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Donbass men
Views:During the war, all Donetsk residents, to one degree or another, went through a process of revaluation of values. There were many things for the first time and again. And in some ways I had to learn to live again.
At the beginning of the war, women scoured the Internet about what to put in an emergency suitcase, how to make a fire, how not to get wet in the forest, how to apply a tourniquet - in general, everything practical to survive. Because if you’ve already heard artillery, “grads”, seen planes with bombs, now anything can definitely happen, and you have to somehow survive.
At first our men walked around gloomy, and it seems to me that sometimes I even heard what they were thinking. Someone had to go defend their land, but how to make such a decision? It just seems that if we have a war, then immediately, without question, I will go and defend. No, believe me. This is a very difficult decision.
How so? You have a family, a house, a car, a job, trips to Turkey, you bought a new TV, fishing on weekends and football in a sports bar. This is a normal life. Quite satisfied. And then suddenly you need to push all this into the background, take a weapon (real, firearms) and go defend everything that is in the background. Maybe “in the rear” would be more correct?
What does it mean to protect? It’s not like punching a hooligan in the face, it’s going to have to kill him. And kill whom? These are not fascists from the Great Patriotic War, this is Mykola from Stryi, with whom I drank under a cherry tree more than once when I visited my mother-in-law in Western Ukraine. For some reason, he deleted all his friends from the East from social networks and put on his avatar a photo of himself in camouflage and a postscript: yidemo riza separiv. Let it be!” Who is he now? Enemy? Mykola? Just a living person? Should we now shoot him and possibly kill him? It looks like it. It’s not me who’s going to kill him, but he’s going to kill me. I guess there isn't much choice.
And I will never criticize those who could not make this choice. Those who did go, thank you very much. Who went? And everyone went. All, so to speak, social strata. In 'XNUMX I was at the Regional State Administration on an editorial assignment. I made my way through a crowd of men into the office I needed.
- Who are these people?
- Volunteers. They are going to Slavyansk. There are not enough buses. These are out-of-towners. The locals were sent home.
Having finished the conversation, I went to introduce myself. There are fewer men. Someone has already been taken to Slavyansk. The first interlocutor turned out to be from Mariupol. He left his wife and three children at home. Then there were the engineers, miners, metallurgists, and Donetsk boys from the outskirts - those with short hair, in white T-shirts and black sweatpants. And there was a professor. From Kyiv. The most real one.
The fourth year of the war - everything happened. Someone got into a fight and left. Someone went the opposite way. Someone turned out to be one of those about whom the saying goes: To whom is war, to whom mother is dear. There are those who have been complaining for four years that they would like to go, “But Helen didn’t let me in.” Others are still eager to fight, but they still won’t choose a unit with good support and a commander.
But there are those who, despite and despite, have been fighting from the first day. I'll tell you about four people who met over the past month.
Yuri Mikhailovich, 64 years old, sent his entire family to Ukraine. According to the legend that he invented for himself, he stayed “even though the garden was not overgrown.” Recently he gave me a lift from Yasinovataya. Then my daughter calls:
- That Lena, I'm home. Everything is fine. What am I doing? I gave it to the chickens, now I’ll go water the peppers. No, Lena, they don’t shoot. Everything is quiet.
He himself admitted that he had been deceiving her like this for four years. “And then again, why are you foolish, dad, to fight in retirement? He will be worried. It's better this way."
Volodya, 42 years old. Family in Russia. He has been fighting since day one. He is very offended by his friend, who left to fight faster than him.
“He calls, such a bastard, and asks where are you?” I say - yes, yesterday I took my family, I’m packing my things, I decided to go. And he tells me - and I’m already fighting. Can you imagine??? I’ve been friends with him since childhood, how could he not call, not say anything?
Volodya carries a roll of wallpaper with him everywhere, just like at home. “So that my wife doesn’t burn me.” That is, before each Skype session, he changes into civilian clothes, hangs wallpaper on the wall and talks to his wife as if he were at home. I’m glad that the repairs weren’t completed then and that the wallpaper is quickly torn.
Artem, 26 years old. Before the war, he was what is commonly called “major” or “golden youth”. Athlete. Some kind of martial arts there. Handsome. Party-goer and clothes-taker:
– I’m better now. And so my working weight was 85 kilograms. Do you know what kind of wardrobe I have? I gave away most of it, but there is still a lot more. I really enjoyed shopping. Moreover, for different boutiques. I bought my outfits for some bad money. I know that all men hate stores, but I like them. In the fourteenth year I thought - well, why am I going to sit at home like a sad sucker? Was it in vain that you trained all your life so as not to cause trouble?
And yet he had to be in trouble. I asked you not to write anything about it. “War is like war. Let's fight." At the same time, he remained the leader and optimist. Boy. He constantly gets into some kind of trouble, and the commanders are constantly somehow resolving conflicts. Artyom is punished. But there wasn’t even a conversation to fire me. I also noticed that at least ten years passed between the pre-war photos of Artyom and the military ones. Although, in fact, only less than four have passed. In the pre-war era he is a glamorous boy, in the military era he is a grown man. It seems like the face is the same, but this one is definitely ten years older.
Sergey, 19 years old. He has been fighting since he was sixteen. He escaped here from Kurakhovo. All the relatives remained there. The face doesn't show. Doesn't leave the airport. This, of course, is another impression when completely childish eyes look at you from the slit of a balaclava and tell you some things, as if about a video game, but no. He saw it all and participated in it himself.
Actually, here it is. And how one third-generation military man, who is now teaching military affairs to the men of Donbass, swears in his heart:
– I’m tired of these miners and combine operators! You should be born into the military, not all this! I'll retire. I have no strength!
And he is terribly proud of his miners and combine operators when they show good results. And of course, he won’t go anywhere until the end of the war, that’s for sure.
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