25 Aug Documents. Food. Clothes.
I met Veronika on World Refugee Day – a rather sophisticated name for a day no one ever wants to celebrate. We had come together to find small reasons for joy in this whole difficult situation. One of them was that museums open their doors to our neighbours who found shelter in Bucharest.
‘What is your name?’
‘Veronika.’ She stands so straight and serious that, for a moment, I think she is here accompanying a minor. Actually, she is the minor. She is 15 and comes from Odessa. I don’t want to ask her the painful and predictable questions, so I ask her to describe an average day in her life before the 24th of February 2022.
“Studying, doing my homework, rehearsing. My biggest concerns were really small, if you think about it. I had to get ready for my exams. Then, apart from that, each day I found time for something I love doing. To reward myself. I liked drawing, singing and rehearsing with the instruments I can play.” She uses past tense to speak of her daily hobbies.
She is holding a large instrument looking very vaguely like a guitar, something I don’t think I’ve seen before. I try to count the metal strings, but lose track after 50. I choose to ask her about music. What kind does she like to listen to when she is happy? What about when she is sad? What genre of music does she find… refuge in?
‘I associate happiness with Ukraine, so when I’m happy I listen to our music. New songs keep coming out, despite this period. Maybe I also listen to them to lift my mood. For darker moods, I have all the slow songs in English. The kind people listen to when they’ve been hurt in love. My love is music. I’ve been studying it since I was six.’
‘What did you take with you when you left? What was in your suitcases?’
‘I thought we were only leaving for a short while; when you do that, you only pack what’s really necessary. Documents, food, clothes. Things you know you’ll need, because you think you know what you’ll be doing while you’re away. Documents to cross borders, money to support yourself and clothes to keep going. And come back. That’s what you think. I came to Romania with my mother. She packed the bags for both of us. We just left, with no particular destination – it didn’t even matter, since we didn’t know what would happen anyway. We chose Romania because it’s closer to Odessa, not because we wanted to live here or anywhere other than our home.’ Now she looks like an adult again. ‘I took along my bandura.’ So that is the name of her instrument.
‘It’s funny how things go on as if nothing’s happened. We have classes every day. School continues online, it wasn’t out during the pandemic and it’s not out because of the war; if you look at it metaphorically, maybe it’s because it’s connected to our future. No one can put their future on hold. So we continue it over Zoom.’
There is a musical moment coming up, and Veronika goes up to the small stage, hugging her unusual instrument. The bandura. The luggage she brought with her from Odessa. The bandura is a Ukrainian musical instrument. It can have as many as 65 metal strings (12/17 bass and 50 for high tones, known as prystrunky). For Veronika, studying it was a condition so she could change teachers, so she switched from the piano to the bandura, which she stuck with over the last five years. She picks a beautiful, merry song about love for Ukraine. At the end, we all cry.
When I ask her what she misses the most, she says it’s her grandmother. She pauses and I understand that she stayed behind, then I hear her continue in a lower voice: ‘I really miss all the animals that stayed in Odessa too, and actually… I miss the feeling of being home.’
When she comes down from the stage, I tell her I want to write down our conversation and she is glad – she wants her story to reach all the volunteers who have helped her and her mother to cross the border at Isaccea into Romania. The only easy part of the whole story has been the empathy and support with which they were greeted here. She wants them to continue helping other people fleeing their homes.
‘Do you prefer it when people ask you about the war, or when they avoid mentioning it? Which is harder for you?’
‘Honestly, there’s a lot of confusion for people my age in Romania. But that’s normal. I can feel they don’t want us to live here, but neither do we, we just want to be away from the war, but we can’t move our country, so we move away until it passes.’
The song Veronika played is called назустріч долі and speaks of gratitude for one’s parents for having brought them into the world in Ukraine.
Testimony donated to the Museum of Abandonment by Veronika Chaykovskaya, for the Abandonment Baggage campaign. This project is financed by CARE through the Sera Foundation, Care France, and FONPC.
No Comments