Anastasiia Kharchenko Анастасія Харченко

* 1996

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  • "When our son got sick and we were under occupation, it was just impossible to get any medicine. We looked all over town for fever medicine and then antibiotics. And some people with cardiovascular diseases were falling down and dying in the middle of the city because they didn't have the blood pressure medication they needed every day. I remember a 12-year-old girl whose heart stopped during shelling. She heard a sharp blow beside her, got frightened and died on the spot. That is truly frightening."

  • "I remember when the green men, as they were called, began to appear on the streets. I was walking down the street near the local bus station at the time and talking on the phone with a friend from Chernihiv. I asked him, 'Do you know what this uniform is?' and I described it to him, to which he replied, 'It's a Russian Cossack regiment. What is he doing there?'

  • "The language of instruction was Russian. Only three subjects were taught in Ukrainian: the Ukrainian language and literature, and the history of Ukraine. All the others were taught in Russian. Ukrainian was, of course, the official language, and all documents were in Ukrainian. We knew Ukrainian well, but it was not the language we were used to thinking in. When I speak Russian, I think in it, but when I speak Ukrainian, I have to remember the word first and then say it..."

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    Praha, 08.10.2023

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    duration: 01:55:57
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I would go visit my family in Crimea, but only as a guest, because I don’t see the people and places as I used to, I feel a certain betrayal

Anastasiia Kharchenko, 2023
Anastasiia Kharchenko, 2023
photo: Filming

Anastasiia Kharchenko was born on January 5, 1996 in Kerch, Crimea. In 2011, she graduated from the ninth grade of Kerch School No. 2 and started studying at the Kerch Polytechnic School. In 2014, after the occupation of Crimea, she moved to Semenivka in the Chernihiv region to join her boyfriend and continued her studies at the Chernihiv Industrial and Economic School. In 2017, a son was born to the couple. The happy parents raised him with the hope of a happy future. However, the war of 2022 did its work. Reading bedtime stories was replaced by silence in the semi-dark house, hiding in the basement and fear of going out. The lack of food and medicine, the occupation of the city and the uncertainty of what to do next in such dangerous conditions. As explosions and alarms became more frequent and the danger only increased, Anastasia and her husband decided to leave the country. After arriving in the Czech Republic, a friend who had been living here for a year helped her adapt. At first, Anastasiia and her son lived in Lysá nad Labem, but later they moved to Prague because there was a greater selection of jobs. At the end of the summer, when Anastasiia and her son were in the Czech Republic, her husband got his draft order and went to the war to defend Ukraine. She hoped that things would be calmer in the autumn and she and her son would be able to return home. However, she realised that she could not do so anymore, because during their absence, in Semenivka, the occupiers had shot up a neighbour’s house, so, according to Anastasia, “no one knows what might happen tomorrow” and whether a grenade might hit their home as well...