Valeriia, a friend of Vlada, originally joined to be a translator between Vic and Vlada. Half of Vlada’s responses were in Ukrainian and half in English
Part 1: Vlada on folk heroes
Part 2: Vlada’s story
Vic: First, could you tell me your name and your age roughly?
Valeriia: You are not required to answer this question truthfully. (laughs)
Vic: Yeah, fake name is fine. (all laugh)
Valeriia: I am like your lawyer. Yeah, a fake name is fine, yeah.
Vlada: Uh, my name is Vlada, and I’m 20, 20 years old.
Vic: Cool. And are you from Lviv?
Vlada: No, I’m from, uh, Zaporizhzhia region, from Polohy.
Vic: Okay. Did you come here to study?
Vlada: Uh, mostly yes, but I want to live in Lviv, uh, like… when I was 10 years old, so, I really like this city.
Vic: What do you like about it?
Vlada: Uh, the quiet and, uh, there is lots of, uh, fun stuff you can do. Lots of museums, galleries, concerts or something.
Vic: Okay, cool. Have you… oh, I guess, I don’t know how much you’ve been told about the project, about the sort of things I’m collecting (laughs), so, I’m interested in these characters that have become popular since the start of the full-scale invasion. Heroic characters, like, uh, the Ghost of Kyiv, Pes Patron, the story of Snake Island, also stories of russian soldiers failing at things, like the soldiers who got stuck in an elevator, the soldier who failed to break into a nightclub, I’ve heard stories about soldiers stealing toilets, all sorts of thing. I guess I’m generally trying to collect the stories that people might tell each other, like tell their friends or post on social media. Um… do, can you think of any stories like that, that you might have heard?
Vlada: Okay. I just need a sec.
Vic: Yeah, that’s fine.
Valeriia: You can use services of a translator. If you need to.
Vlada: Eh, I’ll let Valeriia translate. (all laugh) Um… I think, from such stories where they stole, then yeah. Like… they stole so very much. They stole the carpets in our store, such huge ones… we had a store named «Kalynka» [viburnum], and there they stole, it had such huge carpets, like 20 meters in length, and they got fucking stolen.
Vic: Like, it’s a story that you heard or your family had a store that the soldiers stole the carpets from?
Vlada: Uh, no, just heard about it. We already weren’t living there at the time.
Vic: Okay, so that’s a story from where you were living before?
Vlada: Yeah.
Vic: Were there a lot of stories of the soldiers stealing?
Vlada: Uh, well, not really. In, in the village there were a lot of stories that, eh… they stole houses. Like. Like at first they would say: «that is it, this is our house, we will be living there», and then there was nothing left from the house, not even windows. Just walls.
Vic: Is this soldiers wanting to use it as a temporary base, or people trying to settle there and steal the land for civillians?
Vlada: Nothing serious, no. For the temporary base, there were active shootings and stuff. There were no funny stories except for the ones I’m thinking of, there were no stories like that told, I don’t remember. Well, we had nothing like this, like, funny. What was told.
Vic: Yeah, understandable. So, sorry… of the stories she was thinking of, is that the mention of them stealing carpets, or is it a different..?
Vlada: Like those base funny ones, Pes Patron, Chmonia…
Valeriia: Чмоня… this is an untranslatable word, like… (laughs) a very, um, despicable person is the only description I could give.
[A word «чмо» which a word «чмоня» comes from has quite a confusing story. Usually it is linked to russian language and among other meanings can be interpreted as an abbreviation of «Человек морально опущенный» – a person morally low. It is commonly being used as a descriptive for a despicable, disgusting person. The translator can only speculate that a derivative «чмоня» – chmonia was created to highlight the ridiculousness of the man in the picture and to differentiate him, creating a proper name for him.]
Vlada: I don’t even really know what, uh, the story, like, of this picture. But, uh, well that’s like… chmonia. (laughs)
Vic: What is it?
Vlada: It’s like, eh, funny pictures of [a russian] soldier who stand, like, like a little child, uh… and, eh, he’s so… how to translate «нєлєпий»?
Valeriia: (laughs) Ridiculous.
Vic: (laughs) Okay.
Valeriia: It’s just, uh… yeah, a man. Sorry I thought I was trans, translating, I’m not supposed to chime in.
Vic: (laughs) Okay.
Vlada: ‘Translating’ дальше. Um… it’s one of, like, funny stories that I can remember, of others, it’s like… Pes Patron, uhh, granny with, how do I say a «банка»…
Valeriia: Jar.
Vlada: Granny with jar, or something like that, I think you hear about it lots of time cause it’s the most popular ones. Uh… some of heroes characters, like… I don’t know, maybe, maybe like, uh, old man who stopped the tank… How to say «танк»? The same way? Yeah… um, I don’t know… Ghost of Kyiv, I think you know, um…
Vic: Could you tell me about the old man that stopped the tank?
Vlada: Yeah. You translate. Uh… that, in some village a man, [russian] soldiers started to come into his village, and he was like: «Over my dead body», and he just in a literal sense, well back then not everyone was so desensitized to human life, yeah, they didn’t go as far back then. Yeah, and they, like, he kinda stopped them, they stopped, and from the village there was more, more time to, like, leave the village.
(pause)
Vlada: I don’t know what to tell.
Valeriia: You can tell it in greater detail.
Vlada: I don’t know any more detail. That’s all I know.
Vic: Um, can you tell me about Pes Patron?
Vlada: (laughs) Okay. Uh, so what… uh, me, at first I learned about Pes Patron as a meme, and only then did I learn that he is a dog that disables mines, not just a joke. Yeah. And even in general, like I like Pes Patron. I never hated on him. I like the love for Pes Patron, he’s a very cool dog, he’s very cute. He deserves love.
Vic: Are there some people that hate him?
Vlada: One more time…
Valeriia: Are there, are there any people that hate on him.
Vlada: Well yeah… well, there is a big community in the Internet that doesn’t like Pes Patron, truly. Well, they hate on him, say that he’s a stupid dog. I judge them so much for that.
Vic: (laughs) Yeah. How could you say that about him?
Vlada: Well, that Pes Patron… (whispers something to Valeriia)
Valeriia: Because Pes Patron is so funny.
Vlada: Well, firstly, this is a dog. Yeah. Uh, he’s well-trained. He’s good at his job. He has cool owners. And the fact he was made out to be, I like that he was made such a… national achievement.
Vic: (laughs) I mean, he’s a good ambassador. Like, he’s good fun for the international people to meet when they come visit.
Vlada: Yes.
Vic: Have you bought any Pes Patron merchandise?
Vlada: Nah. Nah, I have not, cause… I don’t really like this, eh…souvenirs that matches something with Ukrainian war. I really like Pes Patron, but I, I didn’t want to have anything that’s, uh, connect with, with him or with, uh, any of Ukrainian souvenirs that you can see all around… just not my vibe.
Vic: How do you feel about other people wearing t-shirts with Pes Patron?
Vlada: Uh, for me it’s okay, I think it’s, eh, funny in some cases when, uh… I know people who wear it not because it’s a meme, and they really think that’s a cool stuff, so… like, I don’t judge and I don’t hate it.
Vic: What about international people like volunteers or even tourists?
Vlada: Uh, I think, I think that’s cool, and sometimes it’s, uh, really cute, cause they want to be compared to our, uh… nationality, and show that they help us and understand us.
Vic: So is Pes Patron your favorite of the hero characters that have emerged?
Vlada: Uh, I can’t say I have a favorite because I really don’t, don’t know lots of, like, Ukrainian, like, heroes, but it’s the cutest one. (both laughs)
Vic: Yeah, I guess there’s not so many dogs that are famous like that.
Vlada: Yeah.
Vic: Would you…
Valeriia: You have a [special] attention for dogs…
Vlada: Nah. No.
Valeriia: What about Rudolf?
Vlada: Maybe just Rudolf.
Valeriia: Tell about it.
Vlada: Uh… tell about what?
Valeriia: About Rudolf.
Vlada: Okay. Uh… I think I like Pes Patron cause I have a dog, my own dog, it’s [English] Cocker Spaniel, uh, and his name is Rudolf and he’s so cute, and Jack Russel [Pes Patron’s breed] really, how to translate «схожий», I forgot…
Valeriia: Similar.
Vlada: Really, really simir… simu…
Valeriia: Similar.
Vlada: Similar. Yeah. Uh… (laughs) To Cocker Spaniels, and they [are] funny, they active, they cute, they really like to, uh, to the park, and swimming, uh… I, I think I start liking Pes Patron when I saw the page on TikTok of his owners, uh, when Pes Patron is not working (laughs) but living his best dog life. So… I, I like him not only like a Ukrainian, uh, hero, uh, and, like, just a cool dog.
Vic: Do you think he would be friends with your dog if they met?
Vlada: I don’t know, my dog, uh, not really into getting a new friends, it, he’s like, um… feel comfort and enough with, with people, with my family.
Vic: That’s fair. If you got another dog in the future, would you get a Jack Russel?
Vlada: Uh… I really want такса.
Valeriia: D… Deutsch hound… (deep sigh)
Vlada: Deutsch hound.
Valeriia: D… No… Deutsch… Deutsch hound…
Vic: German shepherd?
Valeriia: No… it’s like a brown sausage dog, very, uh…
Vic: Oh.
Valeriia: …lengthy and small short legs.
Vic: Dachshund. Yeah, dachshund.
Valeriia: Yeah. That’s what I said. (laughs)
Vic: Yeah, sausage dog, yeah. (all laugh) I guess they wouldn’t be so good in the military, cause they don’t run so well.
Vlada: Yeah. They most funny.
Vic: Yeah, my neighbor has one and it’s quite a loud dog, it barks a lot. (laughs) But very cute. Uh… earlier you mentioned the lady with the jar of pickles who threw them at the drone. Do you know what it was, that was in the jar?
Vlada: Actually I don’t know much about this story. I only saw the memes. I don’t know anything that was before or after it.
Vic: Okay. So do you hear these stories from social media?
Vlada: Yeah. Uh, from TikTok, there are lots of, eh, memes, lots of videos, when people start with one POV [Point Of View] and finish with another one, with this granny with jar.
Valeriia: What? Sorry.
Vic: Do you…
Valeriia: Can you repeat, please?
Vlada: What exactly?
Valeriia: The last sentence. I just, I just already know that this will be hell for me to transcribe because I have no idea what you just said.
Vic: (laughs)
Vlada: Uh, what, uh… (laughs) In TikTok, there were a lot of videos, where people started with one POV, like they put themselves in the start of the video, and then in the end they put this granny with, that threw pickles.
Valeriia: Okay. I still didn’t understand, but I still, I… But at least I know what she said.
Vic: Do you ever talk about these characters with people, or do you just see them on social media?
Vlada: Well in my surroundings no one talked about this, no one talks, Like, it didn’t stay for discussion, it was just jokes. Sometimes it would come up, but…
Vic: So nobody’s singing Pes Patron songs?
Vlada: (laughs) Well, a lot of people sand Pes Patron songs, but… for a long time, even now.
Vic: Do you think people are less interested in Pes Patron nowadays?
Vlada: Uh, I think so, yeah. Just in general the interest to a lot of stuff dropped from the start of the full-scale invasion and to now. It’s just that… for example, Pes Patron has a fanbase, that is still there, like people that follow his life.
Vic: Because he’s a cute dog?
Vlada: Yeah. (laughs)
Vic: Right. That’s fair enough. Um… So I don’t have any other questions. Is there anything else you’d like to mention, anyone else you thought of while we’ve been speaking?
Vlada: Nah, I don’t think so… Those are like the biggest, well, what else… remind me of something, maybe I’ll remember.
Valeriia: Well, I don’t know. You can tell something about the Ghost of Kyiv, or… like, about the, about how you learned of all of this, what reaction did you have, especially, like, the first days of the full-scale invasion, about your experience. Personal one.
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