LIFE25 ⟩ My occupied Kherson. Raul Oreshkin’s interview with Viktoria Berezina.

Victory: It was a terrible moment. The same thought kept running through my head: the important thing is to remain human. Through writing I found my inner strength. I just wrote and didn’t think about how and where it would take me and how many people would read it. For me it was important to speak and not remain silent.

When you asked me if I could share these letters on social networks, I never hesitated. It had to be done. War is a difficult time and we had no right to remain silent. Every person caught up in the vortex of war did what they could to stop the evil, including showing and recording evidence of war crimes. Someone volunteered, someone joined the army, someone sent donations, someone wrote songs, poems, painted, etc. I reached people through words and creativity. Maybe I was too open, but being at war made me realize that every day could be my last and I treasured every moment. That’s why I don’t regret anything, I was sincere and I think people felt it. For this I am very grateful to all of them!

Remembering the first few weeks, I was so shocked by everything that was happening that, in retrospect, I am even surprised that I was able to answer your letters. But then the volume of letters continued to increase. I wrote everything I felt, I shared my personal experiences, I wrote about events that happened in my environment and in the city.

And I said it before, the letters became my personal psychotherapy and kept my mind more or less in order. Later I started to feel responsible towards people, I wrote every day and this gave me strength. I felt needed. And when I arrived in Estonia, many people told me personally that this helped them too. The letters were a support for all of us. When I met Estonians who had read my letters, I realized how important my activity was. It is one thing to read official information about the war, but it is another thing when a person writes to you personally about what he is going through in the whirlwind of war. Many probably felt as if my letters were addressed to them personally.

2024-01-28 15:17:00
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