About volunteering, working with the charitable foundation “Smilivi” [brave — transl.], life in Crimea before and after 2014: the story of volunteer Sasha Lutsak.
The first part of the interview (out of two parts), where Sasha shares her work with the “Smilivi” charitable foundation, where she is actively involved today. She talks about how the team of the project was formed, their trips to Bucha, their current volunteer activities. Additionally, she shares her life experience in Crimea before and after the occupation, and how life changed after February 24th.
Sasha Lutsak was born and raised in Crimea. In 2018, she moved to Kyiv with her parents and completed her schooling there. After graduating in 2020, she enrolled at the Ukrainian Academy of Leadership (UAL). In May 2022, Sasha actively volunteered with the charitable foundation “Smilivi” on the “Smilivi Restoration” project. Following the de-occupation of the Kyiv region, volunteers began to travel to the suburbs of Kyiv to restore buildings, apartments, residential complexes, schools, and other structures that had been destroyed or damaged by Russians. Sasha shares her experiences of war, life under occupation, her move and adaptation to Kyiv, finding herself, and the motivation to work every day for victory.
What was your February 24th like?
I live with my parents and we realized that something would definitely happen, so we started packing things and brainstorming plans for how we could act.
On February 24th, at 6 in the morning, my mom woke me up and said we were being bombed. At first, I couldn’t believe it at all because, in a way, I had been preparing, but it was difficult to understand that it was happening right here and right now. It’s strange to recall: on the one hand, you want to go to the balcony and see what it looks like, but on the other hand, you’re very scared, and you want to run and hide somewhere.
I didn’t know whether to work or not, whether we were going somewhere, whether it would be for a couple of hours or a couple of weeks, simply whether it was a significant enough reason to close the computer and attend to personal matters, pack things, and figure out what to do. I work and used to work at the online institute “Projector”, which is remote work. My job is quite service-oriented, so I wrote messages to my students, reassuring them, saying everything would be okay, calming them down, like we’ll get in touch with you later. And that also provided me with a bit of support.
I remember not wanting to eat at all, but we understood that we had to, so we ate some pasta. On that day, I felt a constant sense of danger, with no escape from it; you just had to somehow cope with it. I really wanted to go straight to Arsenalna [underground station in Kyiv — transl.] and stay there to hide from everything. That’s when my parents said something like, “No, calm down. That’s a bad idea.”
Then we were deciding whether to stay in Kyiv or go somewhere in the Kyiv region or even to western Ukraine. But on February 24th, we were at home in Kyiv, and so many things piled up: a lot of stress, packing belongings and making plans.
You mentioned that before the full-scale invasion began, you and your parents were preparing for it. When and how did you come to understand that a war might start?
The war started in 2014, and our family always somehow knew and felt that it could escalate. About a year before the full-scale invasion, around winter-spring 2021, there seemed to be tension due to the concentration of Russian troops on the border, and at that point, our family started thinking about what we would do in case a full-scale war broke out. But we only talked about it for a certain period and then stopped.
Well, then in December 2021-January 2022, when there was again information about troop movements, possible provocations, the creation of The Territorial Defence Forces and so on, we discussed seriously what we would do, came up with some code words in case something happened. At that time, no one really understood how it would all unfold. We devised some offline communication methods, without any connection, who would go where, who would save whom, those kinds of things, but it was all theoretical at that point.
What changed in your life after the annexation of Crimea in 2014?
Everything changed completely. I lived my entire life in Crimea until 2018, and in 2014, I was still there. I can’t say that I remember in great detail or fully comprehend how it all unfolded. I can’t describe many things; I didn’t witness the military occupation. It was almost 10 years ago, and I’m now 20 years old; I was around 11 at the time. I was just a child.
In the fall of 2013, The Revolution of Dignity began, and even then, I had a limited understanding of what was happening in Kyiv, constantly asking my parents about it.
When Crimea was occupied, I was in the fifth grade. I heard constant discussions about what was happening, but because I was very young, I couldn’t grasp much and simply felt stress and tension. I heard bits of news, talked to my grandmother and grandfather in Kyiv, but I couldn’t comprehend the full extent of what was happening. Then, at some point in our conversations at home, phrases like, “Sasha, be prepared that at any moment we may come to pick you up from school, and we’ll leave forever,” started to come up. At that time, it seemed to me that everyone just wanted to disrupt my little happy life because I had just started at a new school, and my life was just taking shape. And now, I was being told that we might have to move due to events that I couldn’t understand or even describe in words, let alone comprehend their significance.
I lived in Sevastopol, and in our city, a lot of military equipment began to appear at that time. I have a vivid memory of a helicopter flying very low outside my window, at about the fifth-floor level.
Strange things also started happening at school because we were initially following the Ukrainian curriculum, but at some point, a bunch of Russian programs gradually appeared. I wouldn’t say I fully understood it at the time; it took me several years to analyze it. But initially, I would just say to myself, “What? Why are they changing our textbooks? Why do we have to change something in the middle of the school year??” It was all very puzzling.
Then, as a child, I became very aware of the currency change. At some point, both the hryvnia and the ruble were in circulation, and you constantly had to think about how to pay. Eventually, everything simply switched to the ruble. I had to retrain myself because, as a child, I used to attend various workshops and had to understand how much to pay for traveling, as these were different amounts in hryvnias and rubles.
In our conversations with my parents, there were indeed many stressful points for me, such as not telling anyone that you’re traveling to Ukraine because I used to visit my grandmother frequently. Discussions about not saying much, not telling everyone in the world about yourself, where your relatives live. Not expressing your opinion. There were indeed many such conversations throughout our lives in Crimea after the occupation.
What were your first few months like after the full-scale invasion?
My parents and I moved to the Kyiv region and lived in a country house. The internet there wasn’t the best, but I tried to find ways to get involved in helping.
At that time, I learned to write very basic code and engaged in DDoS attacks. I remember that my friend and I also decided that we would go through various volunteer chats and consolidate requests. For example, we would look for where there was a request and where there was a response. So, we combined several groups, transported things for some, and delivered them to others. But it wasn’t very extensive; it mainly looked like an attempt to get involved in many small initiatives.
Nevertheless, I tried to find ways to be useful. I can’t say I had any super significant impact, but there was still some result.
When did you return to Kyiv?
First, around March 8th, my parents and I went to Ivano-Frankivsk region, where we also volunteered, made camouflage nets and some other staff. We organized one charity event and in general, did whatever we could. I returned to Kyiv after May 10th.
When I was still in Kolomyia, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were de-occupying the Kyiv region. I saw that my friends were going to volunteer there, and I felt that I had to be there too.
When I was heading to Kyiv, I was thinking about getting involved in volunteering first and foremost. Almost immediately upon returning, I saw in one of my chat groups that my acquaintances were looking for a host in Bucha because they were going to volunteer there. I texted them that I wanted to join. They said, “Okay, let’s go; we’ll be cleaning up or something.” I thought it sounded somewhat abstract, but I didn’t care.
This is essentially the story of the creation of the “Smilyvi Vidnovliuvaty” [brave to recover — transl.] chat group. At that time, it was called “Bucha,” There were eight people who participated in the first trip, and that’s how the story of “Smilyvi” began, as well as my story there. We gathered, went to Bucha, used public transportation, didn’t really know where to go or which bus stop to get off at.
We spent the whole day just walking, looking around, asking questions, trying to understand how we could be useful. Maybe our work wasn’t super impactful at that time, but that’s how our first trip turned out when we didn’t do much yet.
End of the first part
Go here to read the second part
Translator: Bohdana-Nikolietta Terekhina
