldn't be panic. Of course, all these news and rumors that the AFU [editor's note: Armed Forces of Ukraine] would come soon were received only with joy and no other way, because we don't need others here. When Russians entered Kherson and there were wounded among our people, we friends gathered, took money, everyone contributed what they could, the authorities also gave us 200 thousand hryvnias, we went around all pharmacies in the city, bought everything needed for treatment. And this time, when the AFU would enter Kherson, we were maximally ready for this, we're on low start, just going to help the guys with everything we can. People there are also preparing for this, and are ready, and will help our guys in every way possible.

КА: That is, in Kherson some part of people are waiting and ready to help the ZSU [editor's note: Armed Forces of Ukraine]?

ПО: I would still like to believe that it's the majority.

КА: Conditionally, does someone from Kherson say that there will be de-occupation, that Ukraine will come, and they won't figure out who to shoot at. Are there such people?

ПО: You just don't need to climb out of the basement and that's it. If they tell you: there will be street fighting, stock up on water, provisions for such-and-such time, usually we were told this from a week to 10 days, write at the entrance to the basement people/children. Just don't climb out without need. This is warned about, this is said. If someone gets it into their head during street fighting to climb out to look, breathe fresh air, then of course they will most likely catch a bullet and no one will figure out from which side, because it was warned about, why do that.

КА: This isn't a provocative question, I just talked to different people. Are you sure that you need to follow understandable wartime security and everything will be fine?

ПО: Essentially yes.

КА: And do you think there will be de-occupation in the near future?

ПО: I'd like to believe, because there were conversations. When they blew up the bridge, the occupiers themselves started spreading this topic, that Ukrainian military won't achieve anything, Kherson will be Russian, and they just blew up the bridge for nothing, only made it worse for the people themselves. And people really picked up this topic very strongly and started there: here, we were planning to go to the sea for the weekend, and they're such finished ones who blew up our bridge. Or: we got stuck on that side, what should we do now? Well damn, at least walk along the bottom, seriously. You were told - either you leave, or you sit in the basement. What were you doing going to the sea? I was supposed to leave on Wednesday, and on Tuesday they bombed the bridge. And we went through Kakhovka, there were also such conversations on the bus: here, they're such finished ones, how do we leave now? And I say: guys, are you even adequate? To hell with the bridge, we'll leave somehow. We won't drive through Kakhovka - in a couple days there will be a ferry, we'll go on the ferry. They'll blow up the ferry too, of course. And let them blow it up! We'll endure, everything's normal, if only they kick all this shit out of here. People don't quite understand what our military are doing and why. They think about how they didn't go to the sea.

КА: You told it very coolly and so much of everything! I'll ask you the last question: is there something about Kherson, about your condition, about the full-scale invasion, that you wanted to say, but I didn't ask you about it?

ПО: The whole problem is that people didn't communicate with each other at all, didn't talk. Some isolated cases reached someone, let's say, Russian authorities say they oppress the Russian language. Oh my God! How many times did I go to Lviv. Let's say, alright, we won't take Lviv, it's a tourist city, they'll treat this loyally there. You come to Ternopil, to Ivano-Frankivsk, never any incidents, unpleasantness because of language. They come to us and don't demand we speak Ukrainian with them. Of course, there are various individuals who start showing off, but they communicate with them condescendingly. Like we don't want to conflict with you, you'll leave here tomorrow-day after tomorrow, there will be a residue, but we'll talk to you in Ukrainian and get lost. The problem is just that people didn't talk to each other for quite a long time, didn't understand what was happening. We understand what's happening beyond the fence [editor's note: Russian slang for "abroad"], and they didn't understand what was happening with us. And a conflict resulted that could have been avoided. Even Crimea, we all know that in Crimea there were always pro-Russian sentiments, and it was possible even regarding Crimea to somehow agree in exchange for an endless stream of free gas. Something could have been done with this, and not turn it all into war.

КА: Unfortunately, everything is a bit more complicated.

ПО: Yes, someone just has incomprehensible unnecessary imperial ambitions. By the way, as he himself said, that if you're in power for more than 7 years, your roof can go, and he's already 20.

КА: Yes, that's right. Panteleimon, thank you very much for talking with me. It's very important now to talk about Kherson, because now few people understand what's happening there. Thank you very much, I congratulate you once more on getting out.

ПО: Yes, it was a pleasant conversation.

КА: Mutual! Alright, bye-bye!

ПО: Bye-bye!