Murdered, Shot, Shit On

КА: Let's start from the very beginning. Pavel, as I understand it, you were a wedding photographer before the war?

ПД: And that too, I've been doing photography for more than 10 years. Yes, I started with weddings and, in principle, I shot them all this time. From 2016, documentary photography became interesting to me. I studied with Misha Domozhilov at the "Dokdokdok" school, maybe you know it. It's a St. Petersburg online school, there's also offline. A very good school. From 2016, the topic of documentary photography, art photography became interesting to me, I continued shooting weddings, but also continued studying all this, comprehending it. I recently remembered that last year in Odesa I shot a wedding in the summer. In the last year there were few of them, I got tired of them, it became a bit boring, uninteresting. But yes, I shot weddings, families, children, all kinds of love stories, cute things, sweet and beautiful. Besides this, I shot cemeteries, worked with archival photography. We have such a flea market in Kharkiv where a lot of film is sold, which people shot on, mainly in Soviet times. I really liked working specifically with archival photography, finding some interesting people. I had several exhibitions in Ukraine specifically about these things, about archival ones. I also shot a short documentary film. Within the framework of a documentary film laboratory, it was also based on my work with films. Something like that, it was quite interesting.

КА: And then on February 24 the war began. You were in Kharkiv, right? How did you decide to start shooting testimonies of war?

ПД: Yes, I was in Kharkiv, near Kharkiv, literally 10 kilometers from that place. It was quite quiet and calm there. The first half day had the biggest dissonance. I was reading news, calling my mom, my ex-wife, my son's mom. They were in panic and shock, but where I was, it was quiet and calm. Winter, end of February, birds singing, snow lying. The first half day I couldn't understand what to do, I couldn't do ordinary things. Through documentary filmmaker friends, immediately there was a need for people who could help foreign journalists understand what was happening here, navigate the terrain - in general, it's called a fixer. And I wrote that I know English, I have a license, but didn't have a car at that moment. I wrote and a channel immediately contacted me. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to see everything with my own eyes, I'll be with journalists, so I'll be able to shoot. At that moment I didn't have permission for shooting. On the first day we went straight to the contact point with Russian military. There was a destroyed Russian BTR, there were already, unfortunately, a couple of civilian corpses lying, I don't know what the story was there. The first corpses I saw were civilians. I didn't approach closely, but I saw that they were there. From the first day this was one of the tools for accepting reality. We all couldn't believe that this really started, that war began. It's kind of been going since 2014, but when it's not in your home city, it seems like it's somewhere far away and not quite, sort of, war. Again, it's all propaganda, it works on both sides. Therefore, it was hard to understand. Now, of course, you look at all this differently and at the conflict in Donbas that started in 2014. But here it was maximally important to see everything with my own eyes and understand that this really, unfortunately, exists and there's no escaping from it.

КА: And you started regularly...

ПД: Yes, I started shooting, I started going out. The most pivotal moment was March 1st, when the Regional Administration building in the city center was attacked, because this is the city center, the heart of the city, the main square. I was living nearby at a friend's, because no transport was running, and I couldn't get to my home. Therefore, from the 24th I was living at a comrade's, spending nights. It was even cool, together it was somehow more fun. And March 1st it was just, yes. First of all, it was horrible. I came there, on the way I stood under a gun barrel, because on the way there's the SBU building, they were always on alert, I had to explain: who I am, what I am, show passport from afar, there was a guy from the window with a gun looking at me and saying: "Where? Stop!" I came to the square, I remember that the first 5-10 minutes I didn't even raise the camera, I just walked and tried to accept all this. There was just trash. Trees that grew near the administration were broken down to molecules, everything lying around, carrying out corpses from the building. Literally, I arrived, they started carrying out bodies, just insanity. There's a tent opposite, it's been standing since 2016, called "Everything for Victory." On February 28th, the day before, I was shooting volunteers who were doing something there, they were collecting food, warm things for military and those in need. I wake up in the morning at my comrade's, we watch this video where a rocket just flies into the building, this tent is simply demolished by the blast wave, and I was there yesterday. I ran there, I remember, asked about the main volunteer woman we met there, Yulia. Miraculously everyone in this tent remained alive. There are just sandbags standing, and they saved the people who were there. Yes, no one was hurt there, specifically in the tent. In the building, of course, many people died and there were many wounded. This day, I remember, became such... Moreover, again, I remember we were at home, we felt the explosion, because it wasn't that far, the house really shook. My comrade ran in, he also got under shelling, he was going to the store in the morning. We sat, tried to understand what to do. They stayed, because people are afraid, but I couldn't sit in place, I just wanted to go there, look, see. For me it's such a way, excuse my French, not to go fucking crazy. You understand, it somehow enters you a bit differently, like some kind of filter. The next day there was also an attack on the building next to the house, these first weeks were very hard. Shooting was for me an opportunity to somehow cope with what was happening, and I saw response, saw that people show this, broadcast, use it to convey information to the same Russians. I had a very interesting collaboration in the very first days. My comrade who lived in Kyiv, he added correspondence with his relatives from Russia to these photographs from March 1st after the attack on the regional administration building.

КА: So these are your photographs!

ПД: Yes, these are my photographs and Dima's correspondence. He indicated, simply, when they spread further, as usual authorship was lost, it's normal, I'm already calm about this.

КА: This was very powerful.

ПД: Yes, I know they spread widely. I'm very grateful to Dima that he suggested such an idea, it was really very cool. I'm getting at the fact that I saw this helps, it's at least some attempt to convey information to people there and generally to the world about what's happening here. Therefore I did this and continue to do it. Now, maybe not so actively. I've concentrated on other things now. But I continue to shoot the war. It hasn't gone anywhere, unfortunately.

КА: Unfortunately, that's true. If now there's some question you don't want to answer, that's normal, you can not answer. I looked through your Instagram before the interview, read your texts. I've been subscribed to you for a long time, Meduza indicated you I think in their list of photographers. You wrote on Instagram that when the story with Oleg happened, you needed time to come to yourself. If honestly, excuse me please, I didn't quite understand what kind of story with Oleg? Did an acquaintance or friend of yours die?

ПД: No, that's the thing, these are completely unfamiliar people to me. I was working together with a journalist from Germany. This is, let's say, friend of friends, Oleg. When this story was in Kharkiv publics here, when this happened with his wife, then it got publicity. I won't say really big, but it got some. I arranged with him, that is, I told this story to the journalist, he said yes, this is interesting, let's try to talk with him. And I called him, and we went, he showed us the place where this happened, we saw photographs. Then we went to the grave. I didn't shoot much then, I worked more as a translator. I took several shots, because I couldn't not take them - it was so powerful. But I was more of a translator, we spent most of the time driving in the car, and he told this whole story. It went so deep into me that after the meeting, we with the journalist, Christopher, we tried to come to ourselves for 15 minutes. Thank God, it was the last day, then the work ended, and after this I really spent two days coming to myself. This story... It's clear that for some personal reasons it went deep into me. But these are people unfamiliar to me, I didn't know them before. It's just that Oleg is still quite such an interesting character. Classic, excuse me, bandit [editor's note: criminal]. He doesn't hide this himself, he was connected with criminality in the 90s, in the 2000s. When he told the story, he was so open, shared his emotions, shared his experiences, he cried in front of us - he didn't care. This touches you every time when you see this, when you hear this, it enters you. Before this there was also a trip to Trostianets. In Trostianets I also heard very many stories about how Russian military didn't allow taking bodies from the street, how they simply shot people walking by. I found a person they tortured, from above, excuse me, shit on him. And there was very much of this, unfortunately. This was over some such short period of time, it all accumulated-accumulated and Oleg was such, you know, the coffin lid - such a bang. After this for several days I didn't want anything at all, tried to come to myself. And I came to myself, and I know how this is done, there are some tools for this. But it was very hard. And every time when you... The hardest thing is these personal stories, because when you read some numbers of dead, it doesn't enter you, but when you personally with a person... You climb into his piece of life, it's very hard. This touches me and continues to touch me.

КА: This really touches most of all. Can you tell about the story that touched you?

ПД: These are guys, they were married not long ago, they have a quite big age difference - Yulia was 23, and Oleg was 40-something. After the war started, they were evacuating people, helping, taking them out of Saltivka. Saltivka is the district that gets shelled the most and from the very beginning, and now it continues to get shelled. Mainly there are high-rise buildings, nine-story panel buildings, sixteen-story buildings. During one of the evacuations they arrived at the place, Oleg says people were late coming out. Opposite this house where they arrived is his gym, where he works as administrator, trainer. He and Yulia met at this gym. He ran, Yulia really loved these energy bars, and he ran for bars. During the time he was in the gym, a rocket hit right in the corner of the building under the entrance where they were standing. Oleg was also hit by debris, but he was able to get out, he wasn't hit hard, it just tore off his sneakers, he says he was barefoot. And he says: "I'm walking, carrying this bar. Thinking that Yulia probably thought I died there, and I'm bringing her a bar now." Unfortunately, he came and saw that Yulia wasn't there, she died. Moreover, the most, as always in such stories, those who were around, those they were evacuating, they were nearby, they all survived. Everyone survived except her. As I understood, this love was for him really the love of his life. I don't know at all how he carries all this. He said that after this... There everything was so bad with Yulia's body that he couldn't find the ring or understand whether it was hers or not, her wedding ring. Everything was very bad there. The shell exploded very close, so I can imagine. After this, he says he walked home on foot, barefoot, and there are probably eight kilometers to walk. Then he told about the funeral, that his friends arranged everything, he didn't deal with anything. They even took her body. He fought for a long time to take the body - there were just very active shellings at that time, but the police still allowed it, but the body couldn't be taken. He came himself two days later, I think, but the body was already gone. Friends helped there, took it, and arranged the funeral. He has their dog left. Yulia asked for this dog for a very long time, her name is Mohito, sorry, Tequila, it's a small Chihuahua. She's with him now and it seems she supports him instead of Yulia, because when we were driving in the car, he said that today was so anxious, if not for the dog, I probably, I don't know what would have happened. Yulia, as he told... He's quite an aggressive guy, you can see it, he has problems with this. And he says she knew how to calm him, stroked his back, in the lower back area and this way he calmed down. And at night, he says, this is, turns out, that night when we met him, he says that just that night the dog scratched his back with her paws, he woke up from this and calmed down. Now he's with this dog. He stayed in Kharkiv and continues to help people, takes them out, delivers humanitarian aid, medicine. And looks every day for meaning, why he should wake up and live further, because, well... We communicate with him sometimes. Periodically I write to him. I don't know why, I'm interested in what's happening with him. This story touched me very much, went very deep into me. We maintain contact like this. I won't say often, but we correspond periodically. That's the story.

КА: You also said you traveled to Trostianets. Can you tell about this trip and about this story of the person who told you about torture?

ПД: This isn't about torture, I saw them myself. We arrived among the first journalists, it happened that everything worked out for us that we arrived there among the first. Literally, our military entered the day before. We arrived, just then all the locals were signing up for territorial defense and everyone was so glad they could come out. They sat for a month without light, without news, without anything. They were all incredibly glad, they were all very open and told about these horrors. We went into the police station there, we understood... It was so dirty there, they're just some kind of pigs. Even pigs compared to them are some kind of noble animals. Again, they left and shit on the second floor in every office. They had a performance. They wrote on the board: "We didn't want this war, but you were silent for 8 years." That was the message on the board in the assembly hall of the police station. The city was horribly shit on, littered with these paper dry rations of theirs with a star, you know, such green ones. The station was just horrible. They stood there, actually the station, they fucked up this place, leveled it with the ground, our artillery worked well there. And people shared very... So you understand, people couldn't bury because access to the cemetery was closed by the Russians, they didn't let them bury. Therefore many graves appeared during this time, and people die both from shelling and just from old age. And many graves appeared in people's yards. That is, they buried in their own yards because they didn't have access to the cemetery. Very often, and I heard several such stories, one I actually went to, I have photographs where a man stands at a grave. His son was shot by a sniper, and for several days they couldn't take the body. And only when his mother came and asked, then they were even allowed to bury. About torture. Here no one told, more precisely, they told. We met a local journalist there, she told about several guys. They detained them, took them right on the street, led them away, tortured, beat them. I won't say they beat them to death, thank God, they're alive. But they beat them, and somehow tried mentally, and threatened. And the person I personally saw, yes, this was a garage near the regional administration, the local administration building in Trostianets. They got him out of the garage, but he was in this pit, you know, such a pit for cars, for inspection. He was in the pit and these, I don't even know what to call them, shit on top. They killed, shot and shit. He was with hands tied behind his back, naturally they tortured him, his face was quite beaten up. It's unclear whether they shot him in the face or beat him. And there are many such stories there. They also shot a taxi driver, he stood in the car for a long time and they didn't allow taking the body. Credit where it's due, thank God, they didn't touch girls. Thank God, this isn't Bucha, not Irpin. Probably it was a different unit. But again, the question is that it's unclear if anyone will say. All the same it's such a taboo, everyone is shy, everyone is afraid. But apparently at that moment about rapes, I, thank God, didn't hear. There were also cases when they behaved humanly, if you can say so. A woman told, they came to her when it was freezing, two Russian military came to her, one was like some kind of Buryat, they asked to spend the night. She says: "What are you, you came to my house with weapons. No, I won't let you in." And they turned around and left. But there were those, people called them Chechens and Kadyrovites, but then they figured out, these were either Ossetians or someone of eastern nationality, Caucasus. They evicted several houses, just threw people out of the house and lived there. People were afraid to just walk on the streets. They broke everything there, looted all the stores. Yes, of course locals also stole a bit, but most of the looting was [by Russian military]. Moreover, they looted to the point of ridiculous, there, a second-hand store. I later saw at the position where the Russians stood, these things were lying around, children's tights. Probably they tried to somehow warm up, because they were standing stupidly in the ground and didn't have everything well equipped for winter. It was visible that they also weren't having fun there. They're to blame themselves, they shouldn't have climbed in. So yes, in Trostianets we heard a lot of everything. They shelled the hospital, they took positions and from a tank fucked it up for unclear reasons. They fucked up the administrative building with a tank. They behaved there, unclear why... It was funny, in Trostianets there's a chocolate factory. And the head of security service had to sometimes communicate with them, because bread baking was organized in a store there, and he supplied them flour. Locals organized themselves. But then when the Russians came and subdued everything, they had to ask them for all this. Also an interesting fact that they wanted to distribute humanitarian aid, the one at the factory, which belongs to the population anyway. They wrote an announcement: "Come with passports." Naturally, no one came.

КА: This is, of course, always about such a huge backbone in every Ukrainian.

ПД: Yes, yes. There local territorial defense members who were underground there showed us videos of how they fucked up these tanks with grenade launchers. That is, partisan movement works. The mayor of Trostianets from the first day left the city, he somehow organized work in neighboring villages together with the military. How much he organized work there I don't know, but the very fact that partisan activity worked, people worked, meaning they didn't let them relax for a single day. In general, everyone worked so that these people, unlikely these are people, so they would leave.

КА: There's a good word orcs.

ПД: Yes, I agree. You know, there's a funny meme when an orc says: "Don't insult our nation." It seems to me even orcs are too good for them. It's like the meme: "What are you?"

КА: They haven't invented such a word yet.

ПД: Yes, unfortunately or fortunately, not yet. Maybe they'll invent one later. In general, it was horrible. This was the first city I saw after occupation. Locals said that fascists didn't behave like they did. This was visible from what happened to the city, how it looked, and how people spoke about it.

КА: With Trostianets the situation is horrible, but it became more or less clear. Can you now return to your native city, to Kharkiv, can you tell - this last month you've been there, what's happening in the city?

ПД: Unfortunately, people have already gotten used to the war, I've gotten used to the war. The first several weeks were very hard, when there were attacks on the center practically every day. Buildings that are historical monuments, just before the war I shot a lot of architecture including Kharkiv's. We were preparing together with an architect woman a guidebook to architectural Kharkiv. I just shot a lot and thank God I managed to shoot this before the war. Let's say, the Palace of Labor - this is a building from the beginning of the 20th century, an architectural monument. It, of course, is subject to restoration, but the very fact that it's broken is already not very good. It was very hard because the city turned into a ghost town. No people, no cars. You walk, broken buildings, debris lying on the streets, gloomy February weather. I call Kharkiv little St. Petersburg, there's also gray sky, leaden. It was very hard, no people at all. You walk through the city center, there are broken shop windows, in some the alarm sounds. Really like post-apocalypse, only cars drove and even those extremely rarely. Now already, the last two weeks, people are returning, people walk in parks, try, at least, to walk. They try to find some consensus with the war, it hasn't gone anywhere, we hear it, hear the work of our artillery, sometimes some incoming explosions. We've already learned to distinguish what's incoming, what's outgoing - we studied the vocabulary of war. And now somehow people try to live, life goes on, the weather is beautiful - now everything is turning green, blooming, very beautiful. Kharkiv is a very green city, lots of parks, there are places to walk. It was always famous for this, also for its cleanliness, but that's already such a joke. Yes, that is people try, but the war is here. Saltivka gets shelled constantly, Industrial gets shelled. Districts that are at the edge of the city, they are constantly subject to attacks. Well and in the center literally a week ago there were several hits, people died, wounded. There's no safe place in Kharkiv now, but people live, try to live. A couple of coffee shops opened, you can drink coffee. There became a bit more people, probably because of the weather, because the weather improved, it's warm, good. We got used to this, you don't pay attention anymore. They bother you, of course, these destroyed buildings in the city center, but they cleaned them up a bit, removed fragments. If you go outside the city, there's generally peaceful life, everything is beautiful, birds sing, trees bloom. It's difficult. I was outside the city for some time, several days, it's very hard to return here again, to war. It's not cool to come here, but when I arrived, then ah, well okay, everything's okay, life goes on. The first several weeks were very hard, the first month was very hard. Then everyone got involved, unfortunately.

КА: This is understandable, you also have Sumy nearby, which also...

ПД: Sumy didn't get hit as hard, as I understood, Akhtyrka got hit hard. This is such a small town on the way from Kharkiv to Trostianets. They dropped 500-ton bombs on Akhtyrka from the first days. I personally saw this crater, probably 8 meters in diameter and 5 meters deep. Trostianets also got hit. And Sumy, apparently fate passed them by. Some destruction is there of course, I didn't see, but I hope not as strong as in Kharkiv.

КА: Kharkiv also has such a territorial feature - on one side you're located close to Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, which is now such a rear, and on the other side - it's equidistant from Donetsk and Luhansk.

ПД: Yes, to the Russian border it's 40 kilometers, to Belgorod 40 kilometers. Here until 2014 half, well not half, part of Belgorod came to Kharkiv to relax, go to cafes, restaurants, to the market - we had Barbashovo, yes and still have, though partially it's not there. Very many Russians came to us here, peacefully spent time. That's the whole absurdity of this situation. And Trostianets, and Kharkiv, and Sumy - these are all Russian-speaking cities. Here 80% of people speak Russian, they have family connections with Russia. That is, these are someone's relatives, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles. We talked with a woman, she has an aunt in Russia. They say: "If you're being bombed, it means you need it." These are people who came to Kharkiv and they incredibly liked it here, they came here to visit, and now they say well, it means you need it. Well some kind of absurdity, just absurdity. In Trostianets there was also a story about that guy who was shot by a sniper. Then already, after the funeral, some senior officer from these Russians, he apologized to the mother. And the father of this guy who was killed, he said he apologized in surzhik [editor's note: mixture of Ukrainian and Russian languages], that is, in a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian. This just doesn't fit in your head.

КА: That's true. My second cousins live in Odesa and our common relatives tell them approximately the same thing: "It means it's necessary. It means you deserved it." This is just some kind of absolute brain explosion. How in general are things with humanitarian problems in Kharkiv? Is everything okay with water, electricity, food?

ПД: It depends on the district of the city. In Saltivka there's no water, no electricity, nothing. There people walk to charge phones 5-8 kilometers away. With food everything is normal, stores, supermarkets. Again, depending on where. Where it's more or less safe, there everything is good, stores work there, supermarkets, moreover the selection is like before the war. Thank God, everything is normal. But in districts where there's constant shelling, the same Saltivka, nothing works there. You need to constantly bring there, there are queues. Given that there's constant threat of shelling, they stand in queues for 4-5 hours for chicken, porridge and so on. Everything depends on the district where people live. In most places everything is normal. There's water, there's internet, here we're talking, there's gasoline, also thank God there are no problems with this. But there are moments, again, depending on the district.

КА: I just opened the map, Saltivka and Industrial district - these are right on the border...

ПД: Yes, yes. Well not exactly border, this is the edge of the city and simply from that side Russian troops are trying to enter, therefore these districts suffer most from shelling. Saltivka, Industrial, Horizon, Sunny, Pyatikhatki and Zhukovsky. Pyatikhatki and Zhukovsky - this is from Belgorod side, well and Alekseevka. Most of all it's Saltivka. Saltivka is a huge, one of the biggest residential districts in the former CIS republics. Before the war about half a million people lived there, 350-400 thousand people in just one district Saltivka. Now practically the whole district is just ruins. There are no windows there, very many buildings no longer can be restored, everything is very sad there. But in most of the city, the center, everything is good. Now you can drive through the district, you see lots of people, markets work, people hang out, walk with children. Such light absurdity too. It's clear, on one side war, on the other, you need to live further. It's unclear how long this is, when this will end. Everyone, of course, really wants this to end as quickly as possible.

КА: But with victory. Only with victory.

ПД: Yes, yes. This goes without saying, that with victory, of course, everyone waits for victory, everyone believes and knows it will be. But people want it yesterday.

КА: You said that Saltivka suffers because Russian military are trying to enter the city. It turns out battles are going on now for entering Kharkiv?

ПД: They're kind of nearby, they're very close to the city. They're not even trying to enter the city anymore. They had an attempt, on some day they broke through the defense. Several sabotage-reconnaissance groups, but they were immediately very quickly liquidated. Now I don't even know what they want. They constantly shell. It's clear that ours are trying to somehow push them back to the Russian Federation border. Probably they're shooting back, I don't know. But from Chuguev side they're trying to pass. They're trying to occupy as much territory as possible. It's not clear why they need this and what they'll do with it, but they're trying.

КА: How did you just say? From the side of...

ПД: Chuguev, this is southeast, from Donetsk side, from there they're going, trying to go. There also a residential district suffers strongly, called Horizon.

КА: Correct me if I'm wrong. I remember, in Kharkiv a maternity hospital was damaged or not?

ПД: Maternity hospital yes, there it was nearby, it turns out.