Viktoriya Fedoryachenko from Kharkiv

Interviewed on April 17, 2022

Kamjana Jaruha is about 30 kilometres from Kharkiv.

I give classes for children in our church, write scripts and songs. I also used to play piano in a restaurant.

I have a very sensitive sleep. When we were still laying down in the morning, I started telling my husband that someone was breaking in. The husband replied that it was Russia beginning the invasion. I never tried keeping track of the news, politics was not interesting for me. Even when they were already near us, I thought that it would not happen, that they wouldn’t attack. When I saw smoke from the window, my hands were shaking, it was very scary. I began packing things. My husband, on the contrary, was very calm. He said “wait, we need to watch the news”. I began looking through Telegram and saw that everyone was online since 4am. I realized something was wrong.

I am a very religious person, we have a community, we have a church. That’s why I have a lot of friends, almost in all regions of our country. I began writing to everyone at once. We were completely surrounded. I have 4 heart defects; the pain spasms returned because I was in constant fear of being hit by a missile. I was afraid to approach the windows. My stomach hurt constantly, because I kept everything inside all the time; one should cry when it is necessary.

There were different situations in our village. If we stay, we might survive. If we leave - who knows what will happen. We decided to leave the next day. Despite the fact that we have just finished building our house. It was our dream - to live outside the city, to have our own household. I noticed that people who used to rent the apartment were easy to take off and say good-buy to everything. But we were more settled, so we were hesitating.

We kneeled down with my husband and began praying with tears filling our eyes. God, please, show us the way. Something had stopped us then, and my husband and I did not take that road to Kharkiv through Chuhujiiv. We did not have the courage to leave that day, but some people from our village did. And they got killed. We realized we could have been in their place. Later on, after a few weeks, we understood there were russians. Later the area was cleared (there was a whole bunch of tanks and bombs). We took another road later, going through Petrivka. We thanked God that he had stopped us before. After that, our road was safe, we managed to go through that little corridor. 2-3 days later, everything was closed again, and now it is very dangerous to go to our village. It was a true wonder we had managed to leave.   

As a believer, I am not attached to one country in a way; my house is in the sky. I know I will be in a place God wants me to be. I will do what He wants me to do and help people in a way He wants me to help. While being here, I understood that I can help many people. I have helped more people in one month than I did my entire life. As a person, I would honestly want to come back to my house and live the life I used to live. But if God wants me to live in a different place or to stay here, - I will do so.

In Ukraine: As My Heart Yearns curated by Ira Lupu

“In Ukraine: As My Heart Yearns,” is a continuation of an international photography series started in March 2022 showcasing Ukraine’s past and present and includes pastoral archival imagery and recent refugee portraiture by Yana Kononova, Ira Lupu, Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit and Elena Subach and Helen Zhgir. It also features the work of internationally acclaimed documentary photographer Yelena Yemchuk.