Paris, June 28, 2023
Dear readers,
Mom and Sasha arrived in France on June 10. The most important women in my life ! I found them as if we had never left each other. I am so happy that Ukrainian trains have never stopped running and allow us to be together. They arrived just after the explosion of the Kakhovka dam by the rachists [contraction de « russes » et de « fascistes »].
Since then, in all the media, we read that the various environmental, humanitarian, international organizations, etc., “condemn” this act. OK, okay, you condemn, that’s good, and it will serve when poutine [Olga et Sasha ont choisi de ne pas mettre de majuscule à « poutine », « russe » et « russie »] will be on a bench in prison ; but why don’t they go there to save people? Why, with the means and capacity for action they have, don’t they negotiate with Putin a halt to the bombardments during their interventions? I saw on Instagram videos of drowned people, animals: it plunges me into a state of despair. There are tons of dead fish. This is real ecocide.
The three of us went to Brittany, where we spent two wonderful weeks. We discovered this region thanks to Mr. and Mr.me Pint, from the readers of our newspaper in M The magazine of the World. I really wanted to organize a little break for my mother and my sister in a quiet place, and it was possible thanks to them. They suggested we go to their vacation home after reading that I wanted to introduce my mother to Brittany. For this gesture, we are grateful to them from the bottom of our hearts!
With Sasha and Elisa [Mignot, journaliste qui coécrit ces lignes], we then went to the Festival of the intimate diary, in Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys (Morbihan). It was close by. Over there, two actresses [Camille Chamoux et Camille Cottin] have read our newspaper. I find it hard to say what I felt. I still feel exhausted from the whole experience. It’s weird, when you have too many emotions, it’s really hard to describe them. While reading, I realized that I no longer remembered the feelings that had been mine at the start of the great war. It was very hard to relive the first months. We cried a lot with Sasha, and with Elisa too. She lived all that with us and through us.
The stay of my mother and my sister is coming to an end in France, which makes me deeply sad. The three weeks passed like a gallop. I don’t imagine that I will let them go. Yet I know it’s inevitable, that their life awaits them in Kyiv [Kiev, en ukrainien]. Sasha tells me almost every day that she wants her life back. It’s painful for me, because I would like so much for her to feel at home in my house too.
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