Valeria Shashenok was born in 2002 in Chernihiv, a city in north-eastern Ukraine. When Russian troops invaded her home country, the 20-year-old fled. In her book “24. February… and the sky wasn’t blue anymore,” she reports. FOCUS Online publishes an excerpt.
I stayed in the bomb shelter for 17 long days, but we had survived until now. Around us, north of Kyiv, fierce fighting raged, the Russians threatened to attack civilians trying to flee with planes and rockets. It was the day that the Hotel Ukraina in Chernihiv was destroyed.
There was no more electricity, people started charging their mobile phones at public sockets on the streets, although there was no longer a telephone network anyway. It was so bad that I decided to leave Chernihiv and flee as soon as possible.
I considered taking the bus to Kyiv because civilian cars were being fired upon by Russian soldiers. Then a couple offered to give me a lift in their car and it took us seven hours – it’s usually two.
February 24th… and the sky wasn’t blue anymore
Imagine a convoy of 30 cars driving across fields and through forests in the dark. Some had stickers saying “Children in the car,” but the Russians weren’t going to spare anyone. Place signs were removed to confuse the Russian troops.
Valeria Shashenok was born in 2002 in Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv in northeastern Ukraine, where her parents still live today. Before the war she pursued her passion as a freelance photographer. One of her videos now has more than 50 million TikTok views – her videos and her messages go around the world.
When the attacks on Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, she documented the harrowing events the war entailed on her TikTok and Instagram accounts. With images of brutal devastation, tongue-in-cheek commentary and a deeply personal perspective, her work reaches millions. She is very fond of black humor; he helps her get through these absurd times.
They were known to still use paper road maps. It took us many hours to reach the train station in Kyiv, but the journey passed quickly. I was so nervous I forgot how to pee even after the whole convoy stopped for it.
I managed to catch a train to Lviv in western Ukraine, about 70 kilometers from the Polish border. On the way I met four other girls from Chernihiv. I clearly remember the smell when we reached the Lviv train station.
It smelled of people, of food and of misfortune. It’s hard to describe it all, it was just awful. All the people (including tramps) trying to get free food.
Suddenly I heard that a train is going to Przemyśl, Poland. At that moment we girls decided to try to get on this train. I gave my all and even pushed my way to the front of the line – yes, I know it wasn’t fair, but we were in a game with no rules.
Everyone cried, some screamed. Suddenly a man said there was standing room for three. So we got on quickly and just got out of Lemberg. I stood on the train almost the whole time and could only sit down for a short moment. The other girls were sitting by the toilet. Next to me was the aunt of my best friend Uliana, who was traveling with her disabled mother.
I will never forget those images of despair. At the stops, people yelled to get food. The train waited five hours in the dark at the Polish border.
It was awful – children slept on the floor next to the elderly and disabled. Finally we arrived in Przemyśl and I started to cry. I couldn’t take another train ride. I had no documents, no passport, it was still in Kyiv.
I considered taking a taxi but it would have cost $400 to get all the way to Warsaw. So I pulled myself together, went back to the train station and decided not to wait for a train to Warsaw but to catch the one to nearby Łódź.
There I was recognized by a local media reporter from my social media posts and gave an interview while waiting for my wonderful friend Darina from Warsaw to pick me up.
Another girl from Chernihiv was already staying with her, and when I think back to the moment when I entered Darina’s apartment, I can still smell the warm soup they cooked for me. At that moment it was impossible to understand what I had gone through on this journey. How are you supposed to feel about that?
Valeria Shashenok. February 24th… and the sky was no longer blue – Things that just make sense in a bomb shelter, story one – the library of life, 91 pages.
