Тетяна Лугова Tetiana Luhova

For me, the war has been going on for ten years, so I know what it is, and I have not stopped volunteering. It started in [20]14, when we were looking for slippers and bulletproof vests, and it is still like this. Yes, we need to collect [things]. What to collect — this, this, this. We need socks, we need medicine. It immediately popped into my head. I started calling all my friends who were abroad. I started asking if they could help with some medicines. At that time, our pharmacies had just closed. We had no medicines. I found L-Thyrox [L-Thyroxine] in Odesa for the girls, bought it, and brought it here for the girls. It was scary when there was no medicine. So I started working on the medicines. Later, I [worked] with Vahe [volunteer Vahe Mamikonyan], who took these medicines from me. I made arrangements in Kyiv, these shipments were waiting, Vage came, picked them up, and brought them here. Then we didn't have any fuel, we were looking for where to get fuel. It was a real mess. Then we were collecting clothes. Clothes were the first thing we collected to go. In Sviatohirsk, people were brought there, I forget from which city, which was heavily damaged. People were brought there, and we were looking for beds for them, we were looking for household chemicals for them. Our Natalia wrote a project [application], and we also took household chemicals and powders for women there. That was all that was needed.

I left on November 14. — Why did you wait so long to leave? — I wasn't leaving [because] I was afraid to leave my dog, my cat. I had a shepherd dog. I really didn't want to leave. I thought, “Oh, my God, how are they here, my brother and sister, how will they cope with all this?” And then that was it, when there was no way to make any money, when I was collecting my salary from the publishing house with furniture, well, that was it. There was no way to earn any money. Nothing at all, you can't do anything. And that's it, I left then. I went to my mother's house. When I arrived, I had two hryvnias left in my pocket. It was the change for the Donetsk-Kramatorsk bus. As I remember, it cost eighteen hryvnias, I think, for the ticket. I gave twenty hryvnias, and I had two hryvnias left. — Was the bus still running then? — It was, yes. There were buses back then, but there were already checkpoints, they were checking. And when I got to our [Ukrainian] checkpoint, God, what a joy it was. When you see our flag, our guys. Oh, my God. I was like, “I'm home, I'm home!”. That was the feeling.

By the way, I printed leaflets that were handed out on our Donetsk Maidan. There was a bloodied girl, and there were flags on her cheeks in the background. Her forehead was bleeding. I printed all that: that Ukraine is strong, we are with the European Union, so that was the theme. In addition, there were such leaflets... At that time, they started showing movies with Madonna [the singer], but I don't remember the name of the movie. There was this picture of her standing behind a cage, and it said something about “free,” something about freedom. It was so interesting, and it was the first time I had ever seen such a layout. And I printed it all. — Did you print it because you wanted to? Or did you already have some kind of an NGO [non-governmental organization]? Or was it all your initiative? — I was already working in printing, I had a small printing house. We printed there, and I developed the layouts. I learned how to do this because I got a computer and became interested in it. And in those years, I learned Photoshop, [Adobe] Illustrator. I learned how to work with it, and I went to work in a magazine. And it somehow turned out that it was ours, with the person I founded it with, it was a common vision. He was a Maidan participant, and I was a participant in this whole process. If I wasn't on the square, I was either making flags, ordering them, or printing something. That's what I was doing.

I came back from a business trip. I arrived, was going up the stairs, and my neighbor met me and said, “Tetiana, where are you going?” And I said, “What do you mean where? I'm going home.” And I was so cheerful, I had just returned from a business trip. She says, “Wait. There's no one there.” I said, “What do you mean there's no one there? Where is everyone? Is everyone at work?” [She said,] “They buried Liosha yesterday.” And I collapsed right where I stood when I found out. I was shocked, I was very stressed. I didn't know that this could happen, that he could be murdered for 20 hryvnias in his pocket and right outside the house. Actually, around the corner of the house. They beat him so hard that his spleen ruptured. It was so frightening. And here I was at the age of 21, a young girl, left alone.