Hayduk Kyrylo
Severodonetsk
Lviv
How did you experience war in 2014? What do you remember from that? How old were you? How did 2014-2015 go for you?
Please tell this story in detail.
In 2014, I was only 17 years old, I had just begun the path of forming my adult consciousness, stance and, as it seemed to me at the time, adult thought.Let's start from the beginning. I graduated high school in 2013 and entered a higher educational institution, a pedagogical university, to be exact. Сan you guess where? — Well, of course, in Luhansk, because in 2013 Luhansk was considered the best city in the region, plus there were a lot of universities there - there was a lot to choose from. Unfortunately, I studied in the Ukrainian Luhansk for only one year, and then drunkards with machine guns took over my dormitory and kicked all the students out onto the street. They moved me to another dormitory, but I already understood that it would not last long either. A week later, when the russians launched a treacherous airstrike in the center of Luhansk, my studies in the Ukrainian city ended. Unfortunately, at that time in 2014, many people in Donbas, thanks to the long-term propaganda of “russian world” and allegedly better life, got carried away by fables of the fucked-up neighbor... North got divided into "ukrops" and "separs". Our city was taken by the separs, thankfully not for long. That was the first time I felt all that crap that started happening in Donbas. Then I began to grow up rapidly, because explosions nearby make a collected person out of you very quickly. In 2014, our city was lucky because there were almost no hits. One of the vivid memories of that year is when there was no communication and no electricity for a week. I also remember how I shouted to my friends at the age of 7 - whether they will come out to play or not:) Remembering it at present seems funny even, since now I live in the Lion City with my girlfriend and her two little brothers. The boys' parents are both at the front, the children proclaim from the age of 7 that russians can only be dead and I didn't even teach them that!) The years 2014 and 2015 did not go very well for me, because the financial situation of my family was the worst in my entire life . I started working, working with my hands and hard. Then I started to understand that the gray matter in my head works much better and more productively than my skinny arms do. At the same time, I was experiencing a real war inside my household: who is my family for and whose side does it take? My parents spent a lot of time in russia, worked there and, of course, said that it was better than in Ukraine. I didn't want to believe it, and I couldn’t believe it, because I watched more info than my 60-year-old mother. It was a battle for 2 years. Only after visiting occupied Luhansk for a month and seeing with my own eyes what is happening there, how people live (more precisely, just survive; and even those who were "russiaworlders" began to change mid-air and whine how shitty it’s for them), only then did I achieved the first victory for Ukraine in my young mind!) It was a step in the right direction: I now believed in my anthem, in the hryvnia, in the language and in the boys from the region who went to the UAF, "Azov" and other formations.
"Where were you these 8 years?".
How has this time passed for you, what changed in your life since the events of 2014?
What has influenced you the most during this time?
Please write in detail.
For almost all eight years, while the war in Donbas was going on, I stayed in Ukraine, was growing up, searching for my own self, looking for love, looking for some way to earn money, and just living my life. Back then I couldn't pick up a machine gun, because, to be honest, I was just afraid to die without seeing anything in this life. I started working abroad, as usual - in Poland, I didn't like it there, I went to Kharkiv, then, after living there for 2 years, I wanted to go to Europe again and went to the Czech Republic. I was also and even lived in "the unwashed one", well, in early childhood - that's something I don't want to remember. Many of my friends went to defend Ukraine, but I never did... Because I wanted my brains to bring me profit and stay put in one place, and not fly out on some part of an APC or a tank. Having crossed the 20th year in the calendar, Sever evolved, became a beautiful, convenient, clean, business city, I bought myself drums again (they burned down, by the way, like my two apartments in Sever), developed creatively, won a grant for music residence, life, as it seemed to me, was beginning to gain momentum, the children loved me very much, I didn’t even think that it could be so, the studio was almost ready...
What was February 24, 2022 for you like?
Did you believe that a full-scale offensive would begin?Where are you now? What do you do?
What do you think about your future now?
I will answer the second question first: yes, I believed that, I knew, because friends from the Armed Forces and my girlfriend's parents told me a month before that a russians are gonna crawl in for the toilets. The air at home in my rented apartment was getting heavier and heavier, the tension was increasing hourly in my circles; those who didn't believe it said: "Don’t be mad, what russians are you talking about?" I didn't know back then that they are fucking toilet orcs. On the 23rd, when I wrote the date on the board, I felt that I was writing it for the last time, and that date is still written in my center.
At 6 in the morning, my best friend, neighbor and fellow teacher woke me up and said: "Kerych, get up, war". I was not surprised, I watched a video in Telegram, how a russians crossed the border in Chernobyl... I packed a grab bag, Sever was starting to get hit already, I went to my parents and was shocked: my mother said that putin is a bitch, russia is a dicksucker and so on, and my father asked: well, do we have TDF or some kind of self-defense in the city? His words: "Son, do you know what kind of last name you have?" I say: "I know, a Cossack one." And dad answers: "Get up, Cossack, let's go to the Ice Palace, the headquarters is there - we'll sign up." We left, or rather ran there, because the explosions were already nearby. It was the most terrifying trip to the Ice Palace. Only 150 people came, and I realized how many "tricolors" we have in the city. After seeing Haidai and Stryuk, I felt calmer. They wrote us down, divided, and the next day I went out to patrol the city. Unarmed. I only had my “flobert” and "pepper spray" as a weapon. The next day, the orcs came closer and hit harder, I was sent to the sacks - to pour some on the boys' positions. Almost all 14 days in Sever, I stood in the water at the STC, pouring that sand. Others made "cocktails", cooked food, patrolled and volunteered. It was nice to see the eyes of the boys from Rivne when a gazelle with 30 sacks arrived at one of the posts, and those were the best words of gratitude I could get. Then I realized that this piss bag of sand could save that boy's life, and he would save mine. My girlfriend was in Kharkiv, sitting at Saltivka in the basement. On March 4, "grad" came by my parents' house and the doors to the basement and the boiler room were completely gone. The mother started screaming, panicking, asking the father to send her somewhere. The first time I was shocked by the fact that my mother was so scared: it was hysteria, tears and laughter to the sounds of explosions mixed together. She left for the village. She went to talk to my neighbor over the fence for two weeks and then bury him in his own backyard. The neighbor got killed by orcs... At the same time, I already transferred money to Alina and told her to go to Lviv, and I myself started looking for options to get out. It was getting harder and harder. My father took me and my friend to Lyman, since there was nothing driving from Lysychansk, that was also a fucking trip. After almost 40 hours, I hugged my lady in the City of Lion. It is now July 9, we are in Lviv, I feel at home here. My parents are also with me, and almost all my friends as well. I am very glad that everyone is alive and has escaped that darkness. Regarding what I plan to do. When I arrived in the City of Lion, I entered the military register. If they call, I will go and I will not be afraid, because the russians are not really humans. I work, I help those who have nothing at all. I raise my brothers to be real Cossacks, I tell them the History of Ukraine and our significant events in this struggle for freedom throughout the millennium. I didn't go to Europe and I won't until victory. I believe that I am much more useful here. Lviv is my last "checkpoint",and if the “potatoes” (t.n. bellarussians) come, they will call me, teach me, and we will turn them into potato pancakes! I don't think about the future at all, I live one day at a time. I no longer have a place to live, I am starting all over again, and, of course, a day does not pass without a message to the universe: let all the russians die. I don't pray because I don't believe in god. There is no god, because god would not have invented rusaks!
