(UKRAINE) You cannot forget if you have been shot at!

(UKRAINE) You cannot forget if you have been shot at!

Irina Mirochnik

“You cannot forget if you have been shot at. 

Or your house was bombed. 

Or you saw dead people, and only an hour ago they were arguing with you about something jokingly and trying to smile to cheer you up. 

Now they are lying on the asphalt, and you don’t recognise them. 

It’s impossible to throw it out of your memory.

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You just have to throw it away and move on. Like old junk from the closet. Like things no one needs.

We were lucky. We left. My friend asked me: “How would you live if you stayed in Mariupol?”

I would not have lived. 

I would not be able to talk to those who killed and smile at them. 

To receive money from them and flatter them. I would be afraid of them and hang a foreign flag on my balcony to please them.

We were leaving Mariupol in two broken cars. There were 16 of us and a dog. We all wanted to live.

This desire came to us unexpectedly. 

Already in the car. 

Before that, we were slowly dying in the basement. We were fading away like the wick of our candle.

The process of dying came suddenly. Yesterday we believed that the war would end and I was thinking hard about how long it would take to put the city back in order. 

Mariupol was broken and littered with rubbish. We looked like it, dirty and unkempt. 

I dreamed that they would give us water right away. There would be a hot shower and clean underwear. 

We understood that the gas supply was unlikely to be connected, but our services would be able to do the rest. 

I was waiting for pharmacies and pet shops to open so I could buy pet food and heart pills.

And then the dying came. 

Strangely enough, hope was the first to die. 

We no longer believed that the war would end or that the city would be liberated within a few days.

We felt that we would never get out.

And every time we left the basement, we were convinced of this.

We did not go far from the houses. 

The longer the distance, the less chance of returning. 

Sometimes there was no need to go anywhere. 

A shell hit the apartment.

Death with home delivery.

At first, the city looked like a gypsy camp. 

People moved in groups. 

They were all on duty together by the fire, eating in the yards, hiding in ghostly shelters from the shelling. 

And then they disappeared.

There was a distance of a few minutes between the still living yards and the completely dead ones. 

The transition between life and death is instantaneous. 

There were people in this house just now. They were living somehow, fussing, lighting fires, trying to board up the windows with plywood after a close call and suddenly a shell hit and emptiness. Scary and hopeless.

You walk through these yards and realise that there is no one else here. 

And it seems that there never will be.

We were leaving the city through the empty streets trampled by bombs. 

It was Wednesday, 16 March. 

We were changing the expectation of death to the movement towards it. 

We were sure that we would not get out. 

Well, you can’t have one chance in a thousand. 

But we had to use it.

Before the war, there were traffic jams on the roads at this time. 

People were crossing the street in a stream, cars were honking, and the trolleybus stopped far from the stop because it was overcrowded. 

Mothers were taking their children to kindergarten. 

It was only three weeks before the Russians invaded. 

My town was alive.

Three weeks later, we were leaving a dead city, barely alive. 

People from nowhere, going to the unknown.

***

The photo in the window is not light, it is fire. 

It was the same fire we saw at the high-rise building on Myru Avenue. 

We watched as the flames consumed apartment after apartment. 

We could do nothing. 

There were no rescuers, no water.”

PS : Right now, in front of the whole world, the same thing is being done to Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia. The world is watching how they are killing, destroying, devastating .And the price of the issue is another 5-10 Patriot systems.  While we wait for consent or help, there will be no more cities.  Rage at the endless cynicism and indifference is replaced by apathy to death.

06-04-2024

 Irina Mirochnik: PhD, Board Member of the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, President of the Flexible Packaging Association of Ukraine and representative of the SAVE FOOD initiative UN in Ukraine, Advisory Board Member White Ribbon Ukraine, Member of the Supervisory Board of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, included in the list of 100 Business Ambassadors of Ukraine

PERSONAL AWARDS / TITLES ( Irina Mirochnik):  2004 – Diploma of the Ministry of Industrial Policy of Ukraine; 2009 – The title of “Honored Worker of Industry of Ukraine”; 2011 – Gratitude of the Chairman of the Kyiv City Council; 2014 – “Person of the year” nomination “Industrialist of the Year”; 2015 – Badge “For Merit” from the Federation of Employers of Ukraine; 2016 – Badge of Honor “For services to the chemical industry of Ukraine”; 2016 – “Person of the year” nomination “Industrialist of the Year”; 2018 – Order of Merit(Ukraine), 3rd class; 2019 – Award “Woman of the III Millennium”.

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