Альона Каравай Alona Karavai

It was a very good time, but also a strange one because, on the one hand, incredible things were happening at Izolyatsia — great projects, outstanding exhibitions opening. That is, on the one hand, something was emerging here that perhaps had never existed in this city before. But on the other hand, somewhere in the background, there was always this stark contrast — another community that completely failed to understand what was happening. And I had the feeling that this gap, it was growing, that this difference was increasing at some point. So, while good things were happening, there was also a kind of increasing tension, too. The "DPR" had been an organization that was banned by the SBU for a long time, yet they still appeared from time to time, staging their so-called rallies, instrumentalized by the local authorities. They would mobilize this marginal group whenever they needed something done with their hands. No one stopped them, and it was very apparent. At some point, they were even right outside the doors of Izolyatsia, this banned organization was, and it was clear that no one was doing anything about it. And it was unclear what would happen next, considering this was already taking place. — Do you recall any other conflicts during your time at Izolyatsia, with the “DPR” people? — Besides them showing up at the doors — no. I remember that on a March 8th, there was a feminist exhibition, I think it featured various projects by Zhanna Kadyrova. But no one in particular came who might have come to take a look at such projects. But there was this… There was sometimes this feeling that while inside Izolyatsia, we were on our own little island. And everything seemed fine here, but we were floating in an ocean, where, if not sharks, then certainly something unknown to us was swimming too. It was just an island, surrounded by very dark waters, and it was impossible to tell what was [lurking] in them.

In Donetsk, from what I saw, it was a standard group of people who, in principle, were expected to be at such events. As I said — Stalinists, banned “DPR” members, and other individuals whom I considered local lunatics, those on the fringes [of society]. There were actually very few of them, but they were highly visible. And what I saw near the city council — which was not far from the Krupskaya Library, near the place where we usually met — was some sort of… From what I could tell, just sheer chaos, a bacchanalia that was in no way controlled by the police. There was no attempt to stop what was happening. And it increasingly seemed like it was spiraling into something completely unrestrained, an uncontrolled riot. Which was led by very strange people, people I had seen in Donetsk before but whom I could never have imagined — even in my worst nightmare — now leading this city. It was this kind of marginal group that made you look at them and think, "This is completely out of place." I saw these people stepping forward, taking the lead, and it was clear that they would likely seize some form of control or power in the city—and that it would be dramatic at that moment. From what I saw, similar processes were unfolding in Kramatorsk, but there, they were seemingly led by people with criminal backgrounds or some drug dealers from our own courtyard. That is, suddenly, the same people who had always sold drugs out of their homes were now standing in the square, leading something. You could see exactly what kind of crowd was coming out, and again, there was no control over it. At the time, I was traveling back and forth between Donetsk and Kramatorsk. We still had an office in Donetsk back then, but in the end, we just abandoned it. It was in the city center, too close to the city council, in what was now a quite unpleasant location. So, I was moving between these cities, unsure of what to do, and I realized that something was brewing, that it was growing. At one point, my mother called me and told me that the local police station had been seized, which was just 300 meters from her apartment. That was exactly where that whole dialogue about [Russia] took place. That was the police station near her. And she told me, "There are Russians here now, no longer our [people]." As my mother put it, "These aren’t our junkies anymore, these are Russian soldiers." You could clearly see the difference in who was seizing what; and in Kramatorsk, it was obvious that these were trained military personnel carrying it out.

Ever since [20]14, I knew this was very important to me, it was almost a counter-reaction. When I moved to Berlin, I would say, "I’m not a refugee." Even though, by all indicators, I was. Even if I moved there because I received a very quick job offer at the time, however, it came from the same colleagues I had interned with back in 2008. For them, it was an attempt to pull me out, to help me. The fact that it was officially framed as a job offer didn’t really mean anything. I wouldn’t have accepted it if not for the circumstances, and maybe that offer wouldn’t have even existed if not for those circumstances. It was important for me not to limit myself to that identity, not to put that label on myself, and so on. But this also led to part of my experience being marginalized, silenced, not spoken about, by myself. And I don’t think that’s always the right approach. There were extremes too. For example, when I moved to [Ivano-]Frankivsk and stayed there for some time, I know that some of my local acquaintances, after two or three years, would ask me, "Oh, where are you from, somewhere near Kosiv or something?" And I would say, "Well, not exactly." I mean, at some point, I was blending in so much that this experience was not visible. But that’s not true. That’s simply not true. This experience exists. And if it’s not visible to the rest of the community, if it’s not reflected, it’s as if it doesn’t exist, which is false. But I think this was quite a typical or not uncommon strategy among displaced people, among first-wave refugees from the war, who kept that experience tightly inside, sharing it perhaps only within the community, or not sharing it at all.

For the first two weeks, Ania Potiomkina and I shared this kind of magical thinking. On the 24th [of February 2022], by midday, we had already gathered here at the office, in the upstairs office. That is, at first, in the morning, everyone had scrambled to get their bearings, run to the store, and buy whatever people were buying then — water, salt, something else, socks. That is, did these strange, inexplicable emergency purchases, called home, and then came here. Anya showed up wearing yoga pants and a Plan B black sweater. When we were working on Plan B, we had these matching corporate hoodies. If it has a hood, it's called a hoodie, right? We had such hoodies with hoods, identical ones, both Anya and I. And that day, we both arrived in them — simply because they were very warm, very soft, and had hoods, too. She was wearing leggings, and I was also in yoga pants because they were so comfortable. That morning, I had dressed quickly, also keeping in mind that if I had to sleep in these clothes at night, they should be comfortable. We arrived, had a little laugh about showing up in identical outfits. Then we got into this magical thinking that we wouldn’t change clothes until it was over, because we thought it would be over in two weeks. And so we really wore the same clothes every day for two weeks. Of course, we washed them in the evenings when we could, but we kept wearing black pants and black hoodies. By the end of the second week, I said, "Anya, I think this is going to last a little longer." She also said, "I wanted to say the same thing, but I felt awkward." I said, "Let’s start wearing different clothes tomorrow." And the next day, we started wearing different clothes. But for those first two weeks, we stayed in the same outfits, somehow convinced that this would all end very soon.