In 2014, I was 16, and Vadym was 23. That year I was supposed to finish high school. We started dating in August 2013 and immediately knew that we wanted to get married. We planned to move to Crimea after I get my diploma. I wanted to enter the faculty of philosophy at the Taurida National University in Simferopol.
Back in 2013, we bought tickets in advance for the concert of one of our favorite bands — Psychic TV, which was scheduled to take place on May 28 in Kharkiv. We were looking forward to the trip, but it was not destined to happen. The concert was first postponed, and then canceled. In May, from that returned money we bought train tickets on the Donetsk-Uzhgorod train and left our hometown forever.
The point of no return was March 2014, when Donetsk became one of the centers of the separatist movement. But it met resistance from the pro-Ukrainian local population. We were among those who did not support pro-russian sentiments and tried to express it loudly. Rallies became the main ground for this. March 13, 2014 — a rally for the Unity of Ukraine — was the turning point, the day when we realized the inevitability of war.
The central square was divided in half - the separatists who were brought here with local titushkas stood under the monument to Lenin, and peaceful pro-Ukrainian citizens on the opposite side of the square. "Ikarus" buses were also standing near the monument to Lenin, on which "anti-Maidan activists" were brought. Donetsk was touristy perhaps during Euro-2012, but a few days before that many "tourists" appeared in Donetsk. I was repeatedly asked on the street how to walk or drive somewhere. Even on the way to the rally, they asked for directions to the square.
Our peaceful assembly was pelted with “zelenka”, explosive packages, and eggs. Among us were elderly people and parents with children, but the separatists did not stop their aggressive actions. Even during the speech of the priest who called everyone to peace (in Donetsk there was mainly the Moscow Patriarchate, but that didn't stop them either). When it became clear that the anti-Maidan protesters would break through the police line, the guys defending the rally came up to us and told us to disperse, explaining the safest ways to retreat. It ended with the police allowing the anti-Maidan activists to break through to us and start a fight. The numerical advantage was not in our favor. One guy from our side was killed - 22-year-old student from Bakhmut, Dmytro Chernyavskyi. This was the first victim of separatists in Donbas.
Soon, checkpoints began to appear around the city, people with weapons and without identification started guarding the bus stops. Against this background, numerous pro-Ukrainian rallies continued to take place. They also did not go without violence from the separatists.
A trip on a trolley bus around the outskirts of the city was forever etched in my memory - I looked out the window, and military vehicles with chechens drove by, they were brandishing machine guns, laughing and waving their hands.
We left on the last day of spring 2014, even before the start of active hostilities. And then every day we had to receive alarming news. My friends were captured - "to the basements", where the Ukrainian military was tortured close by. In September, the house where my mother and grandmother stayed was shelled. My mother was at work, and my grandmother was concussed and died a few days later.
The Russian occupation became a tragedy, but it was not a surprise. The conditions in which people lived and worked in Donetsk, the way they treated each other, their perverted values ​​and hopes — all this inevitably led to war. We always wanted to escape from this impoverished steppe city, stretched between mines and terricones, but not at such a price.
We chose Uzhhorod by chance, at first we wanted to go to Lviv. But a few weeks before departure, we learned that our friend DJ Maksym Rudskyi and his girlfriend had already left and rented a house in a village near Uzhhorod. He then suggested that we go here too, so we did. In two days, we rented an apartment and soon sheltered two of our friends — Oleksandr and Ruslan, who also left Donetsk. Since we were all musicians inspired by the dark scene, in October 2014, while living together, we decided to create a DIY post-punk project. This is how the band Dahau Holidays was born. https://dahauholidays.bandcamp.com/
In 2015, Vadim and I got married. In the same year, together with friends from Uzhhorod and Rivne, we decided to organize our own label. We called it Nava Records. https://www.instagram.com/nava.records/
The first release of Nava Records was the album "Night after rave" by the post-punk new wave band Save Switzerland, whose vocalist Danya Senichkin (Bejenec) was also a refugee from Donetsk. Nine albums were subsequently released on CD and cassettes by Nava Records.
In 2014-2016, I studied at UzhNU at the Faculty of russian Philology. I chose this specialty by chance, I simply submitted documents to those faculties that were suitable for the subjects of the ZNO exam that I passed. The first call was from the Faculty of Philology, they said that I passed, I did not wait for calls from other faculties. After moving, I was very mentally exhausted. It was a time when I reflected on how my childhood in Donetsk affected me, but I was happy that I moved.