Somewhere around 4:00 in the morning, the first rocket whistle spread over Fedoriwka. She flew so low that Alexandra's small cottage shook. The dogs broke their legs, and she knew right away: it started.
The first days of the Russian invasion in this tiny town in the Kiev Oblast are a fog of chaos. The Russians are moving forward, occupying more and more areas from hr to hour. They are heading towards them from the side of the Belarusian border, through Chernobyl, consecutive to Kiev. People in panic leave their homes, fleeing to safe places, although nobody truly knows where those safe places are. Foods vanish from the shops and everything that can be heated.
But Sasha has only 1 thought: there are over 3,000 dogs in the shelter to feed
— I ran out of gas quickly, so I walked around the close villages looking for food. I've been gone a long time. erstwhile I got back, 1 of the shelter workers was terrified, he said the Russians came in. They walk between the willows with rifles, they dig. They're setting up a checkpoint on the road. He told me not to go. But I knew that There's a friend of ours in the shelter who late had a second heart attack. There are my animals. Adrenaline hit me so hard, I just started moving towards the Russian block-post.
War dogs
Animals have always surrounded Alexandra Mezinova. It was her parents who taught her respect and love for “little brothers.” Not only were close homeless people drawn to her home close Kiev, but besides wild, wounded animals who sought refuge in Alexandra’s family. They treated and moved them back into the woods. They helped everyone, regardless of state or origin. Puppies and kittens fed and then searched for their homes. Alexandra perfectly remembers that getting a puppy or a kitten from her mother, respected and liked by all the school teachers, was something of a distinction.
When Alexandra grew up, she realized she wanted to make a place to shelter more animals. A strategy solution, a shelter from a real event that has not yet been in Ukraine. At the time, she didn't really know what to call it, due to the fact that there were no specified places in the russian Union. The long way to his creation was a way of mistakes and successes. But finally, in October 2000, "Syrius" was created.
— I like this star very much, it's bright and beautiful. I love astronomy, it was next to past my favourite subject in school. And my mother, a past teacher, told me a beautiful legend about Sirius, Orion's dog. His Lord was fatally bitten by a scorpion and was turned into stars with him. present we can see the bright Sirius in the sky in the constellation of the large Dog.
First came Nika, the bitch with the broken hand. Although it starts with 1 dog, “Syrius” grows very quickly. For the first 3 years, everything is based on a household budget.And then a small boy comes along. The beginnings are difficult, but Alexander’s stubbornness is his mother’s. More animals enter the shelter, more volunteers, more work. There are besides the first sponsors to aid build the place of her dreams — a shelter from the real event.
Aleksandra Mezinova / SestraHostel “Syrius” in Fedoriwka
At the end of 2013, the Revolution of Dignity erupts. erstwhile Majdan, the boy of Alexandra, and his father begin, he goes to the barricades in independency Square. rather unexpectedly, from day to day, the boy besides decides to control to Ukrainian. Sasha cannot abandon the shelter, but tries to be its active associate by bringing food to protesters. Then Alexander does not know that events in independency Square will have specified a large impact on her shelter for homeless animals.
When the war on Donbas begins a fewer months later, Many of Alexandra's friends enlist in the army as volunteers and head for the ATO zone. They appear to be highly hurt by animals that appear on the front line all day more and more. And the first individual they turn to is Alexander. And so begins the relief chain created by volunteers working on Donbasa, workers of “Syrius” and soldiers, exporting animals from front villages, which find their fresh and safe home in Fedoriwiec.
None of us believed there would be a full-scale war.
Aleksandra remembers that as early as December 2021, it was said that there would be war. So real, full-sized. However, no 1 believed that in the 21st century, in Europe, you could attack your neighbour with specified force. On 5 December, on the occasion of global Volunteer Day, president Zelenski presented awards. Although Aleksandra received “Order of Princess Olga” she remembered his tense and stressed face the most from that evening.
— He said if it happened, we'd all stand together, shoulder to shoulder. I remember having dissonance. Even though I didn't want to believe, it hurt me, I couldn't halt reasoning about it. I even wondered if I could make any food supplies just in case.... But people calmed me down, said nothing like that would happen. And erstwhile I heard over my head, the first whistling of rockets, I realized that I had done a very bad thing, that I believed people, and I didn't defend myself in case of war.
First she heard the war. At dawn, there was a whistling of rockets flying towards Kiev. She and her 10 animals, dogs, and cats came out of her sleep. Everything was shaking, the windows were vibrating, and the small cottage was going all the way. The frightened dogs began to hug, and Alexandra had 1 thought: the war began. Thousands of thoughts began to flow through their heads, coupled with images drawn from planet War II. She thought about the shelter, about how there's going to be a panic among people, about to start falling rockets on Fedoriwka, about to be chaos, about to escape, about to start a mile of traffic.
— I was sitting on the couch, the dogs were shaking, and I was planning to evacuate 3.5 1000 animals. And then I said to myself, Sasha, stop. Get a grip. Make a plan, now. Point one: food.
He's been driving his car in a rally in close villages all morning. He visits the shops, asks the neighbors, loads into the car anything dogs can eat. But a day and a half later, there are strong explosions — bridges being torn up, and The Russians take the village into the vicinity, preventing those who stay from escaping. Full isolation begins. The explosions are getting louder and Alexandra begins to pray that the rockets do not fall on the countryside and the shelter. He knows that There were nineteen employees on site.Those who have come from far away, from another circuits and now will not escape anywhere. He besides doesn't know how much time they have and how the Russians will be geared to them. People say They will enter the village and shoot them all immediately. After a twelve hours, she will find out for herself, for she is torn from her panic thoughts by a shelter individual — the military just entered the shelter.
— I just heard that I wasn't going there, that I should hide. Military equipment's here, they're digging, there's plenty of them. They run around the shelter with rifles, and they drive people into a tiny area a soldier with a weapon is guarding. I said right away, there's no way I'm moving to a shelter due to the fact that what about people, what about my dogs? I heard the Russians are aggressive and they'll kill me right away.
Sasha and her daughter, the 1 who late had a second heart attack, are moving through the village. Adrenaline is blowing up Sasha's temples. From a distance, it can be seen that the military built trenches very quickly, and there is simply a masked tank in the blind. There is besides a checkpoint, surrounded by soldiers with rifles whose barrels are pointed right at them. They slow down and start moving towards them. erstwhile a soldier reloads a weapon 20 metres before the block-post, they halt and remove their hands from their pockets to show that they are not armed.
— I started yelling to them that my name was Alexander and I'm the manager of the shelter, which is simply a part further behind them, and I gotta get there. In response, I heard that no 1 would go anywhere and that we should go home. I shouted that my people and my animals were there, but they only turned their heads negative. I requested that they lead me to their commander.
In her head, something like madness appears — She doesn't care if they shoot her or not. He sees the goal ahead, not paying attention to any obstacles. This is most likely what the Russians see — her eyes are burning, she is angry, she will not give up. The barrel's skin shows he's going after them.
The commander is aggressive, but Sasha does not pay attention. He starts his communicative about the shelter, about people, about deficiency of food. He says he's going to drive through their checkpoint respective times a day due to the fact that he's going to drive around looking for food for animals.
— At the end of my speech, he's laughing. Is he asking if he thinks I'm here to set the terms? I'm here for a wax gun, standing in front of him, bending my fingers, calculating what I need, and he's gonna give it to me? That's the first time he's always seen anything like this. And possibly that's what worked. That's right, but he points out that passing cars will be checked all time, and he'll be going to the shelter shortly to see if I'm lying. erstwhile we leave him and walk toward the shelter, I feel a tingling in my spine — I'm beautiful certain they'll shoot me in the back.
When they scope the shelter, they find terrified workers. The Russians set them up in a row and ordered the phones to be returned, so that no 1 would contact the planet and transmit any information to the Ukrainian army. Not everyone listened. erstwhile they found the hidden phone, they threw earlier found cameras at the workers' feet and shot them in a show, almost shooting their feet.
Aleksandra Mezinova / SestraAleksandra Mezinova with a dog
Disappearing Voices
When anyone enters a shelter and walks in alleyways around a willower, whether it comes to adopt an animal or bring them karma, there is simply a emergence among the inhabitants of the raves. Dogs bark, howls, talks. You can imagine the sound more than 3,000 dogs make at once. Alexandra always pays attention to all visitors not to run in alleys, due to the fact that it makes them even more agitated, and the dog sound itself carries many kilometers.
— Russian soldiers entered the shelter with guns, aggressive, targeted at killing. They ran between the alleys and the dogs... quiet. They just froze and watched them. To this day, I don't realize what happened, not even cynologists can explain this phenomenon. erstwhile I left the shelter and walked through the village, they asked me, "What, Sasha, did they shoot all those dogs?"
At this point, into her consciousness, there is simply a grave of silence that never existed before. After liberation, it turns out that this reaction saved dogs' lives. After the deoccupation came the owners of dogs who lost their pets, taken from “Syrius”. There were times erstwhile Russian soldiers heard a dog barking and threw a grenade through a parkan. They may not even have seen the dog, and they fired the firearm blindly to silence him. Many animals close Kiev died that way. And in the hostel itself, silence continued until the end of the occupation.
Sometimes the dogs would howl erstwhile they heard a rocket or a plane flying, but then they would go into their booths, and they would curl up. Hungry and scared.
— I had a habit with my dogs that I would give them my hand through the net and they would put a nose or a ft and we would say hello. In the occupation, too, it was frequently essential to pass through the shelter, see if everything was all right. I didn't want to do it. I couldn't look at the dogs. Then I learned not to look them in the eye, due to the fact that I gave them my hand a fewer times, as always. But they didn't understand. They were so hungry, and I give them an empty hand... I saw that question in their eyes: where's the food? Why are you treating us like this? The pain ripped my heart out. present I think it was the worst and hardest task for me. Even talking to the Russians wasn't specified a nightmare.
But meetings with soldiers of the Russian army were far from pleasant. So what if thanks to the commander, they're allowed to cross checkpoints all day if they come to them with a raised weapon and rage in their eyes? The minute the window opens is all day walking at the limit of intellectual endurance. You never know if they're gonna like anything tonight. In time, the Russians are becoming increasingly angry due to the fact that a three-day peculiar military operation goes completely incorrect as planned. Soldiers start drinking, taking drugs, frequently without a origin they abuse people mentally and physically.
A peculiarly hard minute is erstwhile He stands on the checkpoint. Always masked, mysterious, frequently drinking. individual in the village told him that Alexandra had been singing beautifully and has not left her alone since. He liked it as a woman, so passing through the block-post became a intellectual nightmare.
— He started calling me Primadonna. I'm laughing about it today, but it was scary. erstwhile he saw me in the car, he bowed down and said, Primadonno, please, please, please. Then he figured they'd make a performance where I'd sing.
Sasha is to sing for Russian soldiers. Do a performance for them on occupied territories. She immediately realized that she couldn't refuse him due to the fact that if he did, it might be the last thing in her life. Although he has had problem sleeping from the beginning of the invasion, now he does not sleep at all. Her head hurts constantly, and there are palpitations, darkenings before her eyes. He begins to consider escaping through the forest due to the fact that he knows that there are “the ATO boys”. But if he escapes, he'll never come back, the animals will starve to death, And what she has done so far will be lost and done for nothing. There's a hoarse momentarily. The voice becomes low, and the throat is so tight that speaking comes with difficulty.
He's like a sleepwalker in a nightmare that doesn't want to end. Sasha tries to explain to a masked soldier that he has a hoarse, that out of these nerves she completely lost her voice and cannot sing
— 1 day I told him you weren't stupid. I'm Ukrainian, how can I give you a concert? And in response, he asked me for champagne again. He said I was so smart and that you could talk to me about interesting things. And that champagne was most likely stolen from any store. They drank costly French champagne, occupying my town. I was afraid that 1 day it would end very badly for me — erstwhile he was drunk and I refused him again. In the evenings, I began to avoid confrontation by hiding in the dark in the back seat of my car.
Aleksandra Mezinova / SestraVolunteers from “Syrius”
In isolation
It was very uncommon for outside information to scope Fedoriwa. Sometimes there was a text in which even strangers asked Alexandra if she was alive. The residents did not know what was happening in the country, what was happening at the front. To get in contact with loved ones, you had to take the hazard of dying. There were respective places in the village where scope could be caught. Sometimes it was adequate to send a message about the content of "live", but sometimes it even managed to call. The Russians had to study it due to the fact that they found these places very rapidly and started throwing catchers. They would pull up in civilian cars erstwhile no 1 expected them, and they would jump out with guns. They even caught Sasha once.
— I was standing there with a friend, there was another female who spoke to her boy on the phone. erstwhile I saw them coming, I slipped mine in my shoe. But 1 of them noticed. He knew me, of course. I was very fortunate due to the fact that he didn't see it. And that female was taken from the phone, and she was hysterical. She began to scream, in this large stress, that it was her only chance to contact her son, who... serves in our army.
One of the soldiers immediately reloads the weapon, convinced that the female is providing classified information to the ZSU. Women's hysteria annoys them even more. Alexandra feels that tragedy is about to occur. It is decided to approach them with a calm voice: “Look at her. She's a simple country woman. What does she know? She's just talking to her kid. Your parent doesn't worry about you?” Then, somehow, they spared her life, but Alexander never met that female again.
Nor did she meet the soldier who lied that Sasha didn't have a phone, though he saw her sneakly slip it into her shoe. 1 morning, at dawn, she drove up to the block-post, where she saw the Russians rush to burden all their belongings into the car boxes. They're clearly fighting time.
— I stopped, I opened the window and I said, "Where are you boys going?" yet home?” she said to them in a mocking voice due to the fact that she always provoked them a small - But they said they were going to Donbas. They were very distracted.
When the Russians escaped and the business was over, volunteers from all over the world, including Poland, arrive in Fedoriwka and close villages. And while Aleksandra meets them, she gives interviews, she shows quite a few people around the shelter, something unusual happens in her head. She understands that the business is over, but her body, her thoughts, her behaviour is inactive there. Sasha even stops in front of block-posts that are gone. In specified stress, he lives for another 3 months, as long as the eyes of the planet are turned this way — for Buch or Irpień, little than 50 miles [50 km] away, is the top of all the newspapers in the world. Volunteers, journalists, residents come back on site.
One morning, Alexandra woke up and realized that she did not gotta go anywhere today. No interviews, no chasing animal food. And all of a sudden, all that amok is gone. In 1 second she realized she was yet free. 1 just didn't come back. Alexandra's grunting loudly.
— I don't know, possibly 1 day my voice will come back. possibly I'll sing again due to the fact that I truly love singing. This may be erstwhile the business ends — but throughout my country.
