"I’m fed up of drawing squares in therapist’s office". How recreation is organized for mothers and wives of fallen and captured soldiers
When it comes to supporting or helping the families of Ukrainian soldiers who have been captured, killed or are missing, what comes to mind? Psychologists, doctors, DNA examinations, human rights activists, endless meetings, and rallies, rallies, rallies...
Fighting for your sons and husbands is exhausting, and you need to have a strong inner core to avoid falling into the maelstrom of darkness. Oksana Levkova, who organizes short trips for mothers and wives of such soldiers, explains that working with a psychologist or psychotherapist alone is not enough. However, society or patrons do not always understand this.
For more than 20 years, Oksana has been engaged in social activities, but with an emphasis on spreading the Ukrainian world to those regions that this world has bypassed for obvious reasons. And it's not just about books or movies. Six years ago, it was the turn of sunny and multi-ethnic Bessarabia:
"In 2018-2019, I closed my projects in different regions of Ukraine and moved to the Odesa region, and I did it because of my public position, not for pleasure. My goal was to conduct ideological work with the local population because I was sincerely afraid that "little green men" from Transnistria would come there. Film clubs, intellectual conversations, and assistance to local schools, museums, and libraries - this is such kind of format.
At that time, no one allocated subventions (I still don't know how to win them), and it was hard to move forward without help. That's why I found local farmers, craftsmen, restaurateurs, hoteliers... It so happened that I had 12,000 friends on Facebook at the time - successful, financially reliable lawyers, doctors, bankers, IT professionals, managers, public and political figures, and other people in their professions, so it made sense for local producers to advertise on my part. From then on, I started to advertise their products with zeal. At the same time, I traveled around the towns of Bessarabia, describing my travels on social media. Readers began to encourage me to develop tours of Bessarabia with an emphasis on meeting local farmers and craftspeople.
I spent all the money I earned from this, among other things, on purchasing tons of maps, atlases, and similar products from the Cartography State Enterprise and sending them to schools and educational institutions in Bessarabia. Ukrainian book and, in general, Ukrainian had not reached there before."
How a combination of tourism, mutual knowledge of regions and promotion of Ukrainianness led to charity tours for mothers and wives of military personnel - in an interview with Censor.NET. And why even three days of vacation in a decent company give these women wings.
- How did you come up with the idea of charity tours for mothers and wives of military personnel in this particular format - a recreational one?
- After the full-scale invasion began, domestic tourism stopped, and I returned to Kyiv entirely. Here, fate brought me together with lawyer Natalia Yepifanova. In the middle of 2022, she founded the NGO Voyatskyi Vyzvil (Warriors’ Liberation). Her nephew, Leonid Onyshchenko, a defender of Mariupol, was and is still in captivity. This is scary because he is a world-famous dancer who has represented Ukraine at international dance competitions.
Natalia tried and is still trying to free him and his comrades. She was followed by other women, especially mothers and wives of captives, dead and missing from military unit 3057 (now the 12th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine). Hundreds of guys from there are being held in Russian torture chambers. That's how I got to know their family environment.
Soon, in the winter of 2022-2023, I started inviting these women to crafters in the Kyiv region. For example, to the Medovyi Spas honey factory in Brovary. Then I realized that they could be taken to the Odesa region using the same algorithm as before the full-scale invasion, i.e. organizing meetings and events for them for three days in Odesa, Sarat, Artsyz, Tylihulskyi lyman, Izmail, and Vylkove. And above all, I want to take the wives and mothers of Mariupol's defenders to the sea and the Danube. Why? Because they are mostly from Pryazovia and are used to water and warmth. Odesa region is now the only southern region of Ukraine where no part is occupied. Morally, this factor has a great impact - when a woman realizes that she has come to a region free of Russians.
In October 2023, I invited the first woman from this environment, Halyna Zhylchenko from Donetsk's Pryazovia, on a tour. Her husband fought in the territorial defense of Mariupol and has been in captivity for three years. She liked my route and program very much and told her fellow sisters in misery about it. And here we go. So in April this year, the first "full" group of such women gathered. The next group went in June.
A tour of the Odesa region by mothers and wives of the fallen, missing and captured defenders of Mariupol. June 2024
- You write quite a lot about the return to Ukraine of the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers who died in Russian torture chambers. I learned about this from you. You also support women who have received the bodies of their tortured husbands...
- While we were working on the topic of the tours in April-May 2024, it turned out that in addition to the categories of wives and mothers of the dead, prisoners of war, and missing persons, there was a category of wives and mothers of men who were returned from captivity tortured to death. This is very scary. Recently I attended the Marine Corps Day on the Maidan in Kyiv (annually on May 23), and there I met such women. The conclusion is on the surface: we need to find a particularly delicate approach to them. This is a new challenge for society - to develop the right attitude towards such women and to look for resources to work with them.
I recently had a meeting with these women. This is the worst that a sick imagination can come up with - this is what the Russians are doing to our military. Hollywood can't hold a candle to it. Starvation and rape are kindergartens compared to what is being done there.
- In your public posts, you make it clear that there are problems with raising funds for such charity tours.
- Let's be honest: it's a big expense, a carrier alone costs 30 thousand hryvnias within the Odesa region. As a citizen, I would be ashamed to take money from these women. There are no subventions for this, including from large international foundations. Patrons consider traveling for the mothers and wives of our defenders to be entertainment, instead, they think that stress relief for these women is exclusively in working with a psychotherapist.
- What do women themselves think?
- They believe that they have been fed up of psychotherapists. Not all of them, but many. Let me quote the mother of a soldier who died at Azovstal: "I'm fed up of drawing squares in the therapist's office, I want air, news not about the war, fresh positive communication with new interesting people." However, they need a push to get out of their cocoon and go to the sunny Odesa region for three days.
So, in fact, I've been raising money for two months for one three-day trip. In February, it was harder for me to raise money, and in April-May, it was easier.
- Because in the spring, the Danube herring (Dunayka) season began - the hallmark of Bessarabia, I suppose?
- Yes, and many people ordered it from me: from cleaners and locksmiths to representatives of international organizations and deputies of various factions.... The fishermen of Vylkove gave me 50 hryvnias for each box of Dunayka sold. Thanks to this, we quickly collected 100 thousand hryvnias for the dream tour.
I am often asked if hoteliers, cheese makers, winemakers, brynza makers, and restaurateurs give me discounts because the mothers and wives of the prisoners and the dead are in great grief. And I say: why do you think that all these hoteliers, cheese makers, winemakers have little grief? For example, Andrii Shyrenkov, who owns a snail farm in the village of Safiany near Izmail, had his son killed in the Zaporizhzhia direction. He intends to turn his farm into a rehabilitation center - it has a beautiful location above the lake. Accordingly, he also needs funds for this facility. Other producers help the army a lot and do a lot for the Izmail border guard detachment. Therefore, experience shows that the maximum discounts that are theoretically possible for us are 10-15%. There is also an option when those locations that host us simply do not raise prices for their services for years. For example, the producers of dried meat products in Bolgrad, " Kalkanski smakolyky ("Balkan Delicacies").
- Is it possible to cooperate with other similar initiatives?
- It is possible, but now we are at the stage of observing each other. In the Lviv region, for example, there are two such NGOs: "Development of the Community", which transports affected women on the routes "Zhovkva-Krekhiv-Stradch", "Boryslav-Truskavets-Drohobych" (headed by Andrii Feduniak) and the NGO "Teploserdni", which launched the project " Neutomni (Tireless)" (ideologically inspired by Bohdana Turiv). I also know that in the Vinnytsia region, there is an NGO called Podillia Regional Development Agency, which shows such women (and even their children) Podillia as part of the Restart project (Development Director: Oleh Levchenko).
- And I'm going to ask cautiously about the result. So, three days of an intense program in the Odesa region surrounded with fellow sisters in misery.
-After these tours, mothers become less alienated from reality. Of course, we don't expect euphoria or even joy from them, but their eyes become brighter. They make friends among themselves. They see that they have a common vector with other women called "raising themselves from the bottom". Eventually, they communicate with local hoteliers, cheesemakers, winemakers, and farmers who do not give up in the face of war, but rather launch new projects even after losing their sons in the war.
I always ask to talk to my tourists not the hired staff, but the owners. They share their marketing secrets and talk about business processes, reveal the secrets of successful HR, and even give us some numbers. It's obviously inspiring. The women's opinions become not only retrospective but also forward-looking, as I put it to myself. In short, with our tours, we are pushing these women to create a more life-affirming picture of the world.
A tour of the Odesa region by mothers and wives of the fallen, missing and captured defenders of Mariupol. June 2024
- And you also remind the residents of the Odesa region visually of our guys in captivity - according to the photos from your tours.
- For example, in June, all 14 mothers and wives of prisoners and those killed during their holidays in the Odesa region unfurled the flags of their units and small banners. In this way, they reminded people in Artsyz, Odesa, and Bolhrad that their sons/husbands were in Russian torture chambers and that peaceful negotiations with the thug state were not possible.
- How do you gather groups? I saw that you put out an ad saying that if anyone knows women or mothers of such soldiers, please contact me.
- I get to know everyone, find out what their situation is, whether they can go. After all, there are people for whom such tours are not suitable. For example, if a person only accepts a beach vacation. Others have limited mobility. And our tour is very active. Also, those who smoke every hour cannot go with us, because the route and schedule are clearly calculated, and the whole group will not wait for the smoker. In the end, the dates often don't suit (and I organize such tours once every two months).
A tour of the Odesa region by mothers and wives of the fallen, missing and captured defenders of Mariupol. June 2024
- I assume that in this case, it is difficult to form groups, despite the presence of thousands of Ukrainian prisoners, missing persons and even more dead.
- Yes, a woman must be free on the dates chosen by other women. Another limitation is that our trips are exclusively for adults, not children. Such intellectual and dynamic tours are too exhausting for children. Very often they refuse to come because they are constantly busy with gardening and live stock breeding... Not all women agree to go immediately after the death or funeral of a son or husband, because the wound is too fresh.... Some agree later, when they feel better about their experiences, in other words, when they have the inner resource to rise up and to get fresh topics into their lives.
Olesia Bezruk (Kremenchuk, Poltava region):
I can't imagine the efforts Oksana makes, but what she does for us, the relatives of captives, missing, dead and tortured, she does with a sincere heart. For a few days, we felt like women, not just mechanisms. I say this because you mechanically get up in the morning, drink coffee, go to work, call all the organizations in a circle to ask if there is any new information. In the evening, you go to bed broken into billions of atoms. And in the morning, you pull yourself together and do it all over again. In these little trips, we felt like living people. Oksana united us and made us realize that we are not alone.
I am the mother of two soldiers who defended their homeland.
My eldest son, Vasyl, joined the army himself. We didn't even know that he had passed the commission. He was respected in the company, often sent for training. He always dreamed of being a soldier. When his younger brother graduated from high school, Vasylyk extended his contract for another year to study. He has received awards.
Vasyl met the beginning of the war on the battlefield. He rarely made himself known, he called himself. On March 28, his son sent a text message: "I'm in the hospital. I'm fine now. As he later told me, during the battle, their tank was the last to retreat, and the guys, the infantry, ran to them and asked to take them with them They were carrying out the wounded. The crew was the only one who returned three times. They took everyone away. The rescued guys came to the hospital and thanked us. Then my son was given a 10-day home leave... That was the last time we saw him. On 16.04.2022, my son, Vasyl, went missing during the battle. The search began immediately. Hundreds of photos, kilometers of videos were viewed. I also searched on ruscists websites. At the end of October 2022, the military unit reported that they had found fragments of the remains in the form of my son at the same place. They did a DNA test. We waited six months. The test showed a match, we buried the remains with honor, but I'm still looking for more. I hope that my eldest son is alive.
My younger son, Andriiko, went to serve right after leaving school, following his brother's example. "A man is not a man who has not served," he always said. A conscript soldier, Andriiko was deployed to Mariupol when he was 18. The city is beautiful, green. He was delighted with it. The war found him in the unit where he, an ordinary bread cutter from the kitchen, stood up to defend the city and his homeland. At first, he made pancakes for the guys, then... I don't know how it was, because in those rare messages and calls he told me that everything was fine. He was at Azovstal. Then, on 19.05.2022, he went to captivity, by order of the Commander-in-Chief, like thousands of others. From captivity, news from him very rarely reached us. Whether he wrote or spoke, he always said "everything was fine," he never told us anything, on the contrary, he asked how he was at home. When the boys were killed in Olenivka at the end of July 2022, we could not sit still. Only a week later, we received a text message from our son saying that everything was fine, he was alive. He is still in the enemy's captivity. To this day, my husband and I are looking for and waiting for our sons. Vasyl is now 24 years old, Andrii turned 22 in April. They are courageous defenders, warriors of steel. And we will definitely wait for them.
Inna Kolbasova, from Mariupol. Now lives in Kyiv with her mother, daughter-in-law and grandson.
I have never been to Odesa, and even more so to Bessarabia. The format itself is very necessary. We are provided with a lot of psychological support, but communication with a psychotherapist is work, so you have to focus on work pace. And the format of pure relaxation and stress-free attention is what we need. A warm team has formed, it provides a resource and really restores. I found myself in an environment where I was understood 100%. Because in ordinary life, people do not avoid us but simply do not know how to behave so as not to injure us. That's why sometimes it's awkward for either them or us.
Each of us has our own experience of how to cope with our condition. It is important to hear the experience of others.
We walked around Odesa and then went to the sea first. Even though we were there in April when it was still cold, I couldn't stop breathing - it was as if I had returned to something familiar. For us, the sea is what we grew up with. We miss it very much.
My son Volodymyr Kolbasov is a dog handler of the National Guard, military unit 3057. He was among those who left Azovstal, which means he has been in Russian captivity since May 2022. During this time, he has a son. We had the opportunity to write him a letter and tell him the good news. First, everyone from Azovstal went to Olenivka. We have very general information about him - he was being held in Horlivka when we last heard from him. We do not know where he is now.
Oksana Ivanilova (Karlivka, Poltava region):
I feel refreshment of mind and body. A psychologist or a doctor can't help you with that. Oksana is just incredible. You can see that she takes our grief to heart. I liked the most when we were in Vylkove on the water. It was such a relief... As my husband said to me: "Go to the Odesa region and leave all your tears there."
I talked to other mothers and women who were waiting for their men to come home from captivity - they really became like sisters to me. I was amazed at how strong they were. They were able to find words of support for me. After all, I really know that my son is alive, which is not a small thing in our situation.
The son is Volodymyr Ivanilov. He served in Mariupol, military unit 3057, National Guard. Senior lieutenant, platoon commander of the 4th company. He is our only son. Since 2013 he did his military service, and in 2014 he went to war. Then he signed a contract. To be honest, my husband and I were against it, but he made his choice. The commander of his military unit encouraged him to study to become an officer. After graduating in 2021, he chose Mariupol as his destination.
The last time we talked to him was on March 25, before he was taken into captivity. He said that things were very bad: they had nothing to fight with, and they could not reach Azovstal. After that, he did not call, he was reported missing. I searched for him for a long time, and later a volunteer released from captivity told me that he was in the same cell with him in Olenivka. Then they were transferred to Horlivka, and he is still there to this day - this is the information as of January.
There are four options for those who can financially support tours of the Odesa region by such women.
OPTION 1. NGO "Public Movement "Do not be indifferent!"
account current UA393808050000000026006630643
EDRPOU code 35137371
MFO (sort code) 380805.
Please write NON-REPAYABLE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE in the PURPOSE OF PAYMENT section.
OPTION 2: Oksana Levkova will provide the details of the cafes and hotels where the women will stay in the Odesa region, and you will pay for their meals and accommodation directly.
OPTION 3. PayPal: [email protected]
OPTION 4. Card of the project coordinator Oksana Levkova: 5168745653077237 (Privatbank).
Olha Skorokhod, Censor. NET
