Well, I don’t know, maybe this will be useful at some point. I just think that these emotions, how a person makes a decision, and why it’s that specific decision are interesting.

So, before this [the war], I didn’t really follow it. I heard that everyone is constantly checking the news and that something is coming, some movement, consulates are leaving. But, as I said, I didn’t really pay much attention to it. I exited the state of toxicosis only a week ago, so for two months, I was bedridden, barely breathing. It’s that period when the body adapts to the new life that’s growing in it. Physically, this period of pregnancy is very unpleasant. So, I absolutely didn’t care about anything around me. I just lay, barely breathing. There was only one week when I felt better, opened my eyes, stepped outside, and didn’t feel sick. 

Well, in the morning, on the 24th, I got a call from my dad, who said we got attacked. That russia hit. Actions. You look at the news and see that the whole of Ukraine is being shot at. What’s the plan of action? At first, I had a, I don’t know…. I’m a person that never wanted to migrate. When I was asked what country I would like to live in, I always said (and say) that I would travel everywhere, maybe even live somewhere else for half a year, or study. Still, I’ll always come back to Ukraine. But my first instinct was that I needed to leave. I need to go somewhere, escape.

I don’t know why, but I knew I needed to reach safety. How? We have a place in the Carpathian Mountains in Hystne. We stayed there during the Covid period. During quarantine restrictions, we had this little house in a village, the last one on the street with some land. No people. When everyone was locked inside, we had our own territory where we could walk around, and that’s where Olesya [daughter] started walking. And there was no internet, which was great, and I didn’t know what was happening. So my first thought was to go there. But then you think, it’s far away from any hospital, in the middle of nowhere - it’s safer in a city.

After a few hours, my dad says there’s an opportunity to leave for Poland. Automatically, you think, why such extreme actions? We were just living fine, we were renovating our house, I’m pregnant, we are planning a second child. And now suddenly, leaving to another country? But things are happening. You’re reading the news. I’m saying to my husband Taras, what should we do? Because I don’t know, I’m packing a suitcase, but I’m not ready to leave somewhere. I don’t want to. Especially because we know that Taras won’t be able to leave. And he says, “I want to be with you”.

That day, I began to experience an extreme sort of stress. I understand that for now, everything is fine, well… it seems like it’s fine, but there’s just this awful stress. I’m not feeling it in my head, but the body does its thing. And I had this outburst of emotions, even tears, an understanding that a new reality just came upon me. My Olesya comes to me and says, “Mum, what’s wrong?” She understands that something is happening, that for some reason, something is happening to mum. She isn’t much of a talker. The child is only three years old. She sat next to me, stroked me, hugged me. She felt that there was tension.

Anyway, we left. It was hard to find any internet, and I was panicking because I felt I needed to keep updated on what was happening. Crossing the border was difficult. We couldn’t take the car because we’d have to wait still for about twenty kilometres. I’m also pregnant, and it’s the part of pregnancy where it’s still possible to miscarry.

The first few weeks after we arrived [in Wroclaw], we tried to see the city but couldn’t take any of it in. Our polish friends invited us to museums, and I’m thinking, what museums? I don’t want anything. I just want to go home. And then I started to think, I was always a warrior, always very patriotically inclined, very radical and outspoken, even during school. It’s because of the family that I grew up in. That’s my upbringing. We were taught history. Our great-grandfather was the dean of Kharkiv University, the one that led to the most Ukranisation at that time. He was shot. Grand-grandmother was tortured. So in our family, we knew all of this, and when they [the russians] came, we knew how it would all turn out.

But why did the people in those areas [Western Ukraine] not know? Why is the russian language everywhere? I just don’t understand. Do not understand. All my life, I’ve had a negative attitude towards russians. I never voluntarily spoke russian. So my point is that here I am, all patriotic, and suddenly there’s an entirely different reaction. Not that I need to go and fight. 

I was very militant in school, in university, where I met Taras. He calmed me a little bit because I was always getting myself into trouble. Now, for myself, I know what is good, but I’m not trying to convince others anymore. When the revolution of dignity began in 2014, protests were staged in most parts of Ukraine. We joined the rally in Lviv, but then we heard that our university class was planning to join the maidan in Kyiv as a group, and we just jerked there. Momentarily we decided that we needed to go, something in the head just clicked, and you, a student in your second year of university, just come home and say, mother, I’m going, and there will be no discussion. I just threw a few things into my bag, and we were on our way to Kyiv in literally an hour.

Kalyna’s Story

Just comparing that moment, when there was also tension, to now, I think that my reaction was because of the presence of a child. The aspect that drastically changes a woman’s actions - the presence of a child. A woman without a child will think considerably different than a woman with a child. I have something to protect, it’s my responsibility to protect it. And that’s it. It just sits that it’s the most precious thing to ever exist. That’s the main message I would like to share. These changes happen in psychology, emotions, moods and plans.