2023
Reflections, whining, and hate speech
I shan’t promote this via publications or otherwise. I’d appreciate it if you could read it if you see it.
Imagine you live in a big and pretty civilized City. This isn’t a perfect life, but it is comfortable enough. I’m not talking about apparent things like access to medicine, food, and work or education for your kids. There is high-speed internet in your heated house. You can pick up a beer with your friends on Fridays, go to the gym, go to a concert or fishing, walk in a park, and travel inside your country.
It would be a great life if not for one thing. Every day, a blind draw selects one City resident, not depending on his age or gender, and this person dies immediately. A little something that doesn’t give to enjoy life fully. The City is big enough, and the chance of being selected is low, but it is. There is no guarantee that the blind draw won’t choose your parent tomorrow. Or your kid. Or you.
If you scale this abstract city to the calm regions of Ukraine, you can imagine how life has looked for me for almost two years.
I do have a lot to thank in this terrible year. Living in the city that I consider the best in Ukraine. For not taking any of my friends who’re on at war now. For not taking anybody of native people, the number of whom is so tiny. I even got one more kindred spirit, and if you think about a kid now, then no.
Travel
It is constrained compared to before 2022, but it happened to me. But everything is relative: I couldn’t even dream about this at the beginning of this year. Especially when I’m finally able to share my impressions with my wife. After all, I’d like to exclaim, “God, it was damn gorgeous!” but it’s not the time to boast. And the next moment, I’m flooded by an awareness that all those great moments are in the past and, maybe, never will happen again. With my permanent pessimism, I often feel that my luck can’t go on forever and that it will one day finish.
And one day, this feeling will become the truth. Maybe even now.
But what’s done is done. So I’m leaving these stats here: 47 visited cities, villages, and nature spots in 9 Ukrainian regions. 27 of them — for the first time.
Many exciting places to visit in southern and eastern Ukraine are still marked in the navigator on my smartphone. I cannot delete them or delete marks in many European countries I’ve planned to visit. Let these marks be my single manifestation of optimism in the world where I see nothing good in the future. Because of…
WAR
I should admit: after the successes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the end of 2022, I believed that active hostilities would finish by the end of this year. Now I can see how naive I was. (I said “active hostilities,” not “war,” because it’s clear to me the war will go on in different forms while we exist or russians exist.)
Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be surprised if all will be finished in 2024, but it will hardly be a good finish. Now, I see a peaceful future in Ukraine only with joining NATO, at least a controlled part with the long and hard return of the rest of the occupied territories. But this option looks so perfect that I don’t believe it can become a reality.
Warfare until we achieve the borders of 1991 looks endless. Although, after almost ten years of alienation and disgust, I began to want to revisit Crimea. Not only to see places I skipped in the past but also to trample over fallen russian flags. But I want to return there through other people’s efforts, so my feeling isn’t patriotic but worthless and despicable.
Wars awaken the worst feelings in weak natures like mine — first, a mix of shame and fear. I know my physical conditions and abilities very well to understand that going off to the war would be a one-way trip for me (and good, if I’d not take somebody with me to hell). This transforms my life into a sad quest of avoiding mobilization. That makes travel harder, coupled with the risk of condemnation in society. It feels like a terminal illness: I have money for treatment, but treatment is impossible.
I can’t imagine how almost two years there have changed people and how to look them in the eyes when they return. With time, this abyss between civils and militaries will increase only.
Another feeling is envy for all citizens of peaceful countries who live their best lives. For our women and girls who travel abroad a few times yearly, build lives in two countries, or emigrate just because they can. I don’t want them to lose such ability. Still, I am jealous of them with all my anger, as it’s amusing to be a person who is considered a possible criminal by primary sexual characteristics. Witnesses of men’s supremacy, now you can tell me how I’m wrong.
At the same time, I realize that everything is going well for me. At least I could travel inside Ukraine. Those who hide at home are jealous of me. Those who are in the tranches are jealous of those who are at home. And those who died could be jealous of those who’re in tranches, but dead feel nothing, even envy.
I feel that WW3 is already going on. In this massacre, we selected the civilized side, but this civilization looks weak and corrupted by a sense of its imaginary superiority. Flirting with totalitarian principles led only to situations where every fucked Venezuela could change internationally recognized borders, and all pretend as if nothing happened.
If the EU and NATO can’t deal with open inner enemies like Hungary, there’s nothing to discuss. Let wise American voters select Trump again, and the game will end for the West.
Simulation
But even in such conditions, we have learned to simulate life believable enough. Sometimes Western skeptics publish photos of full cafes in Kyiv or beaches in Odesa with comments like “all is good in Ukraine, we shouldn’t help them.”
I regret I can’t tell them personally how all is good here. When after the year and a half, you so gave a fuck of air alarm that you just remain at work or shop or cafe with don’t fucking care if a missile would hit you or not. When dozens of deaths of Ukrainians every fucking day became so routine that you promised yourself to figure with a conscience out later and allow yourself to relax or even have fun (or pretend to have fun).
I don’t discuss global things like planning a new dwelling or having a kid. When a few months later, a random missile can hit your home or you, or you’d be taken to war, and the kid will remain cripple or orphan. What a wonderful life that I wish from all my heart for all skeptics.
In addition, I have no clue how to eradicate from Americans/Europeans’ conception of “bad Putin and good russians under his oppression.” It needs at least fluency in the russian language to look into the abyss of all the hell they want to do with us — 140 million clones of Putin that took our future.
While many countries live the best lives in human history, Ukrainians must wear off zombies’ invasion or die. There are some adequate units, but they can’t change anything in such a tiny number. There’s nothing to say to the rest, so I can only wish for them:
Curse
Be damned forever and ever, alive, dead, and unborn. Let all your evil come back to you a hundredfold — for all our taken lives, stolen years, and poisoned land. Live in shit, die in agony, and burn in hell. I’ll never be a good soldier, but indirectly, I’ll do my best to help the Ukrainian Armed Forces to kill you as much as possible.
In the end, it is worth saying a couple of words about
This blog
It feels good, considering I created it only for English practice and nothing more. Finding new virtual friends, readers, and interesting people to read was nice. But the leading indicator of success now is the number of email followers, which is tiny. Only these people will possibly see this article (thank you, everybody that you are!).
Besides a couple of shares on Facebook, I never promoted this blog. Despite this, I got the first boost by Medium this year, which made miracles with my statistics. For a short time, but still.
They selected a story about street art in Kherson. I think it’s not my best article, but I’m glad more people saw it. The story is about a colorful and beautiful city in the past that is dying under russian attacks now. Even in Kherson, life continues somehow. Cafes are open, and some events happen. But since its liberation in November 2022, russians have killed more than 400 civil people there.
Every day, a blind draw selects one City resident, not depending on his age or gender, and this person dies immediately.
If the Ukrainian Armed Forces don’t keep the frontline, this symbolic one person will turn into dozens and hundreds.
