TestimonialsIn France, the parenthesis of happiness ends for Olga, who must let her mother return to kyiv. Where Sasha is waiting for her, torn between the joy of finding her again and the anguish of knowing that she is once again threatened by the nearby war. For the twenty-first week, the two sisters recount their daily lives.
Olga and Sasha are two Ukrainian sisters. The first is 34 years old and is a wine merchant in Paris, where she has lived for seven years. The second, aged 33, lives in kyiv, like her mother and her partner, Viktor. Recently, she has been working remotely for a French digital communication agency. The two sisters have accepted, since the beginning of the conflict, to keep their logbook to M. This week, the parenthesis of happiness ends for Olga, who must let her mother return to the country. Where Sasha is waiting for her, torn between the joy of finding her again and the anguish of knowing that she is once again threatened by the nearby war.
Find here all the episodes of Olga and Sasha’s diary.
Tuesday July 12
Olga: This morning, we got up at 5:30 a.m. to go watch the sunrise. I so enjoy these moments with my mother. I am happy. I try to make the most of it. We swam, we took a lot of pictures.
I just learned that the cousin of a very close friend died in Kherson last weekend. My stomach shrinks, my heart hurts. With mom, we had breakfast in silence, without even a word, each in her thoughts. Today, we are going to Monaco. We hesitated, but my mother said: “I don’t know when I’ll be back. » She’s right, you have to live every second fully, life is so unpredictable now.
Now, every time we drink something, we toast that the war will end, evil will die and all our Ukrainian boys will stay alive.
Sasha: I have a neighbor who plays the violin in the building. Hearing it gives me a cinematographic sensation, it is a source of enormous pleasure. I instantly think of the people who live in the almost two hundred apartments in the building, of their lives, of their destinies. I am also thinking of the places where civilians were bombed, the houses destroyed, the people killed, the children, this draw by missile. Do the neighbors feel lucky? I start the week with heavy thoughts. The weather is ugly, as if it were November. But our fighters are taking advantage of this freshness in the Donbass steppes. Mom is coming back this Saturday, I have only one obsession: that she stays with Olga.
Wednesday July 13
Olga: End of vacation in the South, return to Paris. We’re flying with mom. We chat with a woman sitting in our row. At the end of the conversation, I tell him that we are Ukrainians and we talk about the war. I feel that she hesitates to say certain things and she ends up leaving: “Somewhere, we can understand Putin [Olga et Sasha ont choisi de ne pas mettre de majuscule à “poutine”, “russe” et “russie”], with this NATO threat and so on. » I know that there are still people in France who think that. The Russian propaganda machine is working. I’m sad.
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