Ольга Жидкова Olha Zhidkova

I had a successful business. In [20]13, I bought myself an apartment with a loan. And I left a director’s position. I registered as a Private Entrepreneur. It was profitable for me. I was very successful in my work. Then, all of a sudden, it ended for me. My business was shut down, my whole life fell apart. But by the virtue of my character... I wasn’t completely disoriented. No. I resisted, I still tried to earn money somehow. I sold things online. I had good customers, partnership agreements. And until [20]17 I was still working successfully. For myself. Not fully, but quite successfully. So... it was hard. They started shooting. I wasn’t used to living in a city where there’s shooting, where mortar [shells] are flying. But if you compare what was happening in [20]14 to what was in [20]24, in [20]22 — it’s incomparable. Now I look back and think it was some kind of cops and robbers game in [20]14. I understand that it was possible, if our authorities had the will, to end it all back then. But unfortunately, we have what we have.

There were clashes between people who... Well, everyone knew it was going to happen. Everyone knew. They didn’t know when, they didn’t know the exact date for sure. But everyone knew. There was war in the air. It hung heavy in the air. You could eat air and understand that you were already eating war. And some people, defiantly, those who knew a bit more, those who most likely later became spotters and everything else, they would confront ordinary people at the first opportunity. When there was a ruling to speak Ukrainian at the checkout, they would defiantly say, “Soon you’ll all be speaking Russian, just wait, now we’ll…” There were moments like that... flare-ups here and there. They didn’t have any major consequences, but there were flare-ups.

All my close and loved ones served. My brother, my partner, my friends — they all served, went to serve. And at that time it was very hard, they had no food, no supplies, nothing. And someone had to do it. Who, if not me? They trusted me, they knew that I... I had an experience I’ve probably told many times. But it’s a telling one. Nothing was working in the city anymore. Absolutely nothing. Not a single store. My brother calls me and says, “I need lightbulbs!” I couldn’t go anywhere and buy lightbulbs. And before that, he had... I had bought a chandelier for my living room, and my brother said, “What did you bring home, an assembly hall?” I had a beautiful eight-arm chandelier. I, as a girl, was delighted — such a beautiful chandelier, [as well as] curtains with valances. And he said, “You live like in an assembly hall.” And then, when the guys needed lamps to illuminate the perimeter, and there was nowhere to get them, I look up and see — eight lightbulbs! Right there, and in my bedroom a six-arm chandelier. I took down all the bulbs and gave them away. Someone had to do it.

We started being accustomed to being Ukrainians. And that being Ukrainian is good, that it’s fun, it’s beautiful, it’s respectable, and it’s right. Before that, we were who knows what. We suddenly self-identified. It mostly concerned the youth. We self-identified, and we realized that we were Ukrainians. We started to have some joint events. Photo sessions. Oleksandr knows, he did a photo session with scarves. They tied scarves on the girls, and it was very beautiful... We never had that ethnic sense of belonging to Ukrainians. It’s an industrial city... You ask me what our traditions are. But we had no traditions. And then suddenly, some time after [20]14, girls and young women, guys started to understand that... to self-identify. And that was the peak. Before the full-scale war... The peak. That’s why many of my friends, the majority didn’t go to fight in the resistance in [20]14, but went eagerly and en masse after February 24, [2022].