“Pack As If You Will Never Return”: A Researcher’s Story About Her Experience of Forced Exodus Abroad.

– Please tell us, what do you remember about the last days before the war?

Most of all, I remember meeting my friends. I have two friends in Kyiv, and twice a month we would meet up, go to a café and chat, it’s a tradition we had. During our last meeting, Natasha asked me: “Do you think there will be a war or not?” We talked about it a bit and agreed that there would be no war. I remember that my friends were interested in my husband’s opinion because he was taking part in the military operations in the ATO [1]. However, he did not share his thoughts with me, he just kept packing his emergency backpack.

– Did your husband predict that there would be a full-scale invasion?

After returning from the ATO, my husband kept adding things to his emergency suitcase. He was constantly buying things, things he wouldn’t even show me. One day he asked me: “If there is a war, where do you want to be, in Kyiv, or will you go to your mother?” I couldn’t accept it at the time, I didn’t believe that things would develop as they did. I answered that I would not want to be far from Kyiv. When the war broke out, that’s exactly what happened – we didn’t go far from Kyiv, and it was a mistake.

– Did you stockpile any strategic supplies?

I did not, but my husband did. My husband said that everyone in the house should have a two-week supply of all the essentials. As a rule, in two weeks the criticality of a situation decreases, but for this initial period, there should be an essential supply to hand. For example, he bought large ten-litre bottles and constantly changed the water in them. He bought different cereals too. So we had enough food and water for probably more than two weeks.

– What do you remember about the 24th of February?

My husband woke me up with the news that the war had begun. He said: “It has started. We are being bombed!” I heard very intense movement coming from my neighbour’s apartment, they are refugees from Donetsk. They stayed in the basement all day. We [with other neighbours – O.K.] did not come out, but they did; they were afraid. They only came out of the basement in the evening.

Everyone who lives in our apartment building is from the Academy of Sciences, and we are all friends. We consulted each other about what to do. My neighbour, who moved from Donetsk, said that we should stay in a remote village, and I believed him. I remember him saying that they [the Russians – O.K.] would most likely take Kyiv, and that there would be a guerrilla war, because our people would never surrender. Then I got scared, thinking that people like me [Ukrainian scholars in humanities – O. K.] would be the first to be killed. I realised that I had to leave.

– Was your husband called to his military unit?

He was not called up. He has a Ph.D., he is over forty years old, and he was not subject to conscription. But everyone else from his former unit came, those who hadn’t died. Everyone came [to re-enlist] at once. He wanted to go to his unit – he had served near Mariupol – so he immediately called and asked what he should do, and he was told: “Go to your military enlistment office. They will give you an assignment”. Back then, Kyiv was in great danger, so he stayed to defend the capital.

“I will never forgive the occupiers for making my children say goodbye to their father forever several times”

– What did you decide to do?

We left on the morning of the 25th of February. We barely got into the car [because it was packed with belongings]. We also took Ivan and Anya [Iryna’s son and his girlfriend – O.K.]. We went to the village of Sobolivka in the Makariv district, Kyiv oblast’. Anya’s parents insisted that we go there. The house where we settled will be a hundred years old next year. We thought that we would be independent there; there was a fireplace, a stove, a well in the yard, and a forest nearby, so we could live there.

– What did you take with you?

When I was packing, I asked my husband: “How should I pack?”. He replied: “Pack as if you were never coming back”. So I took my two favourite icons and my family albums. It was actually very important for me to return to Kyiv so that my husband’s words would not come true. In Sobolivka, I said goodbye to my husband forever. And my children said goodbye forever to their father. I will never forgive the occupiers for making my children say goodbye to their father forever several times: when he left for the first time as an ATO soldier; and then we said goodbye to him on several other occasions. We tried not to let the children understand, but they have a very strong bond with their father. I remember we all stood in a circle, hugged each other, and remained silent. We really didn’t know if we would see each other again.

I took a lot of things. We had a lot of food because Serhii [Iryna’s husband – O.K.] had bought a lot of things. I then shared the food in Sobolivka. Some neighbours came from Borodianka, and they had very little food. We gave them pasta and other food.

My children and I went to Sobolivka to visit Anna’s, my sister-in-law’s, relatives. Her parents remained under occupation in Makariv because they have dogs, and their neighbours left them their dogs too; they could not go anywhere with the animals. During the whole occupation, they were in the cellar with the dogs, and there was no outside communication with them. Anya could not get through to Makarov at all – she was very worried. I just kept telling her: “Anya, don’t worry! Bad news comes faster. Since you don’t know anything, they are alive”. Still, some information was coming from Makariv; people who knew the roads were walking around. I thought that if, God forbid, they had died, we would have been informed immediately. They survived because other neighbours left them chickens. They ate only eggs, there was no bread.

– Please tell us more about your life in Sobolivka.

Makariv, Borodyanka and Zhytomyr highways are all located near Sobolivka, so we were always hearing shelling. Helicopters were constantly flying overhead, and we didn’t know whose they were, even though they were flying quite low. Once, at the beginning of our stay, we heard someone knocking on the door. I asked my son: “Ivan, open the door, someone is knocking.” He opened the door, but no one was there, even though the knocking continued. And I realised that the knocks were explosions that were banging on the door.

In Sobolivka, we set up a cellar. We took old jackets and shirts there. While I never went down there, the children did. Later, after we had already left, our hostess (the old lady with whom we had been living) used it. Some time after, the village was heavily shelled, and three houses burned down. Fortunately, we had already left then, so my children did not see it. The neighbouring village of Kodra was also heavily shelled – one child died, and the mother and another child were hospitalised with injuries. After that incident, half the village left, especially those with children. I can’t say exactly how many, but a lot of people left.

We kept a food supply in the cellar, but I also told my children: “Take a bucket of food and bury it closer to the forest, because it may happen that they will take all our food.” They took a plastic bucket, put a lid on it, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and buried it. [Because I knew] the history of the Holodomor, I decided that we should hide some of the food. I told the children as well: “If the invaders come, let’s keep an axe to hand. If they enter the house, we will fight them!” We were so naïve! Once we told the volunteers about our intentions (they started coming to the village, bringing bread, as we had none), and they said: “What sickles? What axes? When they come to the house, give them everything you have, or better yet, leave!” I didn’t want to leave, I didn’t want to leave! I thought that soon everything would be “over” here, and then it would be too far to return.

– What exactly made you evacuate your family from Sobolivka?

Sobolivka is a small village; it is not even marked on every map. To phone my husband, who stayed in Kyiv, I had to walk two kilometres from the village to a hill. The connection was terrible: you would hold the phone high above your head and shout. At first, Serhii said: “They shouldn’t come there.” But one day our military arrived in two big vehicles. The next day, other soldiers arrived. Then Serhii said: “You must get out of there! If our soldiers have come, then others may come.” At the same time, there were rumours that convoys were being broken up near Makariv and that the occupiers were walking around the villages with weapons. That’s when I started to consider the possibility of leaving.

– How did you manage to leave? Was it difficult?

It was very difficult. We had to go to the neighbouring village, Kodra, to keep moving, and we had to walk through the forest. We just hoped that the forest was safe. Kodra is about six kilometres away, if not more, and it’s all through forest. If it wasn’t for Anya, we probably wouldn’t have found the way. Anya knows the area. She’s local and her aunt lives in Kodra. At that time, the main roads were littered with logs and concrete blocks. So, you had to know the small forest roads. We took hardly any belongings. I didn’t worry about clothes and shoes because I was going to move to my sister in Lviv. I knew she would give me something to wear. She also told me that there was food in Lviv. So I left most of the food with my hostess, with whom we lived in Sobolivka.

– What happened to that food supply?

We got it in the summer when we went to visit Grandma Lionia [the hostess with whom we lived – O.K.]. She knew what food we had buried and where.

“People were ready to keep silent about the hardships they had, but they were eager to thank the Poles”

– What were your plans?

When we arrived in Lviv, I started applying for research fellowships abroad. My colleagues told me that there were such opportunities. After a while, I received a reply from France, where I am currently. I was offered a scholarship from the Pause programme. However, the bureacracy took six months.

– As far as I know, before you went to France, you were affiliated with the Polish Academy of Sciences. Tell us more about that.

Yes, I left Lviv for Poland because my sister’s place was very crowded. There were nine of us in a small apartment. A Polish woman I didn’t know at the time, Ewa, invited us to live with her for a while, so we went to Poland. At that time, I did not have a scholarship in France, and the application process was very long. In Poland, I obtained a three-month scholarship at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) … because of that, I worked with PAN for three months.

– What was your work like? Were you involved in the academic life of the Institute?

I collected oral histories of female refugee experiences in Poland. A colleague of mine, Katarzyna Kość-Ryzhko, became my academic advisor. Later, I presented a report at the Institute. Katarzyna’s book about Chechen refugees in Poland [2], which she gave to me, was very important to me. I wrote a review of this book [3].

– How did you settle in Poland? Where did you live?

I’ll tell you about finding a place to live, it’s an interesting story. Once I went to church in Łódź before Easter. There were journalists there who were preparing a story about the Ukrainian celebration of Easter. However, it was difficult for them to communicate with the Ukrainians in the church because the Ukrainians did not speak Polish. I am an ethnographer and speak Polish, so I offered to tell them about our Easter traditions. They invited me onto the TV program, and then I spoke at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź. While talking to the journalist, I mentioned that I was looking for an apartment. She immediately responded: “I will help you! The Mayor of Koluszki said he has a reserve.” After a while, I got a call back saying that there was a place for us. We were lucky.

There is a House of Culture in Łódź where volunteers worked, welcoming and redirecting people. If you had nowhere else to go, you could spend one or two nights there, and then they would redirect people somewhere else. So no one stayed on the street and no one went out hungry. Until July 2022, you could eat there for free. It was there, in the House of Culture, that I made most of the recordings for my research project. There was a children’s corner there, so I could work while my kids were playing.

– What topics were Ukrainians talking about during the interviews?

Ukrainians were very grateful to the Poles. There were often cases when I offered to record the interview, and people responded: “If you want to praise Poland, please do!” People were ready to keep silent about any hardships [in Poland] they had endured, but they were eager to thank the Poles.

– During that difficult period, everyone tried to find a source of strength. What supported you?

By that time I had already found a Ukrainian church in Łódź. If a person finds a Ukrainian church abroad, he or she will remain a Ukrainian! I went to that church. It was a breath of fresh air! There was a large Ukrainian church in Łódź, but it was inconvenient for me to get there. The other church was, in fact, a chapel near the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Poles let Ukrainians hold their solemn services there. It was interesting to see how the Roman Catholic chapel was transformed into a Ukrainian chapel: Ukrainians bring out their icons on stands and decorate them with embroidered towels. A very nice priest served there. By the way, journalists invited me and this priest to talk about the Ukrainian Easter celebration. We celebrated Easter in this church. I didn’t bake anything, though; I bought a cake in a local shop and dyed the eggs in onion husks [a common Eastern-European Easter tradition – JB]. So we had our own holy objects and celebrated Easter well. We made breakfast! We peeled and shared the blessed eggs. And we communicated with my husband via video.

– At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Poland was very active in supporting Ukrainians seeking refuge. Did you use this help? What was the most useful for you?

It was a great help that my younger child could go to kindergarten. We also used the medical care system. However, it took us a while to get an appointment with a doctor, but we managed it. We used free travel: both in the city and within Poland. It really was a great help. I desperately wanted to see the Czestochowa Icon of the Mother of God, a Polish shrine with Ukrainian roots. Thanks to the free public transport, we managed to do it, and we went to pray there.

– I know that Poland gave Ukrainians the opportunity to visit museums, exhibitions, and theatres for free. Did you use this opportunity?

Yes, I wanted to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine. So I went to Krakow, and I was lucky to see this masterpiece. I was told that the painting often travels, but at that time it was there. I was also able to visit the theatre in Łódź four times. Thanks to free travel, I took my children to Warsaw twice. We visited the Copernicus Science Centre. In Gdańsk, I attended a conference, and my children were able to see the Baltic Sea.

“The flag of the French Revolution in the hand of Liberty was replaced by the Ukrainian flag”

– After Poland, you went to France. How was your life there?

I got accommodation through my academic programme. As far as I know, France also was providing refugees with accommodation. I am very grateful to this country too. Ukrainians in France also had the opportunity to visit museums for free. I’ve been to the Louvre nine times, and I haven’t seen everything yet!

– Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, support for Ukraine and Ukrainians across Europe has been incredible. Can you compare your experience of living in two countries, Poland and France?

This is a complicated question. For example, in Poland, I saw Ukrainian flags more often, but here [in Paris], near the Pompidou Centre, local artists created a mural that is very eloquent, because the flag of the French Revolution in the hand of Liberty was replaced by the Ukrainian flag. And this is near the Pompidou Centre! How much more central could it be?! This is very big support! There are protests here too. I think it’s okay because the French understand the language of protests. I think they understand what we are doing. Previously, France knew much less about us [Ukraine and Ukrainians – O.K.] than Poland. Poland, as a country, has done a lot of great work on itself. They don’t claim Lviv or Vilnius currently [towns previously included in historical Polish political entities – J.B.]. They have reworked their imperial “greatness”, and this is a job that Russians must do too.

– How often there are rallies in support of Ukraine in Paris?

Twice a week. On Saturday, more people come, about three hundred, on Wednesday, fewer, about one hundred [4].

– Are these rallies attended mainly by Ukrainians?

No, the French also attend these rallies.

– Do you feel safe abroad?

I have no sense of security. I am constantly worried, and constantly following the news. I need to sit down and finish an article, and I can’t; I can’t concentrate. I need to know what I’m holding on to today so that I don’t lose hope. I am not worried about myself now; I am worried about those in Ukraine.

– What kind of research work do you do in Paris?

I continue to collect oral testimonies about the refugee experience, try to understand the perspectives of Ukrainians, and write articles. I give talks at the university and the cultural centre, “Ukraine for Everyone”.

– Is this important for Ukraine that Ukrainian scholars currently can join research institutions around the world?

This is very good! It is in-person communication with foreign colleagues. It’s just a shame that Ukrainians were only able to become visible because of such sad circumstances. This experience is useful because it allows you to see the peculiarities of your own culture, which become noticeable only when you leave your home environment. However, I realised that it is difficult for me to be away from Ukraine.

Interview conducted by Olena Kondratiuk.

The publication uses photographs from the private archive of Iryna Koval-Fuchylo.

This publication is also available in Ukrainian.