Mariia Khudiakova

100x100 cm
Archival digital print on paper

Andrejs Strokins

Riga, Latvia
2024

Transcription under the portrait


Audio transcription

When it all started, I didn't know what to do, where to go, because it was something that was happening somewhere else. I understood that it was illogical, because we live in the same country and everything, but... I have peace here, and somewhere else it (the war) is going on. I had plans. I wanted to go to Olishkivski Sands because it is part of my job to visit protected areas. I wanted to explore, to learn. I had a dream - to go to all the protected areas, by species, because I wouldn't have enough time in my life to visit them all. It had to be after graduation, as the beginning of a new, professional life, because I had never been outside my region. I've been to Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Odesa, and my small village. And that was it. I have never been anywhere else. And this is very sad, because I did not have time to see Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk; I did not visit Mariupol. A week before the full-scale invasion started, I was supposed to go there to volunteer, but I refused because I was ill. I don't know, maybe it saved my life. Someone else went, who wanted to...

Unfortunately, I will never know. But I really wanted everything to be calm. I wanted the people who changed Ukraine, who were with me, to continue their work. I wanted them to come out and say that it was all a joke and that they were alive, safe and sound. But... It's not going to happen. Never again.