Ukraine, a country where the social evolution of the society shows a mixture of modern and traditional values, always has a weakness of signs. We have learned the art of finding meaning where there may be none, of seeing more than it actually is.
And then the war with Russia gave us the gift of many new images: the Ukrainian tractor to remove the Russian tank had the strength of farmers, while the kitchen cabinet left on the wall of a ruined house became a symbol of invincibility.
Then we had a group of our pilots known as the “Ghost of Kyiv”, the Russian warship Moskva, which was infiltrated by a Ukrainian operation, and the explosion of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, who was found in a small town outside . Kyiv, just to name a few. At one point, they all seemed so important, so comforting in their ability to imbue the known outcomes of war with deeper meaning.
At the beginning of the spring of the total war he was drunk with the desire to be strong and indestructible. Everything became symbolic, from the blue and yellow colored socks to the traditional ties of the girl who checks the car prices on the site. The small things were reorganized as the beauty of resistance, filling us with faith in our strength and invincibility. We created memes and created characters faster than we could integrate into our culture. We thought that all this would save us. Maybe it did.
But all symptoms have one thing in common – they die after a while. Like the people who cling to them, believe in them and live in them.
After the bravery of spring 2022 came summer, autumn, and winter. At some point, the horrible realization dawned that we were in this for the long haul. Ahead of us is a lot of work, pain, suffering and loss. We would lose our loved ones, we would bury poets and filmmakers, we would feel sad, and then maybe argue, and finally we would die. Not all of us. But some of us.
The roulette spins – red or black, life or death. You never know when the next missile will hit and who will be buried under the rubble. And you can't count on Russian rockets to hide in time. It is a long game of survival.
We did not even notice when the signs began to fade, losing their importance and appeal. Is the tractor pulling the tank? Relax … Now we are talking about generators, power outages and FPV drones, which are needed in the industrial front. A cupboard on the wall? It's just a drawer on the wall. By mid-2024, Russia had damaged or destroyed more than 250,000 buildings. Each had a drawer – several, in fact. We are tired of looking inside ruined buildings.
Spirit of Kyiv? We have lost many special pilots who had respiratory symptoms. The Moscow ferry? Over the past three years, we have sunk a third of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, and the rest have been expelled from the Black Sea because of threats to our military power.
For me, I had my favorite symbols – or totems – of mine. I found one of them long before the first missiles flew into Kyiv one night in February. It became evident in 2015, when I started to take up arms to protect the integrity of my country in the east.
Before I left for the military training camp, I bought a metal cup with orange paint at a store in Kyiv. I fell in love with the cup and foolishly took it everywhere, turning it into a fit and filling it with special meaning.
It stayed with me throughout the 14 months I served in 2015-16, 10 of which were on the front line. It served me like nothing else had ever served me before. Later, in ordinary life, I took it to the mountains, to the desert. For a long time, it supported me in the studio where I worked as a photographer.
And, sure enough, in early March 2022, I took it to war. I told my relatives about this story, explaining its meaning. My fellow soldiers knew the importance of this cup and how much we spent together, so when we moved to a new place and I couldn't find it, the whole team rushed to look for it – the cups that they were. important to their chief.
Towards the end of the year 2023, when Bakhmut, who faced the bloodiest battle of the great war, bled to death and our soldiers, shaking, shaking, shaking and exhausted, were leaving, my team was thrown in to disrupt it. Russian troops are leaving the city. We spent several days under fire without any hope of relief or of leaving the ditch full of corpses.
When the order came to return, I dropped everything that would weigh me down, because we were facing a difficult chase of several kilometers under enemy artillery and drones. There in the trench, after I scattered the bodies of our soldiers and plowed and threw bullets, I left my cup behind. My invincible symbol, my trusted totem, a legacy my children will never inherit.
It was embarrassing. But the gradual increase in my chances of survival was very important. My life was more important to me than ordinary possessions, no matter how much symbolism I put into it.
Symptoms die when boredom sets in and courage becomes a habit. Boredom has blurred the line between fear and habit. In the last 18 months, it seems that no new brand has emerged. The number of memes and cartoons has dropped significantly.
We are now tired of this war rush, just as we are tired of this endless war. We are also tired of ourselves. And that's not a bad thing. People cannot live in a constant state of chaos. We have been pragmatic and logical. We are the only signs we have.
Every person who remains unbroken, who continues to work and help, who stays on the front line with every last bit of energy, who gives every last penny to buy drones and street cars, who gives medical equipment to the world, who tries to live their life no matter what. We are symbols: As old as winter coats, but real.
We are people who live and fight.
This was written within the cooperation of UkraineWorld, Ukrainian Institute and PEN Ukraine. Translated by Helena Kernan.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect Al Jazeera's influence.