So I would like to start with the fact that rumours about the war began all the way back in October 2021, but because we live in Europe, lived in Europe, in a developed, democratic state in the centre of Europe, no one would ever think that it would happen. Somewhere deep in their soul, everybody hoped it would stay only a rumour. But unfortunately, it became our reality. The first day of war had an ominous atmosphere, though it was present about four days before. Everyone was very tense and nervous about the escalating situation. 

I had only started studying. It was my first day at University, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. The war caught me when I was at home. When you’re asleep, you put your phone on ‘do not disturb’, and it automatically turns off. All of the notifications get silenced. But my phone was torn with all the notifications, so I opened it, and everyone was writing about some explosion. About what’s happening, asking where I am, how I am. I open the news and read that the war has started, russia attacked Ukraine, and I’m like, something weird is going on. Then suddenly, my dad walks into my room, who had just driven my mum to work, she worked in the police at the time, and says that’s it, the war has started.

Mum had been at work for three hours. He’s gathering some emergency suitcase and tells me to ‘do something’. I’m like, okay… So far, my home is intact, and everything is okay. I’m happy, but this is a very strange situation. I start gathering things, an emergency bag with some essential items and warm clothes. Our government had posted the lists of what we needed to pack in an emergency bag long before everything had begun. So once we packed everything, we just sat and waited. We also called my grandma and grandpa, who lived not far away from where we were, and we were awaiting further action. I checked up on all of my friends. Some of them live, lived across many cities of Ukraine. Some were in Chernihiv, and some in Kyiv. I’ll just mention now that I lived in Lviv, so I was in relative safety. I started writing to them, my best friend lives on the left bank of Kyiv, and she was sleeping in the subway station, underground, because literally one street from hers, a building was bombed. At that point, they were continuously missiling. 

But about how I got to Australia. My family was planning to move here regardless, and it wasn’t a spontaneous decision because of the war. We were supposed to come here around September or October to check it out and see if we liked it. We would have had the option to go home in case we didn’t feel right here, but because of the war starting, that option disappeared. And we came here much sooner, in March, without any possibility of returning. It just all happened really fast, on a lot of adrenalin and all that. It was difficult to stay in Ukraine, and I also have a younger sister who just turned 11 at the beginning of everything, and there’s the constant sound of sirens. And at first, it seems like it doesn’t really affect you; you listen to the command and go down into some bunker or a basement, but the children’s mind is affected by that. It was hard for her, and we saw that, so we decided to leave. At first, we went to Poland, then Germany, and then straight to Australia.

In regards to how we lived through it all, we lived just outside of the city, so as I had already said, I wasn’t living through any explosions; I wasn’t a witness to any bombing or fighting, but the constant feeling of pressure... When the war started, my parents and I slept in turns so that we didn’t miss any warnings. If anything happened, we could wake each other up and say, ‘okay, friends, let’s all get up and go down to the bomb shelter’. But yeah, in the night, we really took turns. Someone was up till 2 am, then we switched, and the next person was up from 2 am until 5 am, observing the situation. We were also constantly worried that we would lose light and always had to have drinkable water. It’s pretty traumatic. I remember waking up and hearing that some plane is flying past, and I don’t know what kind of plane it is. Maybe it’s ours, or maybe it’s the enemy attacking. And I remember the feeling when you just lay there, and your heart is just like *makes a long ‘e’ sound* and falls to your feet. Thank god we are okay, but to me, just that feeling of something dangerous, when you don’t know what’s going to happen, seems the worst. Our brain is programmed to always survive, so it sends us protective signals like ‘run’ or, I don’t know, ‘fight’, ‘freeze’ so all those processes are on, and it’s really hard to live a “normal life” but in an emergency regime. 

So in the first month, after we came to Australia, we experienced a huge euphoria regarding this new world we ended up in. Back then, the weather was still good in Melbourne; the sun was out, and it was beautiful. Of course, we still monitored all the news because our grandparents were still back there and my favourite dog, which we still can’t bring to Australia. We already have the documents, though. So when we came here, everything was great, euphoria... But after some time, you start slowly coming back to reality and questioning what’s happening. Honestly, I still can’t comprehend that my location point on the map is so low in some far-away Melbourne. And that’s actually very strange. To feel and to understand. 

So now that I’ve gone through all of these new experiences, I feel that it is pretty difficult to talk about this even though, as I already said, it’s much less traumatic than what some of my friends went through. One of my friends was entirely under occupation in Chernihiv, but he was able to get out with his family, so everything ended well, but he told us that they waited in line for hours to get some perishables at the shops. You couldn’t just walk in and get what you wanted; you had to get what was available and in the quantity it was available in. And you can’t do anything about that. It’s bizarre to hear this from people you have travelled the world with, with whom you have awesome memories, and learn that they had to go through something like this - in occupation, dividing produce without water, light, and reception. You’re just waiting for them to text you that they’re alive, and only then can you breathe out for a little while. But then he was able to leave, so everything was great. But understanding that you had everything - a normal life, friends, work, study, everything already built - suddenly it all falls to pieces. It’s really hard to understand that this is reality. It continuously seems like some dream. And how my other friend also lived through it in a subway station… My brain completely prevents me from understanding that this happened in real life, although I know this is the case.

In actuality, our brain is very capable. So when I came to Australia, after some time had passed, my brain tried to block out all of these negative moments because that’s just how we work. Our brain tries to protect us for as long as possible. And to be honest, I have found some grey hairs. The level of stress that I went through… it’s really showing. Grey hair at 21 years old. Some people say it’s insignificant, but to be honest, I was pretty sad. And maybe because I was sad, I got even more grey hairs but whatever. I can’t do anything about it anymore.

So regarding the war, I can say that it is obviously a horrible experience. Due to our mentality, most Ukrainians are always trying to lessen their struggle and contribution. We are quite shy people, we don’t like to dwell on our achievements, and we constantly criticise ourselves and look at our flaws. But there is no such thing as an unimportant experience. In any case, to say that any person who was in Ukraine wasn’t negatively affected is incorrect. Any experience is important and to live even two days in a country that entered war is scary.

Solomia’s Story