Natalia
Last name hidden for safety reasons100x100 cm
Archival digital print on paper
Andrejs Strokins
Riga, Latvia2024
Transcription under the portrait
Audio transcription
We had no special relationship with God. We simply wanted to survive.
All of us.
Even those who didn’t make it dreamed of escaping the hell of Mariupol.
Those torn apart by explosions, burned in fires, perished from illness, hunger, or wounds, suffocated under concrete slabs – they, too, wanted to live.
But somehow, we survived. And we have no grand plans for the future. We are not chosen. We are not the most brilliant or important people on Earth.
We survived by chance. Against age, health, and logic. Not because we were the kindest or the bravest. Not because we were the most beautiful or the smartest.
It just happened. By chance, we evaded death. It aimed for us, crept closer, but we kept moving.
We ran from one yard to another, switched basements, took different roads, and hid in strangers' stairwells.
We risked our lives under fire to make a call, to hear a loved one’s voice, no matter how faint the chance. Death hunted us, and we hunted for a signal.
The stars aligned this way. We exhaled and carried on living. And I, even now, don’t understand – why?
Sometimes I forget that I’m not home and wait for my stop.
I ride a Latvian bus and imagine Metallurgiv Avenue in my city.
I dream of Mariupol.
Instead of the old red-brick houses, I see our café, the children's hospital, the poplar-lined alley, people seeking shade under the green domes of trees.
This is Mariupol’s splendid summer.
I don’t look out the window of the Latvian bus. I don’t want to see the present.
I dream of holding on to the past.
We are the ones who would never, under any circumstances, have left our country—if only it hadn’t been attacked.
We were driven from our cities. We were given no choice. Our rights and desires were disregarded. We were thrown out of our homes. Our lives were shattered.
We want to live at home.
We did not come for a better life,
not by choice,
not for comfort.
We are escaping sorrow and pain.
And we cannot be fine when our country suffers.
When our cities are in pain.
We loved every stone, knew every turn and intersection.
Because nothing can ever be better than my country, my city, my real life.