Our life has ceased to be normal

Sofia Cheliak lebt in der Ukraine. Die 25-Jährige schreibt von einer dunklen Vorahnung am 22.2.22, wie sich aus einer Chatgruppe, die es eigentlich nur zum Ausgehen gab, eine Hilfsorganisation wurde, vom Alltag, der aufgehört hat, normal zu sein und von Träumen.

von Zita Bereuter

Die 25-jährige Sofia Cheliak war bei der Frankfurter Buchmesse Kuratorin für den Stand der Ukraine. 2019 war sie in den „Top 30 unter 30“, jetzt arbeitet sie neben ihrem Job auch als Freiwillige. In Frankfurt hat sie mir im Herbst 2022 über ihr Leben erzählt: „We can be Heroes“.

Heute beschreibt sie für uns in Fragmenten ihr Leben in der Ukraine. Von einem Alltag, der aufgehört hat, normal zu sein.

Sofia Cheliak:

I was packing things before moving to a new apartment and texting with a friend who is now a soldier in the Ukrainian army.
- I have so many cocktail dresses , but I haven’t gone out for a whole year, I think I should throw them away.
- Come on, you keep them, when I’m back from the war I’ll wear them, your charming dresses.
- Ok
- I need to ask for your help with something... would you be the executor of my will?

- - -

On the night of February 22, 2022, I realized that a full-scale invasion was not just a shock tactic spread by information warfare. That night my friend and I were on our way home from a restaurant after having schnitzel for dinner. The air was thick with the characteristic smell of burnt paper. That night, employees of the Russian Consulate burned their documents. The whole yard was on fire. That was the last evening I spent with my friend.

On the 24th she realized, she can’t stay, and I realized, I can’t leave. We’ve seen each other only once since the full invasion began. It was at a train station in Berlin. We were drinking coffee, and she suggested I move into her apartment. She wanted her friend to stay there to look after the rest of her stuff. I agreed.

But that night, a few hours before the full-scale invasion began, I wrote about the fire in the consulate in our chat network, which was created for parties and to sooth anxiety. In that moment, our chat group for organizing parties turned into a coordination network that would host people from all over Ukraine in Lviv. In a day and a half, a network of young people who wanted to dance till the end of anxiety and joked that they were getting together to celebrate the final days of hedonism, became one of the most important organizations in the city, helping displaced people, organizing housing, and distributing humanitarian packages.

Since February 24th, we no longer know what it is to be young. Of course, from time to time we take the train to visit a friend for her birthday. You get on a train in the West, and somewhere in the East, another person gets in a car, and sets off to get to the same party. We have forgotten what it is to be young, but we constantly remind ourselves that the last thing we give to the enemy is the opportunity to bring joy to each other.

Our life has become strange. We can sit on the terrace and drink wine, let’s say, for the liberation of Kherson, and at that moment a friend who was part of the liberation of Kherson calls you, and he is happy to see someone drinking alcohol and enjoying the news. Or you may not leave the house for days, and someone will come to you to support and just be there with you, to spend his or her precious time with you. Then you go to coffee shops, to exhibitions, go to friends’ workshops and even maybe to concerts in the shelter, where the events are immune to air raid alarms.

- - -

Next to me are Ukrainian and British authors, we are abroad, in a country with a clear sky. We drink wine.
- Sofia, you are Generation Z, what is it like to be Generation Z?
- Honestly, I don’t know, by date of birth I am generation Z, but by feelings I am much older and somewhere in between.
- Don’t make it up, you are Z. David what generation are you?

- - -

If you don’t go abroad, life in Ukraine starts to seem very normal. Even in the cities close to the frontline, there are restaurants and cafés, you will be fed a delicious dinner by candlelight even if there is no electricity. But in the morning, you may not be able to drink a cappuccino, only filter coffee, because it turns out that a generator doesn’t produce enough power to run a professional espresso machine. But as soon as you go abroad and see policemen without body armour and without weapons, it makes you cry, because you look at them, and you realize that if something were to happen, they are defenseless.

Our life has ceased to be normal. This is a new normal. But when you remember that all this is not normal, your brain explodes with questions: how can a 28-year-old guy become the executor of the will of a guy who was 24? How can you - a 25-year-old girl, be asked by a guy who is not yet 30, to help him with a with a will also. Our entire reality has ceased to be normal. It’s not normal to wake up in the morning and check to see if you have messages from your friends who are fighting. You already know that you will start to panic somewhere after 5-10 days without an answer, depending on where they are serving, then you check if you need to buy something for the military and see how the fundraising campaigns are progressing and read the news. Sometimes you wake up at home without electricity - and then you can sleep a little more, because you won’t work much during a blackout.

When I turned 16, in 2013, half a year before the Revolution of Dignity and 10 months before the war in my country began in 2014, I dreamed that after finishing school I would go on holiday to nudist beaches in Crimea. I dreamed of lots of sun and sea, living in tents and going to local markets to buy fish and fruit. This dream will always be with me, and I am determined to fulfill it. At 16 you don’t yet know that sometimes it can take years to make your dreams come true, but now I understand that some dreams must be put on hold to protect your sense of joy, as well as your lives, from an abuser who suddenly decides that you, your friends, and your family are superfluous human beings.