Iryna: Okay, so back in 2022 when they still had the security checkpoint in Kharkiv train station. We were going back from Balakliia, it’s like the- it was a recently liberated area. It was probably liberated within the last couple of weeks, and you could see all these different, you know, bullets on the ground, just like that, explosive devices. And we were staying with a friend of mine who gave me this huge, big old bullet. I don’t know you, probably remember what it was?
Vic: Bigger than a 50 cal?
Henry: Yeah, it was the auto cannons. It was like 20mm, so it was the anti-aircraft.
Vic: Oh, wow.
Iryna: Yeah. He gave it to me as a souvenir, and I’m like, “Oh, thank you so much”. And I decided to leave it at his place to not get in trouble, which is, you know, logical. And we were coming back from Kharkiv to Lviv and we had a cat with us, somebody’s cat, that was traveling all the way from Izium or Balakliia to Italy. And we needed to bring that crazy devil cat, furious cat <laughs> that broke its carrier, back to its owner.
We had to deal with that, and we were at the security checkpoint, and Henry remembered that he had a few bullets in his pocket, so he went outside to throw it out before we entered <laughs>. But I had no idea that I had that huge, big old bullet in my backpack, and here I am with this cat. We had to wrap up its entire carrier with tape because it kept breaking out and attacking us in the car. And the security guards are like “take the cat out, take the cat out, we need to inspect it” I’m like “you don’t want the cat to be out, let me tell you”. And then they called the, you know, the chief guy, the chief security guy, this military dude. He comes like, “I don’t like you, but okay, we will not take the cat out. Just put it right here, and we’ll check you fully.”
The moment I think we’re over this, we get through security the same, the exact same guy, the chief of security, calls me and says, “Excuse me, ma’am, can you come here for a second?” And I’m like, “yeah”. “Is this your backpack?” I’m like, “yes, it is”. “What do you have in your backpack?” And I’m like, “Oh, I have this and that, you know, personal hygiene and personal clothing”. “What else do you have in your backpack? Do you mind to open this little compartment here?” I’m like, “yeah, of course, look” and I see this big old bullet right there, and the chief security guy, he’s like, “I knew there was something about you, something suspicious with the cat, all this drama, I knew”. <laughs>
He was like, “I’m going to arrest you. I’m going to take you to the police station and we’re going to question you. Who the heck are you?” Like “why do you speak Ukrainian here when we spoke Russian all the time?” I’m like, “we’re just volunteers! We’re volunteers!” And we had, we had volunteers, you know, permits and all that. We showed them all the paperwork that we had, and I said, “I have no idea how they got into my backpack”, and <laughs> Henry was good to go. He was all the way on the other side, and I was there dealing with it all by myself, freaking out. But then finally, after like 20 or 30 minutes of questioning me they let me go. But this the- that guy. He was like, “I knew there was something suspicious about you”. He was like, “do not ever, I hope you never see me again” or something like that. That was insane.
Vic: Did they just take it off you and then let you go?
Iryna: Yes, they took it off me. They let me go, but they searched all my belongings, like twice or three times, because they couldn’t believe that I didn’t have any more bullets on me, which- I was already freaking out because of the cat. The cat was trying to break the carrier again, and with the bullet, it was crazy.
Leave a Reply