Businessman and volunteer Viacheslav Zaporozhets: "When we brought 33 seriously wounded people from Chernihiv to Kyiv and their lives were saved here, I got great pleasure"
There is an opinion that war brings out the good and the bad in people. On the one hand, it seems too pretentious and black and white for our complex 21st century. On the other hand, look at the story of Viacheslav Zaporozhets.
The talented man had once built a successful construction business, steadily earning money in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and back in Ukraine; he didn't pay much attention to any Maidans. Then 24 February 2022 happened - and the very next day Zaporozhets decided to become a volunteer. And he became – as successful as he was before - a businessman. Over the course of two and a half years, he and his team have rescued many people from Chernihiv, Kramatorsk and many other cities and villages in Ukraine. He evacuated people and provided them with the opportunity to undergo surgery. He has mobilised his friends, family and colleagues to help the Ukrainian Armed Forces and affected civilians. And most importantly, he is one of the organisers of the Centre for Complex Endoprosthetics, Osteo-integration and Bionics, where he operates on seriously injured people and then helps them with rehabilitation.
Viacheslav Zaporozhets spoke about his life and value evolution in an interview with Censor.NET.
THE BEGINNING OF A FULL-SCALE ONE: FROM ANAESTHESIA TO EVACUATION OF REFUGEES AND THE WOUNDED
- I understand correctly that you met a full-scale invasion in the intensive care unit?
- Yes. On the evening of 23 February, I had an operation. I went in for surgery not believing that the war would start. I told everyone: there will be no war!
- You came out of anesthesia and then got a call: it started...
- I came out in a day, and on the second day of the war we were already organising checkpoints in Protsiv, where I live. Now I understand that the fact that I was operated on the day before was a sequence of natural random events.
- What do you mean?
- If I had not been operated on... When I woke up from anaesthesia, my friend, a surgeon who operated at four in the morning, came in and said: 'Well, you are a good Cossack, here is anaesthesia for you. He gave me syringes. We left - the war started. And all the medical staff in the private clinic I paid for the operation, and my friends, all left. And I thought: what about civilian hospitals now? Doctors have left there too. My friend, surgeon Rostyslav Valikhnovskyi, left for Ivano-Frankivsk two weeks before the war started. And when I realised that the wounded were about to leave and that civilian hospitals were in disarray, I decided to focus on medicine.
- From what did you start?
- I called Valikhnovskyi. I asked him: "You have a clinic in Protasiv Yar that's closed, with three intensive care units. Can I have the keys? I knew there would be fighting in the city. We were just lucky that it didn't happen. And thanks to our guys who stood up to it.
- To all of them, but above all to those who fought at the Gostomel airport.
- Yes. If planes had flown in, that would have been it... But we were talking about something else. It took me a day to get Rostyslav to give me the keys. It was on the eve of 1 March. Then I called the Red Cross. I said, "Here, I already have a clinic - let's open a station. Even though I am not a military man, not a doctor, just a manager who, watching the news, understood what the city was about to face.
- And what did you hear in response?
- The Red Cross said: we don't do that. In fact, we had already evacuated.
- In human terms, we wash our hands of an affair. Indeed, they continued to wash our hands of an affair.
- But you see, the Life Saving Centre has this cross in its logo.
- The name of the centre is straightforward in a good way, you didn't come up with something vague and arrogant.
- I just realized that I had to save people. Hence the name. I see the evacuation taking place, the bombs being dropped on Chernihiv. I turned to the disaster medicine and said: let's go to Chernihiv. They say: we are forbidden, we cannot leave Kyiv. Do you understand? This is what disaster medicine says! The same is true of Chernihiv's medicine: we were forbidden to go to Kyiv, it's dangerous. Meanwhile, people in Chernihiv were under total air strikes. The orcs were just watching in manual flight: oh, people near the pump room. The plane would fly, see the people, turn around, hop, and fly right in, boom!
- Yes, it was a real hell there in those days.
- Katia Kiriichuk is the first amputee in my Centre. The girl lost her mother and father - they died while taking water from the pump room in the yard. There was a whole crowd there at that moment, 30-40 people. Most of them were killed. Katia was injured. Her leg was torn off - her thigh, high amputation. She was wounded in the stomach, wounded in the head. Later, a surgeon from the Chernihiv hospital said that she should have died 10 times. Katia was lying with all the bodies for about 4-5 hours - it was a nightmare! Then we stabilized her, but we had to take her out of Chernihiv. You know, I remembered for the rest of my life what the Chernihiv hospital and operating room looked like.
- Which one?
- (With bitter sarcasm) Just like we were preparing for the war. Just imagine: Chernihiv Third City Hospital, a large hospital. There was a small generator of about 5 kilowatts (large generators were not ready). This generator was used to supply light to the operating room. In the operating room, I remember a galvanized small pail, half of it was covered with blood, and most importantly, on the floor, where I stepped, there were pieces of skin and bones. The operating rooms were no longer cleaned or sterilized, because 100-150 wounded were brought to the 3rd hospital alone per day! They did not have time. They brought them a body, stabilized the condition as best they could: stitched it up, stopped the bleeding, put a cast on it (often on an open fracture) - and then to the ward. And then, because there is no evacuation, patients wait. And under such conditions, any shrapnel is a dirty wound. And about half of the amputations occurred because there was no way to treat this injury properly from the very beginning. Because there was no water or electricity in the hospitals. They had a small generator and water in buckets. Some doctors left...
So when I realised that disaster medicine doesn't work in wartime, that hospitals can't take in the wounded and people need to be rescued, I took my two jeeps and my deputy Vadym and we drove to Chernihiv.
The first evacuation from Chernihiv organised by Viacheslav Zaporozhets
AN EXCURSION INTO THE PAST: A CONSTRUCTION THRILLER IN KAZAKHSTAN
- Here we will take a temporary step back in time. Because your 2.5 years of volunteering would not have happened without the backstory of how you returned to Kyiv in 2019 under dramatic circumstances after a successful career in the construction business in Kazakhstan. By the way, why did you decide to come back in 2019? Was it due to the change of government in Ukraine?
- No, it is not. I was invited to work in Kazakhstan in August 2013, when everything was going well. I was invited because I am the author of the Epicentres project and construction. I was the one who built the first 7 stores of Geregam. And in August 2013, a billionaire sent his nephew on his plane to Kyiv to hire me as a specialist. They wanted to build the same network in Kazakhstan. Because Epicentre is now the top real estate company.
- What happened next?
- In Kazakhstan, I had 3 local partners. Everything was fine. I created a good holding, and when it started earning, we were talking about millions. But I went there not for money, but for ambition. Because in 2013, under the Party of Regions, there was a recession. It was only about the family business. I no longer had such powerful contracts as I had before the regionals. I was young, ambitious, and wanted to go big. And then the plane arrives, the billionaire's nephew, Rahim, invites me. We fly out in the evening, and the next morning we have a meeting with the mayor of Astana, the second most powerful person in Kazakhstan. Tell me, is it possible to meet with Klytschko quickly? Or with some prime minister? Kazakhs are very transparent in this regard: if they see that this person can increase their capital, they are open. They kiss you, coddle you, sing your praises.
2016, Almaty. At the construction of a residential complex
- Of course, oriental style. When did something go wrong?
- When the company was already powerful. My partners passed me the conversation. They say: why should we pay khokhol?
- Khokhol?
- I had a nickname, Khokhol. At first, I was offended, but then I accepted it.(Self-ironically, - author) I am a Ukrainian... Although it is a bit humiliating. Not Zaporozhets, but Khokhol. So: "Why would you pay a Khokhol?" And I was the director of the holding. I was one of the founders and the director, the one who signed the contract. And in Kazakhstan, there is an all-powerful NSC button - it's like the SSU in Ukraine. Only there is a real NSC, not like ours. The head of the NSC presses this button and gives the command: this guy should be bagged. And it's not like ours - there are suspicions, evidence... You are arrested, drugs and some child porn are found in your apartment. You are completely "merged", no one is bothering with you. Then, sitting in the basement, you sign everything. A typical example: a German guy had a company, and he gave it away. It was a great road construction company, number one. He had invested about 100 million at one time, and under pressure, he sold the company for $1. He signed the contract, was escorted to the airport, and flew away.
- Let's get back to you. Apparently, you had to flee Kazakhstan?
- I've been warned: you've been ordered by one of our partners. You have two options. You can either fight - hire lawyers, security guards. But you are still a Ukrainian there, a Khokhol. You have no rights in a foreign country.
- What about the other way?
- Or you go back to Ukraine. And the day before, my father had a heart attack...
- One to one. Do you remember coming home?
- I didn't tell anyone that I was going to Kyiv. My plan was to take two tickets - one for Moscow and one for Kyiv, flights 10 minutes apart. The guards escort me to the VIP terminal. I checked in for Moscow, then cancelled Moscow, checked in for Kyiv, and then quietly flew to Kyiv. At the same time, my bodyguards escort me to the airport in a Ranger with security through the VIP terminal.
In Kyiv, I was immediately told: try not to get out of the plane. I get off at the usual terminal, and my father's driver meets me. In a Daewoo Lanos, quietly, so that no one would see you. My partners didn't know I was going to Kyiv.
- But I guess they found out quickly, right?
- Sometime in the evening they knew I was in Kyiv. Because all the cards were blocked. And we were so used to cards, so I had only 3,000 euros in my cash.
- Your cards have been blocked - what's next?
- I left about 10 million worth of equipment there. Each of us earned a million, and the company itself was worth about 10 million dollars. I left it all behind. I had to live through that to realize that money is nothing. You have to have the strength to rise. To zero out, as we say. I lived with this for three years. I remember how those 3,000 euros quickly ran out. Because I have a big house, a father, two daughters. I used to give my daughters $300-500 a month as a stipend... In short, those 3,000 euros were enough for a month. And I was still trying to hire lawyers to unblock it. A lawyer charged me 30 thousand euros...
This is all nonsense. I had to move, to break out.
And when the war started; when all my friends started saying "that's it, we have to f*ck off", I invited them all to my house. My real friends. They stayed there for 3-4 days, then went to the west of Ukraine. Some of them left. And I, thanks to the fact that I had such an extreme experience in 2019 that I started from scratch, looked at Ukraine and Ukrainians differently. I reassessed where I should spend my energy. And if it wasn't for that extreme year of 2019, maybe when the war started, I wouldn't have left, I wouldn't have consciously taken my jeep, I wouldn't have agreed with Valikhnovskyi to give him the keys and we would have made a medical stabilization point in his clinic.
"WE TAKE THOSE GUYS WHO HAVE NOT BEEN HELPED IN OTHER HOSPITALS OR CENTRES"
- At what point did you formulate for yourself: "I'm not doing business until the end of the war, my country needs my talents and my resources"?
- I became a volunteer from the first days of the war. At that time, I had three orders with which I had to do something. These were a house on the water for deputy Brodskyi, the reconstruction of a logistics complex in Boryspil, and a cottage community in Zolochiv. I had to finish these projects and did so at the end of the summer. At the same time, I was working as a volunteer.
I came to the conclusion that you cannot combine business and volunteering (or helping veterans or helping the army). It is very difficult to do so. The only option is to run a business and donate. Many people have a formula: I pay 5% or 10%, they say, as a tax.
I have a different situation, because I work with medical evacuation and treatment of seriously wounded. And then there is the rehabilitation of these veterans, and then their social adaptation. They need to be brought back to a full life. You have seen the rooms, seen our wards. They are all friendly and happy. We take them in with posttraumatic syndrome, very depressed, and put them back on their feet. We prosthetize, rehabilitate, and give them a goal.
I am fascinated by Buddhism. I have a practice. And when I approach a seriously wounded person - a guy who has lost, for example, two arms and a leg and says: I don't want anything, I'd rather die - my task is to somehow motivate him to get prosthetics and continue living. I say to this guy: you know you were supposed to die, but you didn't? So you have a mission. God kept you alive to do something.
- What does the day-to-day management of your Centre consist of?
- I woke up at five in the morning. I have free time until about eight. I start the day with a workout, because without it you just lie down. I combine training with work, because on the track you can post on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. This is a necessary thing because social media nourishes us. Every day I make 2-3 posts, because I have to talk about my patients; about the help they need.
Then I go to work. Actually, I like to drive myself, but it takes me an hour and a half to get to the Centre, so I go with a driver. Then I start the process of, as I say, begging. Because in the morning I have to look for money. I have to write 20 emails, make calls to businessmen and foundations. At the beginning, in the first year, it was very difficult to do this. It was so stressful to call and ask. You don't just have to say, 'Give me money. No one will give you money. You have to figure out how to get people interested. Then you call the top manager of a company and analyse what he or she is passionate about. I have a top manager who is a race car driver. I send him a message: look, a guy without a leg is drifting, driving a car...
- In other words, in this project, you are the top organizer, the head of the PR department, and a psychologist, judging by the way you communicate with patients. So in this project, you are everywhere. Did all this turn into volunteering from your experience in the construction business?
- Yes. This is a consequence of the construction experience. You know, I once heard an important thought from one of my first customers, Yurii Kosiuk, a really powerful top manager. He said: if you want to do a good job, do it yourself. He started his business that way: poultry farmers, factories, eggs, chicken. He figured it all out. And in construction, it's the same: if you don't take care of operational management, you'll just get robbed or do a poor job. That's why any successful construction company in Ukraine is one where the owner, or one of the co-owners, knows the whole process. Everything: supplies, personnel, quality, the customer... That's why, by the way, I bought helicopters from the very beginning and started flying them, because otherwise I didn't have time for everything. You need to meet with the customer, control the process at the construction site, hold a meeting, and return quickly. And when you have 8 large facilities all over Ukraine, you either have to live in a car or move very quickly.
If you want to do a good job, do it yourself - that's the first thing. The second is operational management. You can't make mistakes in construction. There is a supporting structure, and if it collapses, people die as a result. We cannot make mistakes here either.
- This is understandable. We made a mistake - we did not save lives.
- So this experience was very useful. By the way, one powerful volunteer wrote on Facebook: he is not a doctor or a prosthetist. How does he do this? He's probably doing it for the hype, for politics. And there, on Facebook, our patient replied to her: he does it, firstly, from the bottom of his heart. And secondly, he has surgeons who go to the operating theatres; prosthetists who make the prosthesis; rehabilitation specialists and so on. And he is in charge of it all.
- You can't make money doing what you do now. So what positive feelings and bonuses do you get from self-realisation as an organiser and as a person?
- Super question. When we took 33 seriously wounded people from Chernihiv to Kyiv and saved their lives here, I got an extraordinary pleasure, dopamine. When I saw my first amputee, Sashko Horokhovskyi from Chernihiv, walking on a prosthesis, you know, it was a thrill.
Evacuation from Chernihiv; the first amputees
- I can imagine.
- I say to all businessmen, those who care, those who are wealthy: do you remember when you bought the first car in a showroom in your life with the first money you earned? And do you remember when you bought your tenth new car from a dealership? What's the difference? You get high only the first time. When I bought my first jeep, a Nissan Patrol, I thought it was something... Or when I bought a Robinson helicopter and the pilot and I flew from Vienna to Ukraine. I can tell you that I have never experienced such a thrill!
But back to your question about why I am doing this. This is really about helping our veterans. But the main thing is that you see the result of your work. You've done a great thing, you've cured, saved a life, made a prosthesis, and the person has started to live a normal life. And when you do this to a stranger... A respected Jew told me: it is very important for us Jews to do some charity work or save the life of a person who does not expect it from you. Who has already given up and thinks: that's it, no one will help me.
- In Dickens's novels, there are often rich men who appear as if out of thin air when things are really bad for the hero or heroine. They appear and do good. But I understand what this respectable Jew told you. And you put this advice into practice.
- I consult with Mr. Anton Herashchenko a lot. It's good that I finally have a friend and partner with whom I can consult. Although I am a little older than him, he is more experienced in political and social issues. I told him: let's rent billboards near expensive car dealerships that sell BMWs, Rangers, etc. We'll rent them and place the following ad: If you buy an expensive car, support a soldier!
- It's an interesting idea.
- He said, "Let`s do it. Do you want me to get a database of those who have bought cars more expensive than 100 thousand over the past two years?
- This is already on the verge of a foul. Or even beyond.
- I watch the news. Hena Vatsak, People's Deputy, Vatsak Confectionery House, buys a green and orange Rolls-Royce jeep for 700 thousand euros and drives it to the Verkhovna Rada. I'm making a post: "Hena, come to our Center and give the guys, the veterans, a ride. Then the purchase of such an expensive car during the war will be at least somehow justified. He did it last year. I understand that money had to be transferred abroad...
- I see you're okay with sarcasm. What happened next?
- His secretaries tell us: please remove the post. - Why? I'm not saying how much money he bought it for. I say: please come to our center, I invite you to our center, I'll introduce you to the guys, take them for a coffee, take them for a ride.
- I'm afraid that this deputy took your post as a dig. Because look, he arrives in this Rolls-Royce, and veterans and amputees get in. How is he going to look them in the eye? It will be an unrealistic situation.
- This will be his first step towards enlightenment.
- Okay, you wrote this post, he didn't respond, he just sent his secretaries to you. And now you're talking about it in an interview?
- I want him to hear it. I am consciously saying this now. Of course, all businessmen or deputies make mistakes; we all make mistakes. Kolia-Meetball's (nickname of People`s Deputy Mykola Tyshchenko, Servant of People party - ed. note) mistake was fatal, I told him about it, wrote a post.
Do you know what I would do if I were Kolia? Well, f*ck face, f*ck face. He made a fatal mistake. What to do? I would open Velour and make a canteen for veterans. This dining room would have everything that connoisseurs of such restaurants eat: oysters, lobsters, pastas, bells and whistles. And as the owner, I would have financed it while sitting on a bracelet or in detention centre. If Kolia had done this, he would have felt better. Maybe the judge or prosecutor would have commuted the sentence.
- Listen, if I didn't know your story and didn't see the Centre you created with my own eyes, I could take these reflections as demagoguery. But I can see the Centre, and I recognise that you have the right to say this.
- You know, for the first year and a half, we had no Centre. We worked in municipal hospitals. We refurbished operating theatres there. It was good that I met two surgeons on my way, I call them philanthropists. In other words, people who have already reached a level where they operate not for money. They said: "Viacheslav, you are a great manager. We want to set up a centre with you. We will operate for free, reconstruct bones and replace joints.
- Well, yes, they will make their money elsewhere.
- Yes. They do a couple of commercial transactions a week, they have enough to live on - and they don't buy fancy cars.
At first, we worked in municipal hospitals, in hospitals. And because I was a businessman, a millionaire, I loved bells and whistles, I had surgery in Germany, in a private clinic, and I was appalled when I saw the conditions in which our veterans, defenders, military personnel, and the wounded are treated, and the number of them. I am not criticising the state here. The number of them is so high... in municipal hospitals, there are now 4 to 6 people in a 20-square-metre ward.
- What about your Centre?
- Like in Europe, we have a maximum of three beds in a ward. This is a suite. I call it a 5-star hotel. The guys are already rehabilitating here.
- I walked around the wards, talked to some people, and it seems to me that you deliberately focus on high amputations.
- Yes, high and complex amputations. We take those guys who have not been helped in other hospitals or centres.
- In a sense, you are their last hope.
- I go to hospitals every month and select patients. I take patients that no one else will take.
KRAMATORSK TRAGEDY. "...AND THE MAYOR TOLD US: "GO TO THE RAILWAY STATION!"
- Tell us about Kramatorsk. You were there on the day of the terrible missile attack on the railway station. What memories do you have?
- We arrived 10 minutes after the attack. Cars were on fire. There was panic.
- You didn't know in advance that there would be such a blow. Did you go there with any other goals?
- We finished our work in Chernihiv, and the mayor of Kramatorsk invited us to help. Mr. Anton Herashchenko talked to the mayor and said: "I have this powerful unit that evacuated civilians from Chernihiv". The mayor said: "I need them! Please send them here". And Anton said: "Go ahead, they will meet you there." And my deputy is Vadym, my friend, he's from Kramatorsk. That's it, we're going to Kramatorsk. We arrived there at 10:40 a.m. And at 10:30 a.m. there was a strike at Kramatorsk, at the railway station.
Photo: armyinform.com.ua
- When you were driving, did you hear an explosion?
- No, we didn't. Because there was a very "beautiful" missile with cassettes, which was not meant to destroy buildings but to kill people. I will prove it to you now. An hour before, on the way to Kramatorsk, we were chatting with the mayor. He said: "Call me when you get there". But at 10:40 a.m., he called me and asked: "Do you know how to operate?" I said: "If necessary, we will." - "Move your ass to the station!"
- Did he say that?
- That's what he said. And I realized that something had happened. I said: "Vadik, let's go!" When we got there in a jeep, we saw something that Chernihiv at the beginning of the war - can't hold a candle to. There were burning cars, panic, bloody people. There was a barrel of kvass on the right. You would think, what kvass in April? They brought boiling water to the people. And I see that there are more bodies near the barrel. They are still warm.
- The horror.
- And we start with these bodies. One guy, Vadyk, was pulled out wounded, they thought he was dead. There were already rescuers, there was sorting. There were about five ambulances. We took Vadyk and several other wounded to the hospital in a jeep.
Now for the facts. The train was supposed to be at nine in the morning. It was postponed to 11:00 a.m. The missile hit at 10:30 a.m. "Tochka U" with a cluster munition. In other words, on the way to the station building, it opens up and sows everything around with these fragments, I saw them, these blades. There were benches at the station, the 50th profiled log. So these blades cut this 50th profiled log like paper. In other words, these blades, when they enter the body, cut everything. They have a lot of kinetic energy.
More facts. On the eve of the missile strike, the evacuation lasted, people were taken away all night. The orcs knew this information. As I said, the train was postponed to 11. It was such a sunny day. The fatal mistake was a barrel of boiling water. People went out to get boiling water to make tea. They had been in the building before. If they hadn't left, there would have been fewer deaths. And so - 72 people. 10-20 are missing...
- Is it a coincidence that they went to that barrel and then the Russians struck? Was there a firing pointer?
- Later, Mr. Radchenko told me that they had definitely found the firing pointer. It was like this: they announced that the train would be at 11. Do you know how people want to be the first to enter the wagon? They came out to take a seat on the platform. It was the first track. And the firing pointer who was giving the signal saw - morning, a barrel of boiling water, some people went to drink tea, others went out to get ready to board. There was no train yet.
- Did you carry the wounded yourself? Every pair of hands was needed there.
- Of course. It's good that the military provided ambulances. In addition to 72 dead, there were about 200 wounded. We counted about 20 packages with body fragments. All of them went to Dnipro. At 11 o'clock, already in the hospital, I see one surgeon working on two tables, stopping the bleeding. People in the corridors, no more cars. Five ambulances went to Dnipro, taking the most seriously injured. What to do next? I called Mr. Herashchenko and said: "If we don't solve the issue of evacuation now, there will be a disaster." And I have only one Lexus jeep. We immediately evacuated 7 people with it, all of medium severity. Vadнk went to the Dnipro. I told Herashchenko: "There are 200 wounded here now, and if they are not taken out of the hospital in 5-8 hours, 30% will die. And there are no ambulances! And the military cannot provide their own ambulances because they are forbidden to do so."
Herashchenko to me: "You tell me what is needed?" - "We need to ask the governor and mayor in Dnipro to send cars, 50 ambulances! We have 200 wounded!"
- That's incredible. What happened next?
- We met the ambulances at 11:00 p.m., 25 cars came from Dnipro. This is, of course, a piece of crap. The terrorist attack happened at 10:30 a.m. - and 25 cars arrived at 11:00 p.m. And even then, thanks to Herashchenko's publication, he started to peck to death.
- And why did this happen?
- They agreed, no one from disaster medicine wanted to go to Kram. You know, the beginning of the war, everyone thought that every day could be the last for Kramatorsk. That was the mood. None of the civilians wanted to go.
And we worked all night. The ambulances arrived at 11:00 p.m. - so we sent the last ambulance, the 25th, at six in the morning. We had to sort them. We had 25 ambulances and 200 wounded. In other words, there were 4-5 people in each car. Those who could be put in a seat, stabilized, and put in a plaster cast.
At seven in the morning, when everyone had already been sent, I sat with the head of the medical department of the 71st Brigade, Stepan, who saved a lot of people with his professional actions. I have two phones, and they keep ringing. People ask: 'Please tell me, have you seen grandmother so-and-so?' And they give me her name.
I'm starting to freak out. A girl called 10 times, looking for her grandmother. She described what her grandmother was wearing. I told her: "I'm sorry, dear, where did you get my phone number?" - "They told us that you keep lists, they gave us your numbers, the mayor made a statement at the city council that we should contact the volunteer Zaporozhets Viacheslav about the wounded."
- My goodness.
- I had hot phones for two days. I thought that was it, I was going to be overwhelmed. I called my friend and asked: "Why did you do that?" - "You saw everyone there, you sent them, whose contact should we write to?"
That was an experience. I met the director of the Dnipro morgue, the SSU, and the police. They also did not want to communicate. Because if there are no wounded on the list, you have to send relatives to the morgue for identification. You have to talk to them, you know?
And this girl called 10 times, looking for her grandmother. I said: "She's not here." "Well, look!"
They were updating the lists, and about 10 people were added to the wounded, they were identified. But her grandmother was nowhere to be found. Because she was in "pieces". And we had to send this girl to the morgue to take her DNA, so that her grandmother could be identified. I told her this three times. Three hours later, she calls again. I said: "Honey, you already called..."
- I couldn't believe it...
- She called again and again. Then I said: "Sonia, she's not here, I'm sorry. She is not among the wounded, not among the dead. Maybe she hid somewhere, ran out somewhere. That's it, unfortunately".
"WHEN ORCS WERE STANDING NEAR KYIV AND THERE WAS A THREAT, SOMEHOW EVERYONE WAS UNITED IN A DIFFERENT WAY. SOMEHOW EVERYONE HELPED IN A DIFFERENT WAY"
- We are all affected by this war. Each in his own way. Of course, nothing can be compared to the front line. But the rear has its own challenges, too. Tell us, what features of Ukrainian society under such wild stress do you like, and what, on the contrary, have emerged that you would not like to see?
- I really liked real Ukrainians in the first 2-3 months of the war. I remember when I needed yeast to bake bread. It was in the first days of the war that our territorial defense asked us to solve this issue. I posted in a group, and a guy from the Zhytomyrska metro station was walking to the Paton Bridge - he was carrying yeast. He crossed the Paton Bridge. I wanted to give him some money, but he was so simple: no. I said: "Where did you get this yeast?" - "I was selling this yeast at the market..."
That was then. And now... Yesterday I was at the Kyiv Regional Administration; while waiting for a meeting, I went to the Eurasia coffee shop. And there is our central hospital, a lot of military people there - both for treatment and just for fun. And, unfortunately, I saw the look on the waiters' faces: like, here are the military again...
And I see that now society is tired of the war. I see that the attitude towards the military and the wounded has changed. When the orcs were standing near Kyiv and there was a threat, everyone was united in a different way. Somehow everyone helped in a different way. I understand: the war has been going on for so many years. It's hard both financially and psychologically. But you have to understand that you can't distance yourself from the war.
Many of us have this practice of keeping the war in our minds. And if you don't talk about the war, don't read the news about the war, live in a kind of "world", go to work that is not related to the war, you won't feel so much. But I say: excuse me, air raid alerts, civilians are dying, our guys are being killed and wounded...
- I think each reader has acquaintances and friends with different attitudes to human coexistence in this war.
- I have businessmen I know who call me once a week and complain: 'Damn, Slava, what do you do, how do you stand it? Bamboo doesn't grow: I invested money, no profit; I wanted to buy something, my family is abroad, they say: give me money.
I said: "Wait, do you have an apartment or a house?" - Yes. ‘Is it safe?’ - Yes. ‘Is your family safe?’ - Yes. ‘Do you have food?’ - Yes, but this is a business, I don't earn anything, I'm into the red, I'm losing money. - What if tomorrow a drone, a shahed or a missile flies into your apartment? Or one of your relatives dies? What are you talking about? You are alive, your family is safe. You are not at zero line. Why are you complaining? There is a war going on - what kind of profit can we talk about?"
I respect the businessman Vasia Khmelnytskyi, he is a developer. But now I've seen him posting on Instagram: either he's playing with a robot or giving business advice. Hello! You are a developer, you should be handing out apartment keys to our wounded every day. Or to families with missing persons...
By the way, I came to him a year ago and asked him, such a naive one: "You have a nice room on the ground floor, an open space. Please, give it to me at a reduced price, a dollar per square meter; we will make a rehabilitation center, where the boys will learn to use prostheses. You see, this is a plus for your karma. These are your people, your offices, IT youth will see our defenders there."
- That's a good idea. And what was his reaction?
- He answered very sharply and immediately: first, I have loans, I have to pay interest. Secondly, I don't need the military here...
- With this interview, you will increase the number of your detractors by 3-4 influential people.
- For God's sake. I understand that every businessman, every merchant, in order to justify himself, talks about donations. When they say to me, "I donated 10 thousand hryvnias or dollars this month," I say: "Stop, let's go to the hospital, let's go to the rehabilitation center. There is no need to donate - let's go and talk. They need help through communication. And they will buy drones. America gives money, Europe, holdings give money. They will buy drones."
Or I wrote to billionaire Oleh Bakhmatiuk, who is in Vienna. I was building for him, too; in general, these are all the people I was involved with as a builder and businessman. Someone rented a helicopter from me...
And here I am writing to his sister and assistants: "Oleh, your time has come! Yes, you are in Interpol. Yes, you stole a billion dollars or less. Come on, you will buy a thousand prostheses, components...
- ...and there is an opportunity to correct karma a little.
- We need to convey to every businessman: do good to a person or our military defender.
- How much does an average day of the Centre's work cost?
- The monthly salary is 300 thousand euros.
- Then inevitable question: where does the money come from?
- Donors, fundraisers, businessmen. Right now, one businessman (I can't tell you his name) wants to return to Ukraine and has started to help a little bit. It's nice. It's normal. Yesterday, Kolia Tyshchenko (you see, I even used his last name!) had to say in court: "Take this money for the Armed Forces!" And write a statement.
- It would have been a very logical step for him. But here, too, the usual "greed" got in the way.
- Now, what I have organized with my friends, partners, surgeons, prosthetists, and public figures like Herashchenko, I did not do it alone. This is a team effort. I just manage it like a ship's captain. And I am responsible for it. We are helping. Now 43 seriously wounded have received modern prostheses. But there is another aspect, and it is perhaps the most important, and that is to set an example. That is why in two weeks we will open a modern rehabilitation center. It will be a combination of a rehabilitation center and a cool gym.
Here, next to the Center. And this is what I am doing. Many people told me that maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should go to another center for rehabilitation... No, I'm doing this for the guys, so they can have a hub. It will be their sports office. Because it is very important for an amputee to build a bridge to a healthy past. Who was he before his injury? He was athletic, he worked out, he ran in kit, shot. And here he is in a wheelchair, a cripple. That's it. He has no testosterone.
And now he needs to get it back through activity. This is physics. We say: our philosophy is that you are not a cripple.
- And you have people with a great history of overcoming themselves and returning to active life.
- Yes. For example, Anton Ivantsiv, head of the bionics laboratory, is a triple amputee. He swims a kilometre in an hour. I once went to the pool to compete with him. We finished on equal terms. And he has one leg...
- I'd like to ask you this last question. Do many of the people you have saved in one way or another return to you with gratitude?
- That's a great question. Our first evacuation from Chernihiv was for 15 people, 5 families. They were refugees from Kyinka, a village that had been hit by air bombs. People spent a week in a cellar with their children. Until you look them in the eye, you don't understand what they feel. And these 5 families send me a text message or call me on my birthday, on holidays like Easter, Christmas, New Year. It's really inspiring!
And now I'm sharing this with your readers. Help! This gratitude gives you the strength to keep working.
Yevhen Kuzmenko, Censor.NET
PHOTOS, VIDEO: archive of Viacheslav Zaporozhets
