Greetings! Please tell us about yourself. Where are you from, how old are you, and what do you do?
Hello! My name is Olya. I’m a mother and a wife, physical education teacher by education, but I’m creative to the core by my calling. In addition to poetry, I like to take pictures of some moments and just find it relaxing. I also create content for other accounts that sell something or promote themselves as experts. I also do a bit of SMM, make stories content on order, layouts, and such. In short, everything related to visuals in SMM. Technical components don’t interest me because I’m a humanitarian. I’m more interested in photographing something, creating, coming up with all kinds of creatives and so on.
I’m 29 years old, originally from the Rivne region, but I live in the Ternopil region because my husband is from here. We live in the countryside and have chickens, ducks and a vegetable garden. I help my husband recover after his injury. He’s not a military man, but he was mobilized in April 2022. In November 2022, he received a severe injury and is still disabled. So we’re at home, holding on to each other, supporting each other as we can.
Can you recall the morning of February 24th? What emotions did you feel?
About a month before February 24th, as everyone remembers well, there were these discussions about a possible full-scale invasion. Because we all know that the war has started in 2014, the military actions in eastern Ukraine got more serious. Everyone was expecting something terrible. However, I, probably like most people, couldn’t imagine that it would be so large-scale. Although my intuition told me a lot. I’ve even written a poem on the eve of February 23rd, it’s like kind of prediction. I wrote lines that we are ready to defend our land. And then at four in the morning, I heard an explosion after a missile attack at the Rivne airport. I woke up and, without reading the news, understood that what everyone had expected and feared so much had begun.
I understand that besides your main activity, you’re also a volunteer. Could you please tell us what you do?
I believe that now each of us is a volunteer, as we’re all involved in fundraising one way or another. These are donations, collaborative fundraising, or large-scale collections opened by official volunteers or families of soldiers. After all, each of us has someone close who is on the front lines, so it’s important to help each other and not hesitate.
When my husband was at war, I also conducted two large collections for his battalion. Once I collected 100,000 hryvnias (approximately 2,500 USD), and later managed to raise over 100,000 hryvnias for their needs. I always show how the money was spent, all of this on my page. I keep all reports in a folder for visibility. That is, I don’t have an official volunteer status, but I constantly try to help with collaborative fundraising to my friends, acquaintances, verified volunteer funds, and those I trust. I have many friends on Instagram who are official volunteers or have their own public organization. I support those who I trust with collaborative fundraising, create lotteries. In short, I help as I can, and I will do this as long as it takes. Because I believe that each of us, having Instagram or any other social network where people read us, where our opinion is listened to, should help the military. This is how it turned out with my poems.
Before the war, I conducted photo marathons with a friend and had my audience, although small, but one that trusts me. I believe that every person who has such a tool in their hands should help the military and fight. If not on the front, then here in the home front. In my opinion, this is everyone’s duty. Because the war is not there, it’s here, everywhere. Everyone should contribute to our common victory and help with whatever they can.
What difficulties do you face as a volunteer? And how do you overcome them?
I wouldn’t say there are any real difficulties. When I organized fundraising by myself, it was more difficult. I literally did everything. These were large fundraising that I created for my husband’s battalion. That is, I collected funds, reported on them, found everything they needed by myself, ordered it, looked for some reliable people, because of the significant amount of money raised.
If you lost, for example, your own money by running into some fraudsters, that’s one thing, but when you lose people’s money, that’s another, a bigger responsibility. I bought everything and found volunteers to transfer it directly to the front line, reported, and so on. It was difficult. I create and support collaborative fundraising now. I wouldn’t say there are any difficulties. Of course, I’m not a million-follower blogger or a hundred-thousand-follower one, collections don’t close as quickly as I’d like. However, I have my warm, conscious audience that supports and reposts every fundraising of mine. And at my own pace, I can help like this. As I said before, I will help as long as it’s needed.
You sign your poems with the pseudonym «krylata ryba» which means winged fish. Please explain how it came about.
I’m a Pisces by zodiac sign. Everyone who loves horoscopes knows the characteristics of the signs. Some believe in it, some don’t. There is probably no one who hasn’t read about their zodiac sign and hasn’t found some common traits there. So did I, everyone who writes about Pisces notes that these are creative, spiritual, empathetic people. I really am like that, not even 100%, but a whole 200%. So the «ryba» part is from there, and «krylata» is my creativity, my wings, my talent. Together, combining into the phrase «krylata ryba», it creates something fantastic, dreamy, light, but at the same time creative. It completely describes me. I don’t know if I managed to explain this clearly, but the pseudonym is created based on the fact that I’m a Pisces, dreamy, creative, winged. Because creativity is my wings that save me, inspire me, and give me strength to fight.
Your creative heritage with quite a lot of poems is impressive. Do you plan to publish your own book of poetry, or maybe it already exists?
Yes, I plan to. It’s my dream. Everyone knows that it’s not so easy to publish poetry. It’s easier with prose. Publishing a book of poetry for an unknown author almost always happens only through self-publishing. So I hope that someday I will have my own book, someday I will take on this, someday I will have enough time, funds, and so on for this. But I would really like to have my own book of poetry. So far, my poetry has been published in several almanacs. Some of them were created based on some creative contest. So far, My work is printed in two almanacs. But, of course, I plan and dream of publishing my own collection of poetry. I even know how tocall it.
Can you share with us your favorite poem?
I don’t even know which one to call my favorite, because I love each of them. After all, any of my poems is some emotion of mine, some period of life, experience, reflection. This one came to mind first, even though it was written almost two years ago, I’ll quote this one:
poems seem to be reflecting the history of Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression. Is that so?
This is indeed true. My poems were like this even before the full-scale invasion, moreover, before the events of the Revolution of Dignity and the beginning of the war in eastern Ukraine. Patriotism is evident in my poems, although I didn’t write as often as I do now. I wasn’t at such a conscious age as I am now. I didn’t express it so clearly, but from childhood I knew who russians were. After all, I love the history of Ukraine, I love reading historical books. I love the Ukrainian Insurgent Army period the most. They don’t talk much about this at school. However, I loved to learn on my own. It was from insurgent stories and songs that I deepened my knowledge about russians and what they did to us.
Maybe it’s in my blood, because I have a certain history in my family. The younger brother of my great-grandfather, a veteran of World War II, was killed by russians (Soviet soldiers) in his native village while my great-grandfather was at the front as part of the same Soviet army. However, he was always, like probably most Ukrainians, pro-Ukrainian. It just so happened that we were part of the Soviet Union, and one way or another we had to do our duty. Now, it’s not about that. But the story is this: when my great-grandfather was at war, his younger brother wasn’t even sixteen. During World War II at Christmas, they dressed up in Ukrainian costumes and went caroling, despite the fact that there was a war. He was shot. He was shot by russians, Soviet soldiers who were probably russian by nationality, because they said that banderivtsi (followers or supporters of Stepan Bandera, a controversial Ukrainian nationalist leader from the mid-20th century) were walking in the village. It was just boys, girls, dressed in Ukrainian national costumes.
The point is that this innocent boy was killed because of this sign of Ukrainian identity. Therefore, perhaps through blood, this hate towards russians was passed to me. Maybe that’s how it is. From childhood, I knew, felt and proved that they are not our brothers at all, and we have nothing in common with them, except for the Slavic appearance. And not even with all of them.
Where can we find your poetry?
My work can be found on Instagram under the tag #крилата_риба. I sign each of my poems this way. Before the full-scale invasion, I wrote not only patriotic poems about war, but also about life and love. But I didn’t write as often as now. Because now I have strong emotions from what’s happening now, and that’s why poems are born in me. Sometimes I write two or three poems a day, sometimes I don’t write for a week or half a month. But it’s always an impulse, a surge. A poem spins in my head and I immediately sit down to write it with great inspiration. It’s like my personal therapy. When I share this pain, these emotions, I seem to get strength, inspiration to live and fight on.
Translator: Yuliia Koleha
