In the early morning of February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian Vereshchagin family in Kharkov, through the windows of their apartment on the ninth floor, saw that the war had begun. “We rushed from one window to another, not believing our own eyes. Explosions were heard in the distance, columns of black smoke went up into the sky. It was scary to realize that the war had come to our city,” recalls Irina Vereshchagina.
According to her, by that time they had already become accustomed to thoughts of war: in the east of Ukraine, the war had been going on for eight years. “We often thought about what we should take with us if we had to flee from the bombing? As few things as possible – because you can’t run far with them,” says Irina. And then the war came to their house. The family took refuge in the basement of a nine-story building, which temporarily became their bomb shelter.
“It could hardly be called a bomb shelter. The basement could protect from bomb explosions, but less from shelling by the Russian military, there was not even a lock on the door,” recalls the mother of two children.
Children draw war
The basement was mostly used by women with children and the elderly. Frightened children had to be somehow distracted and occupied with something. And then one of the women – Anna Zavolodko, mother of three children, organized a drawing circle. These drawings could not be called joyful, the children drew war…
Irina’s eldest son, Vasily, came to his mother’s basement with his younger brother Platon. The first thing he did: he wrote on the wall a phrase that has been known in Kharkiv since the Second World War, and which was written on one of the walls of a house in the city center: “Checked. No mines found. Sn. Yegorov.” Only the day Vasily indicated a different one: 02/28/2022 (the main photo of the material).
Parents have long noticed the talent of a cartoonist in their eldest son. “It’s amazing, but nine-year-old Vasya already had drawings reflecting political events. I didn’t help him, didn’t interfere in the creative process. The child only heard the news with us and transformed them into his own pictures,” recalls his mother.
Irina’s two sons were born in fateful years for Ukraine: Vasya in 2004, the year of the first Maidan, and Platon, ten years later, in 2014, which began with Euromaidan on Independence Square in Kyiv. Children who grow up during military conflicts and wars, like sponges, absorb this disturbing time, their character and worldview are formed against its background, mother Irina believes.
Vasily studied at the Faculty of Biology of Kharkiv University for six months before the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. However, drawing remains his main passion. Vasily exhibits his work in the style of comics and political satire on his Instagram page and other social networks. But he does not like to give interviews, believing that his mother herself will tell everything about him.
Escape from Kharkov
A week after the start of the bombing of Kharkov, the Vereshchagin family decided to leave the city. “We hoped that the war would be local, for” water for the Crimea “, but it turned out to be full-scale,” says Irina. According to Irina, the Vereshchagins’ house survived, but a rocket hit the yard. There was a deafening bang. A lot of fragments scattered around, and only the frame remained of the rocket itself.
The family decided to leave the city. After two unsuccessful attempts to leave it by train, they decided to go by car. Irina’s husband, Oleg, collected gasoline in cans around the city for several days, so that it would be enough for the whole journey. The family traveled around Ukraine for a whole week. It was decided that Oleg would take his wife and children to the Polish border, while he himself would remain in Lvov. From the Polish border, Irina and her children traveled by bus to Warsaw, then by train to Berlin, and from there the family arrived in Bonn.
According to Irina, they were very well received in this German city on the Rhine. They settled in a small house of a local resident. Eight-year-old Plato goes to the third grade, Vasily was enrolled in the Faculty of Biology at the Higher School of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg). And Irina herself has been attending integration courses for three months already – she is studying the German language and the peculiarities of life in Germany.
Longing for the past and blurred prospects
Irina finds it difficult to talk about plans. “If in Kharkov at the beginning of the war we could only plan a few hours ahead, now in Bonn, when I started attending integration courses, the plans have expanded to nine months,” Irina emphasizes.
Such uncertainty depresses her. Irina does not want to live off state benefits, but she cannot earn money on her own yet. She is a graphic designer by profession. In Ukraine, she created booklets, albums, materials for exhibitions, galleries. Irina lived a full-fledged creative life, but the war crossed everything out. At the age of forty, starting all over again is not so easy. “There is no desire to gain a foothold in Germany, but at the same time it is not clear where we should return? I want to go back to my native Kharkov, where I was born and lived for 40 years, but my former Kharkov is gone, no matter how sad it sounds,” Irina shrugs.
Prospects are blurred, and ideas about happiness are very illusory. Not a single Ukrainian, wherever he lives, can say that he is happy while there is a war in his homeland, Irina is sure. Her little dream is to finally see her husband in the summer, to visit him in Lviv or Kharkov. But she doesn’t know how to do it yet. “And the biggest dream is to end the war as soon as possible! And it would become easier for all of us,” she says in parting.
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