Part 1: Ira from Kyiv: Part 1
Part 2: Ira from Kyiv: Part 2
Vic: So back in 2022, Ghost of Kyiv. As a person from Kyiv, did you follow the news about him at all?
Ira: Yes, of course. We all were, we all were. We were so proud. We discussed it, we tried to guess who that was. There were some people, some military people- not some, but many military people were on the TV, and we thought, we were wondering like, maybe we’ve seen the face but just he kept incognito. We were trying to think how he looked like, girls were imagining some handsome young guy <laughs> because you know people romanticized him.
Vic: Do you think it was just one guy, or was it a squadron that all kind of shared the title?
Ira: The… what’s this word in English? The… the rational in me says that it must have been many people, not just one. But of course, the image of just one person doing all that is much more appealing <laughs>. So frankly, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m inclined to think that there were a few people, because otherwise it’s like too good to be true. A superhero, a real superhero. Everybody wants to believe it, me included. But yes, the rational part of me says that it must have been a squad of people.
Vic: I mean, does it matter if it was one person or if it was a squad?
Ira: Not really much. The work, the job was done. This is the most important thing. But, people always want to imagine something that sounds more interesting, more beautiful, more, you know, movie style.
Vic: Yes. Did you end up buying any of the merchandise, like the T-shirts or stickers?
Ira: Not by the Ghost, but I got a T-shirt of Pes Patron, and a shopper bag. Yeah, but nothing else.
Vic: Which do you think was more popular, Pes Patron or Ghost of Kyiv?
Ira: I don’t think any of- I think they were both popular. I don’t think one of those was really like more popular than the other. And of course don’t forget, this famous image that was more popular I guess than anything else. The warship.
Vic: Snake Island.
Ira: Yeah. So I still have the magnet, and my brother spent hours and hours, like a few hours, almost the whole day at the post office when the, the…
Vic: Stamps.
Ira: The stamps were out, and he bought a pack for each member of the family, and we keep it as a souvenir. I still have it somewhere in the albums with pictures. It’s- well, I wouldn’t do this. Like a few hours for what? But he was so enthusiastic about it. So, he bought those.
Vic: So the queue was so long that he had to wait for a few hours to get them?
Ira: Yes, yes, it was. Like, I don’t know whether or not they are available now. Maybe there was more, another like print and maybe there are more, but back then it was- people were hunting <laughs>.
Vic: I got some on a market in Lviv, but like, you know, I don’t know how legitimate they are because it’s a random market in Lviv.
Ira: Yeah.
Vic: Maybe, maybe.
Ira: Yeah and those- I have those one that were the first, and they costed- I don’t know how much money, but a few hours of my brother waiting in the queue. But really the war a good reason, like reason to have souvenirs of it. We’ll remember it anyway, no matter what, so.
Vic: Why did you buy the Pes Patron bag and t-shirt?
Ira: Because they’re… the dog is cute <laughs>. Well, and there’s some sentimental value of course, too. A bit- well, it was a mainstream thing. I’m not very much into mainstream things, but in that case I liked it, I wanted to be part of it, you know. A group of people who were wearing it. It was very popular back then.
Vic: So a lot of people wore Pes Patron merchandise?
Ira: Yes, yes, there were many, many things. Kids were carrying around the plush toy. It was on the stickers on the cars, and other things, like there were- it was everywhere. So cute.
Vic: Yeah, I’ve noticed you don’t really see him around so much anymore.
Ira: No, not anymore.
Vic: Which, I mean the dog’s still working, isn’t he, apparently? <laughs>
Ira: As I said before, people adapted, people who just go on with their lives, and these symbols are- It was like a fashion. Here one day, gone another day. Or maybe again they don’t want to be reminded again of the fact that the war is still in progress, and all because it’s obvious, every other night. I don’t see any, not contemporary- recent, recent symbols, like something new that appeared. No recent heroes, no recent dogs, no recent symbols, no merchandise.
Vic: In Lviv recently there was a municipal worker who was sweeping snow near the Stefan Bandera monument, and I don’t remember if it was a drone or what but something hit nearby them, and the worker kind of stopped for a few seconds, looked around, and then went back to sweeping snow. That was all over social media and I kind of expected that to become like, you know- I didn’t see any stickers being made of that or postcards, very few memes.
Ira: Just the memes, yeah. I also saw that.
Vic: So are people just less, I guess, excited about that type of thing now?
Ira: Because they themselves feel like that guy. Because everybody- I guess if you ask people, everybody or every second person saw a shahed in their window, or a rocket flying, or the explosions made by this anti air, air defence. And then everybody goes on with their life.
Like the girl who did my nails the last time- like there was an air raid alert that was a shopping mall on [Redacted] metro station. There was an air raid alert and I said, “oops, too bad, well there’s an air raid alert, shall we do?” She said, “Nothing? We go on.” She just put down the blinds so the security guy doesn’t see that we haven’t left the building, and she proceeded. I was like “okay”. Like it’s sort of irresponsible. Perhaps we should have moved to the shelter or whatever, because this is not even apartment this is a shopping mall. It could be a target, and so on. But then “okay, if you say so.”
People go on with their work no matter what. People manage their orders. If they sell something, they manage their orders during the night when it’s an attack. “Okay I’m not sleeping anyway, so I will manage my orders,” and so on. People go on with their lives, people work go on working, doing everything that that needs to be done. So everybody is a hero now.
All those people who- the sweepers, but also the bin people, those who collect rubbish. This machine, this trucks, rubbish trucks, they work all the time. They work during the night because they cannot- they don’t do this during the day, so that they do not disturb the people, residents. So they work during the night, and if it’s air-raid alert, we still see them from the window, we still hear them, so they go on working, shaheds or not. It happens everywhere. That’s why it’s not so exciting, because it’s not so unusual. It’s just one guy who got filmed. But there are so many who are not filmed, but they exist, you know.
Vic: So it’s everyday heroism, the way that people go on in spite of what’s happening around them?
Ira: Yes, but they don’t consider, and nobody considers this as heroism anymore. As I said before, it’s just like everyday reality. We are used to it. It’s terrible. It’s a terrible fact that we got used to it, but we did. Life goes on. It’s difficult even to imagine our life without the air raid alerts, without electricity shortages. We got used to everything. Our chores at home are all organised around those few hours a day when the electricity is on. The situation has improved though in the last few days, but before that if you only have electricity a couple of hours, you have to make sure that everything is ready to- that you will have enough time to do the laundry, the dishes and everything else. So nobody was as organised before <laughs>. Electricity shortages made us organised.
Vic: My friend who lives in Troieshchyna works as an online tutor for languages and he has to reschedule his lessons a lot and try and plan around when he’ll have power. He has a tablet that he can do some lessons on, but it’s better if he has his computer, but that needs power, so yeah. He’s um, I think he’s happy now that the power is a lot more reliable because Troieshchyna seemed to not have the best schedule compared to the rest of Kyiv.
Ira: Yes because that power plant was totally destroyed, and it’s impossible to fix it quickly, it will maybe take a few years. So actually we don’t know now how Troieshchyna is powered at all. Because the power plant that gave electricity to all Troieshchyna is now destroyed.
Vic: So it’s just connected into somewhere else?
Ira: It is somewhere else, but we don’t even know where. I’m not an expert. I don’t know, but nobody- like among my friends, well they all wonder where- how it was possible, technically, to connect Troieshchyna to electricity.
Vic: Is that because they live in Troieshchyna? Or do they just generally-
Ira: Well generally, generally. Because we all lived on the left bank, where we met yesterday. It’s that area, we are all close by. My singing teacher is from Troieshchyna. She said that in the winter they didn’t have electricity for a very long time, and no heating. So it was like 5 degrees Celsius in the apartment.
Vic: Oh wow. My friend’s was about, I think, 13.
Ira: We had 11.
Vic: He was lucky.
Ira: We had 11. Yeah. And, okay, if you are a young, grown-up person- what if you have an infant? What if you have somebody like very, very old, ancient grandma? This is terrible.
Vic: I heard that a lot of people put up tents inside their apartments to try and get some insulation.
Ira: Yeah, and also people heated bricks, on the gas. They bought bricks and put it on the gas stove and heated them. It’s quite dangerous, but still people did that. We tried everything. I bought many electrical gadgets from Temu, from China, like a vest , vest coat?
Vic: Ohh one of the heated ones?
Ira: With the heated, yes, and another heated something, another heated something, many heated somethings because it was really, really very cold all the time. It’s cold at work, it’s cold at home, it’s cold outside, it’s cold in the transport, it’s cold everywhere. This winter seemed like never-ending.
Vic: Yeah, like I mean I’ve been coming here for four years and yeah that’s only a small window I know, but the previous winters- even though there’s been the power cuts the temperature’s not- I think it was like minus 10 last year, and I think the year before that it was even warmer.
Ira: Yeah, and even if it was, there were some frosty, really frosty days, but that was days. Here, we had months. Weeks and even months. The snow fell down and it didn’t melt for a couple of months. It was all the time sub-zero temperatures. I don’t remember winters like that in the last 20 years.
Vic: Does the government try and collect statistics on how many people died because of the low temperatures and power cuts?
Ira: I don’t know. I don’t even- I don’t want to think about this, because as I said before, to be a grown-up, a healthy grown-up, it’s one thing. And still, I suffered a lot. Not in the beginning, but closer to the end of the winter. I was exhausted. It’s cold all the time, wherever you go. Constant physical discomfort. Of course it’s nothing compared to soldiers, but everybody is on their place. This is the worst of my experience, my own experience. For a few months I’m cold every day, all the time, 24-7. The water in the tap is cold, you cannot take a warm shower. It was really tough. But I’m a grown-up. I’m healthy. What if you have a newborn? What if a person is really old, and has no one to care for them? What if they live on some high floor, like 10th floor, and they cannot walk well, and the elevators don’t work because of electricity cuts? It’s impossible to even go out and have some basic food and stuff.
Vic: So even with the invincibility points- I guess, yeah, if you can’t get to them?
Ira: Yes, if you cannot get to them. Yeah, but I’ve heard- and we did it personally in our apartment building, we all know the neighbours. We know where the old people live, the lonely old people, so we did help a little bit like this, with products, with something. I only hope that in every in every house there’s some apartment owners chat, where people somehow organised around helping the old people. Because otherwise, I cannot even imagine how they would survive. And many didn’t.
Vic: Did you know these people in your apartment block before the full-scale invasion?
Ira: No. I didn’t know much about my neighbours on my own landing. We’ve only lived in this very apartment building since the war started, so we didn’t make any friends. The age is different, you know, there’s not much in common except the fact that we are living in the same building. But yeah, now I know half the block.
Vic: Did you ever think about leaving Ukraine?
Ira: We did. My son and I did leave Ukraine in 2022 for three months. We went to Italy, I have friends there. They invited us, we went there, but we didn’t apply for any… you know… to stay there.
Vic: To stay there, like refugees?
Ira: Yeah, anything, nothing. We both had international passport with biometrics, so- and now we don’t need visa, if you have this sort of passport you don’t need visa anymore. So we went there like tourists, we stayed there our 90 days, under this…
Vic: Under this visa free travel.
Ira: Yes, but then we came back. There’s no place like home <laughs>.
Vic: You didn’t feel like leaving again for the three months because of the power cuts?
Ira: No. Because in another country, it’s also not so easy, especially with a child. Children get ill. Here in Ukraine, we at least know where to go. Italy is- I love Italy. However, if you are ill on a Saturday evening, <laughs> there’s no one there to help you because they are all- it’s a weekend. I got a few situations like that during our three months stay with my son. He got ill a couple of times, and with fever 40 plus and all, but there was no one to help, so I just <laughs>. Here I know that there’s an ambulance available, there’s a hospital available. Well, okay, I feel more comfortable and more confident here. No, we didn’t want to go anywhere.
Vic: That’s understandable. I think most people chose to stay.
Ira: Yes. Better the devil that you know. <laughs> And we know, we are quite familiar with it now. After so many- not so many, but after a few years of war.
Vic: So that’s all the questions I had. I don’t suppose there’s any other stories you’d like to share or any…
Ira: Not right now because, you know, I’m like…
Vic: Putting you on the spot.
Ira: I froze, yes. <laughs>. So I will think about it, I will maybe write something if I remember, or of course I will discuss this interview with my friends, maybe somebody will come up with some story and I will share it gladly.
Vic: Thank you.
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