Coming of age in Ukraine
Published: 03:10 PM,Oct 25,2023 | EDITED : 07:10 PM,Oct 25,2023
Ruslan Kushka works at a drugstore in Bucha, Ukraine.
Laetitia Vancon
The writer is a French photographer based in Germany
The years of young adulthood are often associated with opening horizons. Making friends. Having adventures. The first independent steps into work, or study, or love. For many young Ukrainians, however, war with Russia has upended that reality, replacing it with danger and death, depression and dislocation.
In these interviews, six young people who live in and around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, explore the pressure of experiencing young adulthood at a time of conflict. A few have seen and felt the cost of war painfully close. Others say their daily lives are, for the most part, mundane. But all agreed that it has indelibly altered what should be their formative years as adults.
Maryna Bodnar grew up in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. She was, she said, an “untameable girl” — a daredevil who spent her adolescence seeking thrills and adventure. She met Vitalik on a dating site and they fell in love. Two children followed.
Maryna and Vitalik had planned to marry, but only when they were old. “We didn’t see the need,” she said.
—
Emilia and Denys met at a birthday party in Kyiv. What blossomed was their first serious relationship, a time filled with excitement and possibility. Then the bombs began to fall, and everything changed.
As Moscow’s troops advanced on Kyiv in the war’s first weeks, millions of Ukrainians fled. Emilia, along with her family, escaped to the Netherlands, with a plan to continue her studies there. As an adult male, though, Denys was prohibited from leaving Ukraine. “I had to leave everything behind,” Emilia said. “My love, my friends.”
The separation proved shattering. Missing Denys, she found that she was unable to throw herself fully into a new life. So four months after she left she returned to Kyiv. Now, she and Denys are building a life together, in her old home. Music and songwriting are a big part of their new lives, filling the spaces around her studies and his work. “I started to enjoy simple things,” she said.
—
For more than a year, Kateryna Plechystova’s life was defined by an absence.
Ukraine’s Azov Battalion had led the defense of Mariupol, and her husband, Oleh Krisenko, was one of its fighters. In May, in the final act of the battle for the destroyed city, Russian forces besieged Ukrainian fighters trapped in underground bunkers at the Azovstal steel works. When the siege ended, Oleh and hundreds of others were forced to surrender as prisoners of war.
Their captivity became an international cause. Kateryna campaigned for their release as part of The Association of Azovstal Defenders’ Families. “I came to understand the concept of being a ‘friend in misfortune,’” she said. At the same time, she lived with months of uncertainty, which led to anxiety and depression.
Then one day in May, she received a phone call from the military. Oleh was being released in a prisoner exchange. The next day, he walked back into her life..”
—
In the years when his dreams still felt possible, Ruslan Kushka set his heart on studying chemistry in the Czech Republic. It was an unusual ambition, but hardly an outlandish one. To make it happen, he had studied hard at school. He had started to learn Czech. When the time came, he had even won a place at a university in Prague.
Accepting that place is now impossible. In the midst of a national emergency, a lost opportunity to study abroad might seem manageable, and hardly one to complain about as men his age are dying by the thousands.
But for Ruslan, the dashed dream was not a mere abstract. It was his own. Now, trapped in the gap between disappointment and duty, he has wrestled with depression as well as confusion and listlessness.
—
In his teens, Oleksandr Budko read stories about heroic Ukrainian fighters from history. The stories fueled his patriotism and made him want to serve his country in battle. On the first day of Russia’s invasion last year, Oleksandr, known as Teren, joined the military. After initial training and service in the defense of Kyiv, he was assigned to participate in a campaign to reclaim territory in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
He was living his dream. It all changed in an instant, when a shell landed near him and severed his lower legs. “There were ambiguous emotions,” he said of his initial reaction. “This pain, panic, and fear. And at the same time, misunderstanding how it happened. The brain refuses to believe it.”
—
By definition, war is the worst of times. Even so, some people are drawn to its intensity. Conflict can give their lives a sense of direction. Mykhailo Panchyshyn eagerly sought it out. “I wasn’t happy in my life,” he said. “I couldn’t find a reason to live. I couldn’t find a purpose for my life.”
Five years earlier, he had been riding high, the newly crowned winner of Ukraine’s version of the musical reality show “X Factor.” Fame and fortune beckoned. But the music industry that had built him up soon brought him back to Earth. He wanted to be a rock star. The industry viewed him as a pop star. From the outside, it might seem like a small distinction. But to a sensitive artist thrust into the public eye, it was an existential moment.
” - The New York Times
The writer is a French photographer based in Germany
The years of young adulthood are often associated with opening horizons. Making friends. Having adventures. The first independent steps into work, or study, or love. For many young Ukrainians, however, war with Russia has upended that reality, replacing it with danger and death, depression and dislocation.
In these interviews, six young people who live in and around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, explore the pressure of experiencing young adulthood at a time of conflict. A few have seen and felt the cost of war painfully close. Others say their daily lives are, for the most part, mundane. But all agreed that it has indelibly altered what should be their formative years as adults.
Maryna Bodnar grew up in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. She was, she said, an “untameable girl” — a daredevil who spent her adolescence seeking thrills and adventure. She met Vitalik on a dating site and they fell in love. Two children followed.
Maryna and Vitalik had planned to marry, but only when they were old. “We didn’t see the need,” she said.
—
Emilia and Denys met at a birthday party in Kyiv. What blossomed was their first serious relationship, a time filled with excitement and possibility. Then the bombs began to fall, and everything changed.
As Moscow’s troops advanced on Kyiv in the war’s first weeks, millions of Ukrainians fled. Emilia, along with her family, escaped to the Netherlands, with a plan to continue her studies there. As an adult male, though, Denys was prohibited from leaving Ukraine. “I had to leave everything behind,” Emilia said. “My love, my friends.”
The separation proved shattering. Missing Denys, she found that she was unable to throw herself fully into a new life. So four months after she left she returned to Kyiv. Now, she and Denys are building a life together, in her old home. Music and songwriting are a big part of their new lives, filling the spaces around her studies and his work. “I started to enjoy simple things,” she said.
—
For more than a year, Kateryna Plechystova’s life was defined by an absence.
Ukraine’s Azov Battalion had led the defense of Mariupol, and her husband, Oleh Krisenko, was one of its fighters. In May, in the final act of the battle for the destroyed city, Russian forces besieged Ukrainian fighters trapped in underground bunkers at the Azovstal steel works. When the siege ended, Oleh and hundreds of others were forced to surrender as prisoners of war.
Their captivity became an international cause. Kateryna campaigned for their release as part of The Association of Azovstal Defenders’ Families. “I came to understand the concept of being a ‘friend in misfortune,’” she said. At the same time, she lived with months of uncertainty, which led to anxiety and depression.
Then one day in May, she received a phone call from the military. Oleh was being released in a prisoner exchange. The next day, he walked back into her life..”
—
In the years when his dreams still felt possible, Ruslan Kushka set his heart on studying chemistry in the Czech Republic. It was an unusual ambition, but hardly an outlandish one. To make it happen, he had studied hard at school. He had started to learn Czech. When the time came, he had even won a place at a university in Prague.
Accepting that place is now impossible. In the midst of a national emergency, a lost opportunity to study abroad might seem manageable, and hardly one to complain about as men his age are dying by the thousands.
But for Ruslan, the dashed dream was not a mere abstract. It was his own. Now, trapped in the gap between disappointment and duty, he has wrestled with depression as well as confusion and listlessness.
—
In his teens, Oleksandr Budko read stories about heroic Ukrainian fighters from history. The stories fueled his patriotism and made him want to serve his country in battle. On the first day of Russia’s invasion last year, Oleksandr, known as Teren, joined the military. After initial training and service in the defense of Kyiv, he was assigned to participate in a campaign to reclaim territory in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
He was living his dream. It all changed in an instant, when a shell landed near him and severed his lower legs. “There were ambiguous emotions,” he said of his initial reaction. “This pain, panic, and fear. And at the same time, misunderstanding how it happened. The brain refuses to believe it.”
—
By definition, war is the worst of times. Even so, some people are drawn to its intensity. Conflict can give their lives a sense of direction. Mykhailo Panchyshyn eagerly sought it out. “I wasn’t happy in my life,” he said. “I couldn’t find a reason to live. I couldn’t find a purpose for my life.”
Five years earlier, he had been riding high, the newly crowned winner of Ukraine’s version of the musical reality show “X Factor.” Fame and fortune beckoned. But the music industry that had built him up soon brought him back to Earth. He wanted to be a rock star. The industry viewed him as a pop star. From the outside, it might seem like a small distinction. But to a sensitive artist thrust into the public eye, it was an existential moment.
” - The New York Times