A little about life in the occupied territories

Now, against the backdrop of the successes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kherson region, I decided to remember how I lived after February 24th.

I recently watched a documentary called “Mariupol, Chronicles of Hell”(you can find the link to the movie with english subtitles at the end of the article). I almost burst into tears. The film shows the events from the life of eyewitnesses from February to the end of March, who managed to leave.

All this is true to a single word, these were ordinary people in terms of thinking.

Everything felt great until I started to remember how it was. Now it’s better not to think about it, otherwise it will be swallowed up by fear.

People here are so adapted to survive that memory works differently. Now I can hear the car from 100 meters away and know if it is safe or not. All memory and psyche work for survival, alas. Long-term memory is completely turned off, and if you use it, you can go crazy and finally give up as a result. Therefore, only short-term memory works.

Life and plans now are radically different from life and plans before the war. Now my life consists of 3 points:

1. Buy food

2. Do not get caught by any little things (survive)

3. Look at everything that surrounds me.

A brief excursion into the life of a person in the occupied territory: in February you were an ordinary person, and in September you became a professional chameleon who learned to KNOW EVERYTHING that happens around you in real time.

Is a well-equipped bus just passed by now? I know who it is. These are either collaborators or guys who shoot a picture for the world and Russia about “peaceful life in the city.” You understand by the sound what exactly is driving, a self-propelled artillery mount or a tank. An empty car or with a load — you can hear it even at night. The brains work in a completely different way: you not only hear where they are going, but you can guess the route and predict the further development of events, or they go to the base, or left the base, or they carry shells for those military who shoot from point X.

And only a local resident can do this, this is his strength — he knows all the routes in the city and clearly understands where is going enemy equipment.

People have learned to draw information literally from nothing here. Everything that happens here resembles a computer game.

Somewhere there is the rest of the world. But in the occupied territory, you find yourself in some book, in some parallel universe. There is a global game going on here. Here you find yourself in the most terrible world in which you would not want to be, you forget your former life and live like in hell.

Your brain works differently: you listen more on the street and keep quiet. From snippets of phrases, you learned to understand which of the Russians came where and from where. Peripheral vision works at its maximum: even if you are walking down the street, all in your thoughts and looking at your feet, you will still always see a patrol or hear the sound of a military car, or notice a vehicle with markings and understand where this vehicle went.

Peripheral vision, by the way, was scary at first. You couldn’t understand where you got this skill from, because you don’t just look at your feet when you walk, but actually scan the situation around you.

The daily routine is simple: to work, from work, to the store to buy food and get a price shock, and back home. No weekend plans, no future plans, no long term plans. You survived today and excellently.

About two worlds, it is clearly noted: there is a big, colored world — this is outside of the occupation and there is another, black and white, in which you live. Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv — this is somewhere in the region of Australia. It is very far away, actually another universe.

All of these blah blah blah from politicians, who gives how many weapons, who does not, what Scholz or someone else said — this is the political life of Guadeloupe. Everything is simple with you: the rashists are in the city or they are not there, the checkpoints of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have become closer or have remained in place, the base of the invaders burned down or did not burn down. Everything else is about nothing, it’s water and nothing more.

And what has become your ability to hear what is happening on the stairwell or behind the fence … It’s just unique. You are sometimes shocked that you have begun to pay attention to it and that you have learned to use it so that it can save your life if necessary.

There is a point of no return, the day when everything changed and you had to decide for yourself which side you are on. The most interesting thing is that you have actually already forgotten about what happened before the invasion. This is some other, fabulous life. Now you are driven by the desire to do everything so that this nightmare ends at last. Because you are already sick of what you see around you.

By the way, there is also a clear understanding that in reality everything is simple: either they kill us or we kill them. No sentimentality — they are trying to destroy us, and we fight back and destroy them. Yes, sometimes a thought comes to you when you look at a moron in camouflage, still a child, and you ask yourself the question that this moron forgot here … And then you drive all this tolerant nonsense away from you because you understand that this character with the face of a child will cut your throat calmly and without sentimentality.

Therefore, you wish for the death of this warrior and for it to happen as quickly as possible. You don’t care if he’s a conscript or not, what his name is, where he’s from. Let him just die and let this death be as painful as possible.

You’re not cruel, no. You just learned to call a spade a spade: they wish us death, we wish them death. Everything is simple.

You have a category of people that you consider real. In 99% of cases, they proved this not by word, but by deed. Yes, you may disagree with them on a number of issues, but they are not hypocritical, but they say it like it is and what they really think. Without halftones, without understatement and pretense. And you really like it, because former friends and acquaintances have become completely different in most cases.

Epilogue. In general, you can write for a long time about what has changed and what is happening in your head now. The main thing is that you do not give up and do not get tired mentally, because all the horror that is happening is already very tired. It’s really hard.

The documentary “Mariupol, Chronicles of Hell” can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkv2fa-8vqQ

Also, I recommend watching the movie about Kherson(without english subtitles):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGymx_GXybg