We live in a surrealistic world... Conversation with a friend from Lugansk

Reposted from axisoflogic.com, original article is http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_66819.shtml

We have not talked for a long time. Only through our mutual friends from Ukraine could I find out that Tanya, her husband, and mother are still alive ... Finally, I heard a dear voice on Skype:

Sorry I did not call. It is so hard to live here and talking about it also very hard ... Nobody from the other parts of Ukraine understands us... Some even refuses to talk to us... Do you remember (she calls out the name of our college mate from Western Ukraine). We had become such good friends in recent years, but now he is ready to kill us...

I remembered this guy. I have him, very young, on my college photos. At that time he was a nice, cute youth with a good voice. I added him as a friend on the website "Classmates". When Maidan happened, he was one of the first people who joined that “protest” and was incredibly proud of it. Later, he began placing the wildest posts full of animal hatred for Russians.

You know, - continued my girlfriend - we have here probably 10 percent of people who want a United Ukraine ... She laughed bitterly - What is "united"?

Not long time ago we had some visitors. As soon as I opened the door I heard: Glory to Ukraine!*

I said nothing. Then they asked: "Why do not you answer?"I tell them: We have different heroes.

Tanya’s mother is alive, she is over 90, she lived through the war – that war where it was clear who was a friend, and who was an enemy. Once in a while she came to visit her daughter in the student’s hostel, and we girls stuffed ourselves into a small room to listen to her stories about the war. She helped us to understand what it meant to be a woman in a war and her stories were more impressive than the speeches from high dignitaries. Through her experiences, we learned the things that we could not read in the books or see in the movies. Now she is half-paralyzed and because of this Tanya’s family cannot leave Lugansk, nor hide from the bombing.

Mom asks me - continues Tanya - who shoots outside the window, and I cannot explain it. The TV is working ... we can view different channels, even entertaining ones, and at the same time any moment we can be bombed. How can I explain it to my mother? What is it? A civil war?

"This is not a civil war," I reply. "I am saying what I have been considering lately. This is a Patriotic war. You are defending your land. The enemy came to your land to kill and intimidate you and kick you out of your own land." My friend agrees.

Yes, it is our land, but now we always expect someone to just break in, right here in our apartment and just kick us out. We know about this resettlement program for our lands.**

From time to time she anxiously looking out the window. "Is there shooting?", I ask.

Yes, but I'm not an expert, I cannot say what is shooting.

She again anxiously peers outside the window.

We are afraid to go to sleep, and the light we have, you see is muted ... We live in the area where there is nothing provocative – she is saying with a hope in her voice.

I look at her and rigidly specify: "You mean: kindergartens, schools, hospitals, maternity hospitals?"

This was a day when punishers bombed the maternity hospital of Slavyansk. My friend cries … Then she tells how she walked to the hospital to visit her husband, and it was a sunny day, the children played in the street, it seemed like a normal life. And then the siren started…

It's so scary when the siren wails... The feeling of unreality... We all cannot believe what is happening... It is as if this is not a real war, where the killing is for real.

I do not want to leave, - says Tanya - this is my home. I was born and raised here. Why should I leave?

I went to the market, and there were women who told how in the morning on the way here, in the market, they saw two soldiers lay dead and one wounded on the field beside the road... They took the surviving one to the hospital. He was so lucky to be alive. Those solders refused to shoot people. Maybe they all would be alive if someone would help them... “Right Sector” shoots them and throws them away...

They are killing soldiers - continues Tanya – our domestic military fort was disbanded, and everybody was released and could go home, but “Right Sector” finished them all off…

And yet, it is so painful that the others do not understand us... You know, we are even hated by them! In the best case, they are saying: "Be patient”... can you imagine?

We live in a surrealistic world... an unreal war where killing is for real...

* “Glory to Ukraine” was a slogan of Stepan Bandera’s division. Stepan Bandera was a Ukrainian Nazi that cooperated with German fascists and was well known for mass massacres. The answer for “Glory to Ukraine” was “Glory to Heroes”. ** Ukrainian ”government”, led by the US, has developed a program to resettle western Ukrainians to the East. Those eastern civilians that survive will be placed in the “filtration” camps.

by El20

PS This article was published on AxisofLogic.com, please keep their copyright if you decide to reprint it.