Zhanna K., 40, artist, Kiev
Interview: Nataliya Yefimkina, 2/26/2022.
“Hello Hello!
Well, what can I say!!! I am an artist. I make contemporary art. Zhanna Kadyrova, 40 years old.
Tomorrow we are not allowed to go outside … even continuously not until Monday. There will be manhunts. Numerous Russian saboteurs have entered Kiev – they put some markers, put toys filled with explosives. Tomorrow ours will clear it all up and clean it up.
Air defense is constantly heard in the city. And right now it’s banging. When we were saying goodbye to Gina, there were four bangs. And again, another loud bang. And the salvos of machine guns can be heard in the city – it’s very blatant.
From tonight until Monday 8 o’clock we are not allowed to go out. That’s the situation. We’re sitting with the lights off, so to speak, that’s the rule now. Our windows are taped so that splinters don’t hurt us if they suddenly … and from the outside everything is covered with plywood.
We live in the basement – today we slept in the basement. And tonight is really the first night we ever slept. The last two days we couldn’t sleep at all because it was so scary. Now we’re kind of used to it and we’re focusing on optimistic news and we’re hopeful. Honestly, we’ve kind of gotten used to the explosions. The fear is starting to fade and I see that everyone has gone to war: even artists and musicians, my friends. A lot of people really got machine guns – even the Dynamo soccer team – so actually a lot of people.
Tell me, do you remember the band Boombox / Бумбокс?
White wallpaper, black dishes. Don’t you remember?
N.Y: No.
Gee, that’s a super famous band. In short, the whole group went to war. In Kyiv, normal civilians are not given weapons at the moment. First of all, they issue them to people with military experience, because a simple person without experience is of little use. They would just be cannon fodder. We don’t need cannon fodder, we need action! That’s why they give priority to arming people who have at least some military experience. Or that the person has at least been in the army.
In our house, we have a small basement. Three of us sleep in it and we can’t stretch our legs because the room is a little shorter than us, especially for Denya it’s like that. But he rebuilt the stairs, they don’t bother so much now. But today we were in the basement, everything, thank God, went well – it is the only safe place in our house.
When we used to sleep upstairs, every time there was an explosion we would jump up and run. Now we always go straight to the basement, the explosions aren’t so loud there, we slept there from one to seven or eight o’clock after all – I can’t say exactly.
I don’t even know what time we got up. We were even surprised that the three of us, my mother, Denya and I, got enough sleep. Well, we just slept – as much as possible.
We are organizing ourselves, a new bridge is being built right next door. Today a self-organized defense squad is going through the gardens. Markers have been left there. The markings were made so that Russian troops could orient themselves. Everything is marked and described: here is police, here is no police. They have their own language, and they put these signs everywhere in Kyiv – on the asphalt, on house roofs, on bridges. And the task of people – when they see these markings – we all see them on the Internet – is to cover them up, to conceal them with sand. If you just paint over them, they’re still visible under UV light. So we just have to make them disappear.
Today it was especially hard in Chernighiv – a kindergarten was completely destroyed, several houses, in Kyiv there were hits in an apartment building.
N.Y: Oh, do you hear all this? Can you see it?
I hear about it, but I don’t see it. Kyiv is far away, and big. But I can hear very well the different kinds of projectiles being fired. Sure, there is a war going on, and ours are fighting! No one is going to give up. In fact, even the artists have already taken up machine guns.
Do you understand? Nobody wants to be Russified. We can’t stand that. We have our own history. We have a completely different self-image! We will not be able to live in a police state.
When people ask me what help I’m going to give, I’m going to say that the main help is that you all get out! Because this is really a one-man war against Ukraine and its people, not the Russians’ war against us.
Now all the bridges are mined. And there is patrolling because there are very many saboteurs. In the center they want to push through to the right bank. The right bank is strategically important because that’s where the government is. That is the center of the administration, so to speak. Now it is strictly forbidden – we have a curfew, and we cannot go out. During the day there were reports that you can’t cross from the left bank to the right bank. It used to be possible, but now all the bridges are mined. There are checkpoints and they are guarded. That means if you cross the bridge, you have to know that you will be shot at.
N.Y: Do you have anyone fighting?
We don’t know at all if we’re going to see tomorrow. You wake up and – it’s a miracle – you woke up. That’s how it was today. We woke up – it was already light. After two all-nighters. We didn’t get any sleep. And, of course, the whistling of the rockets, which has never been heard before. Now we are already used to explosions and when we hear that the explosion is far away, we also go through the streets, into our gardens, around the house. We are not afraid when it is far away. And when it gets closer, we run into the house.
N.Y.: It’s terrible that it’s every day! When you say day by day you guys survive.
Yes, because we can’t know. The people where rockets hit, they didn’t know before either. People sat in air raid shelters, damp and cold, how terrible. They were giving birth in the subway. Did you see the news that a baby was born in the subway at night?
N.Y.: Yes.
Terrible. Sure, we still have relatively comfortable conditions because we have our own basement – small, but … I brought my mother, so that makes it easier for me. I also wanted to take my aunt. I didn’t succeed, the first day my aunt didn’t want to go. We had agreed that she would come the next day, but we couldn’t call a cab because the alarm was already howling violently and the cars weren’t running. And the aunt is now stuck in the Obolon neighborhood. Now all the bridges are blocked and we can’t bring the aunt to us, she is also an old person and now alone.
Our morning starts with the call ritual is everyone still there?! My sister was walking the dog outside today and heard a loud noise – she didn’t understand what was going on at first. Then it turned out to be a missile hitting an apartment building. Right then. She quickly took the dog and ran back into the house. The dog didn’t even have time to poop, it was so violent. We didn’t know what we were in for at all. This is the first time we are learning how to live in a situation like this – we are learning from our own experience. There are no instructions… The first day – was so terrible. We just couldn’t imagine it, the brain refuses to believe it. I don’t think you can really believe it either.
N.Y.: Unbearable!
Yeah. It’s unbelievable. You know, it’s quieted down a little bit, we’re sitting here almost normally, we’re talking on the phone. Almost like a family reunion. You know, when my parents came to see me, the family gathered, the sun was shining, the birds were singing. For a second you forget, then you wake up – and it’s terrible. And you think damn…
Actually, our area is relatively safe right now. But nobody knows what their plans are and from which side they will strike. Yesterday there was very strong fighting on the right bank. And on the left side, far from us, salvos were heard. That is, we heard fighting from two sides – from the right bank and from the left bank. And now in the center of the city machine gun fire. Saboteurs are at work in this war. Apparently, they put on our uniforms and disguise themselves. They change their license plates, they stole an ambulance, they ride in an ambulance, they stole a police car – that is, these are the people who are working for Russia to conquer Kyiv, you know? But here everyone is against them. And here is not the Donbass, where at least part of the population was loyal to Russia. There, the population was brainwashed by propaganda. At the moment, this scenario will not work in Kyiv. Kyiv is still standing.
I didn’t want to run away because I didn’t want to leave my mother. Gina was ready to leave. Meanwhile, it is impossible to leave. True, there are free trains going west. But the crowds are so big. It’s like being on the subway at rush hour. People with children are given priority to be taken away. And rightly so, they take people with children. My aunt and sister also said they weren’t going anywhere.
In short, I don’t know if this motherfucker is going to nuke this place now, well, I guess that’s our fate. Moving to Poland would hardly save us from the atomic bomb.
Everyone is against it, Natasha, not 99%, not 99.5. Really everyone! Ukraine is so united now. We have the experience of the Maidan. The first and the second. We are prepared, we have the experience of solidarity – it has already been established that we will help each other immediately – we will coordinate and do everything, even if we risk our lives and everything else. This is something that cannot be predicted when a war is planned. It really wasn’t predicted. And therein lies our strength hidden, so to speak. At least now we are very moved by the fact that the whole world has joined us, that there are demonstrations all over the world in support of us. That is incredibly supportive. And it’s very important for us.
And the first thing I asked the people who write to me about how they can help: Talk about us, take to the streets! Post on Facebook, put stickers, just talk about us! That’s the best help for us right now.”