The Memory Generation

Episode 10: Alina Zievakova

INTRO

Rachael Cerrotti: Hey Everyone, I’m Rachael Cerrotti. Welcome to The Memory Generation – a podcast about the memories we inherit and the stories that are passed from one generation to the next. After a couple months off, we are back the remainder of season 1. Today we have Alina Zievakova.

Alina is a Ukrainian actress living in Kyiv. Since Russia invaded Ukraine this past February, she has been using theater as an act of resistance and as a way to help others process their trauma and wartime experiences. She works with a theater called Pro English Drama School. When the full scale invasion began, the theater served as a shelter. But now, Alina is back to performing plays and leading workshops.

In this conversation, Alina tells us about her life during the war – everything from the first day of the invasion, her choice not to leave, love during wartime and her hopes for the future. She also shares her experience collecting testimony from her fellow Ukrainians and working as a fixer with foreign journalists. We talk about the act of bearing witness to the war while struggling to survive herself - and about how she insists on sharing what she’s seen, even when her own family doesn't believe her.

Alina and I recorded this conversation on July 20, 2022 through Zoom. I was in Portland, Maine and she was in Kyiv, Ukraine.

INTERVIEW

Alina Zevakova: You know, we were joking with my friend the other day that we were sitting drinking coffee just for a couple of hours. And he's like, you see, like we're sitting here drinking coffee as if there is no war. And I'm like, How is there no war if It's the only thing we talk about. It's literally the only thing on our minds. 

My name is Alina Zevakova. I'm 27 years old. I am from Ukraine. And for last eight years, I've been living in Kyiv, working as a theater and film actress, visiting different residencies and workshops. And also, I've been a acting coach in drama school.

Rachael Cerrotti: Tell me about where you grew up. What was your family like? What are some of your memories of childhood? 

Alina Zevakova: I'm from Zaporizhzhia which is a city in eastern part of Ukraine where lots of fabrics and plants are located. As many cities in Eastern Part. It's historically been so that Soviet Union organized some of the cities only to produce and Zaporizhzhia is one of them. And currently the region is occupied by Russian army. And my family stays there still. I felt always very alien there. Therefore, I moved as fast as I could. But there's one very close to my heart and soul place in my city. It's island - the biggest river island in Europe - It's called Khortytsia. And the legend goes that Ukrainian warriors who were called Cossacks have been building their fortress there, and you know this Cossacks are the symbol of Ukraine as well because they are known to be this brave, strong man fighting on horses. And nowadays it's more of like a historical site. But there is something energy wise in this place that gives you this ancestral feeling that this earth is so soaked with the history and, you know, something mystical about it as well. It's my favorite spot in the city for sure. And right now, like one of the biggest pains for me in all, everything that happens is when missiles hit the island. Nothing major for now. But still, there is some damage they are targeting it so there will be no water connection. And, you see you asked not connected to the war questions but all roads lead to Rome. 

Rachael Cerrotti: That’s actually what I was going to comment on. I would say - I ask you about your childhood memory and immediately we're right inside of war. And one of the questions that I had in my head was going to be, how was World War Two and the First World War - how are these played into your childhood, but you took me 300 years back. So this is history that is not just, you know, your grandparent’s history, but we're talking like great, great, great, great. 

Alina Zevakova: Uhh, it's – my ancestral history is very complicated because most of my family is Russian. And if we're talking about World War Two, my grandparents from both sides have witnessed it differently. Like my grandmother from my mother's side have been a child of war. She have been very small and she remembers some of it. But my grandfather from my father's side was already old enough. He was in army and he was captured three times into concentration camps and he was able to escape three times and actually survived the war and became a headmaster of a school and was very into education and stuff like that. But Soviet Union and all of that bullshit that has been so ingrained into people's heads affected my family. And currently everybody in my family pretty much supports Russia. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Let's go to the start of the war. What was that day like for you? The first day of the invasion. 

Alina Zevakova: Umm, I will start a evening before because it really is so surreal what was happening. So my friend was supposed to go to Mariupol that evening and he was supposed to bring his cat with me to stay. So he brought me the cat and I was, you know, worrying all about the creature so the cat feels safe. It's a new environment for her. And all my worries were about that. Everybody was anticipating something because everybody knew the Russian forces in very big quantity are on the border. And I checked couple of telegram channels to prepare and I even read what should be in the anxiety bag, but I haven't packed it. So the morning I woke up from the call of my friend at 5am in the morning and I'm picking up the phone and I’m like what? And he's like, the war started. I'm like, You're kidding. He's like, Go to the balcony, open the balcony, and I'm going to the balcony - the cat runs there. I cannot hold her back. I need to get her back inside the apartment so I don't hear anything. He says the explosions are going, get your stuff and let's go. And another good thing is I knew where I was going because the tension was in the air. A couple of weeks prior, we discussed the possibility that in my theater we can use it as a bomb shelter because it is in the basement. And we discussed that if anything happens, we all can go there. I didn't have any panic, no fear. I just very routin-ishly started packing. Good that I packed at least some of the things that were useful, but I didn't think at all about some little details like, I don't know, underwear, socks because in the moment you think only about super essential stuff. So I packed my laptop, a couple of warm sweatshirts and took some food from home. And the hardest task was to put the cat into the carrying box because she was struggling. She didn't want to go. She was, you know, feeling that there was something wrong in the air. And finally I managed. So I grabbed my backpack, grabbed the cat in the other hand and went out the street to meet my friend. The public transportation was still functioning at that moment. So we hopped on to the trolley bus and on our way we saw queues to atms, to pharmacies, to shops. Everybody was in panic, but you know, not like in panic, like running around. But, there was this thick atmosphere, not like people are screaming or anything, but you meet people in the eyes and you see the eyes running. And yeah, some of the people were carrying handbags, luggages and heading in different directions. Then we arrived to theater and our other colleagues, the directors, actors, also arrived. We started planning. Figured out the safety measures, we planned more or less what we're going to do this day. First thing we did when we heard a siren, we went outside and we started recording videos in all the languages that we knew.

Rachael Cerrotti: What were you saying? 

Alina Zevakova: We were saying that you can hear the air raid siren currently. That means that it is a danger of bombings and explosions and missile hits. 

Tape from morning of the invasion: And today I woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning, listening to this very siren. And it’s like what, 2pm, and I’m listening to it over and over. Not only to the siren… Hola amigos [message in Spanish]… Today is the day when Russia and particularly Putin invaded Ukraine. What you hear now… 

Alina Zevakova: We are calling to European community, to world community to step in, to support us, to do whatever it takes to stop this. And this should not be happening in 21st century. Stuff like that. 

Tape from morning of the invasion: [Message in German] Danke... Gracias.

Rachael Cerrotti: And so you ended up in your theater school for a month and a half, you said, living in this basement? 

Alina Zevakova: Yep. 

Rachael Cerrotti: With mostly or exclusively with other individuals from this community or – ?

Alina Zevakova: So by the end of first night, we had about 16 people, not only people who worked there, but friends, relatives of everybody who could come. And by the end of second and third night, we had about 30-40. It was different every night - neighbors like elderly, families with children, animals. So we tried as much as we could to accommodate everybody and we transformed our rooms that were used for rehearsals, for storing the sets and costumes into sleeping rooms, dining rooms and animal rooms. A separate one - cat room - my room. And yeah – the first couple of nights were nightmares – hell on Earth - because nobody knew what is happening, what should we do? Nobody knew how dangerous it was, what is going to come. There were news that the Russian forces are encircling Kyiv. Also the bombing was very heavy, especially at night. We couldn't sleep first three nights at all. I remember very clearly one night when it was super near us, when we had the walls shaking in the basement. I remember that one elderly man who had Alzheimer's disease, his hands were shaking and he couldn't stop them. And we tried our best to calm him down, to help him, to talk to him. And then the little boy of one of the families was crying. And I remember the mother saying that it’s just the thunder, don’t worry, it’s just the thunder.

Rachael Cerrotti: At what point did you leave the basement and why did you feel like at that point it was okay to move back to an apartment.

Alina Zevakova: I left on 5th of April and before that I had another three weeks of living in the basement. But only spending the night. Because I started working as a fixer with the foreign journalists and we would go each day first in Kyiv to all the missile attacks to document them, to talk to people, to discover these stories. And then by the end of March, beginning of April, we went to all of those places like Bucha, Irpin, Borodianka, Hostomel and for those three weeks, my life looks like non stop work because being a fixer, you are on phone 24/7 with the military, with security defenses and very, you know, official organizations. And you have to be on point all the time. Plus, I was working with Spanish journalists and translating from Spanish which is not even my second language - my fourth. And it also was very exhausting. Plus, seeing everything that I saw. First, when we started going out in Kyiv, it felt - I felt alive because everything what I saw prior only in the news in my phone, I saw with my own eyes and it felt good to be witness. It felt good to be present in everything that is happening because the first three, four days we all were spending 20 or 24 hours in our phones just to stay on point, just to understand what the hell is going on and what should we expect. And this is very destructive routine because you really disassociate and disconnect from life, from your body, from surroundings. So that felt good in the beginning. But then of course it takes its toll and that is the reason pretty much why I quit fixing because my body just could not anymore. Because it - one of my defense mechanisms I focus on the work and how I can help in the moment. So pretty much like my feelings don't matter and don't exist in that point, but because of that you start to unravel with time. And for example, right now I cannot go to Bucha. After everything what I felt and what I saw there, I just can’t.

Rachael Cerrotti: You used the word witness, and Just so our audiences understand who might not be familiar with the idea of a fixer, which is - a fixer, is someone who's local to the environment, who helps foreign journalists collect the story, to put it simply. And sometimes that means driving them around, or as you noted, with language skills or, you know, somebody who might have contacts in the area. So, in getting involved in work as a fixer, how did becoming a witness change the war for you. 

Alina Zevakova: Uh, it made it much more personal. There were a couple of transformation moments for me in this war because prior to war I thought that I am a pacifist. I am not a cruel creature. I have never, ever in my life wished somebody to die or to suffer. And I guess after a couple of turning points for me, one of them was bombing of a child's hospital. And the second one was Bucha. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Can you tell us a bit about Bucha? Just so folks can understand what you saw there.

Alina Zevakova: Sure. So prior to full scale invasion, Bucha was a small town in Kyiv region that was very prosperous. After the start of the full scale invasion, Bucha and other small towns of Kyiv were occupied for a month and lots of atrocities were happening during that time like rape, tortures, mass killings, mass shootings. Majority of all those people were civilians. And lots of people who tried to escape also were killed and shot. And on the passage from Bucha, there was a row of cars on the way to Kyiv to exit Bucha and all of them were with bullet holes. You see people on the bikes - shot. You see people who tried to escape - shot. And inside of the town itself lots, lots of evidence were found. Just people lying on the ground with their hands tied behind their back. Shot in the head from behind - women, men, children. Lots of rape cases. And each second person who you talk to in Bucha tells about the story of how they were tortured and how they are lucky enough to survive, to escape. And the feeling that I got when I just arrived there not even talking to people, just seeing and feeling the atmosphere was precisely the feeling that I got in Auschwitz when I was there four years ago. It's such a daunting atmosphere of death. 

Rachael Cerrotti: So you had this role as fixer for some weeks and so you took that experience and then you brought that into the theater space. How have you been using acting as a tool of resilience, as a tool of healing and as a tool of expression during this time?

Alina Zevakova: So from the moment when all the sensitive groups could evacuate from our shelter, we had more space and time to focus on other things rather than just surviving. In the daytime, me and my colleagues would be fixing with journalists, others would be helping with humanitarian aid, volunteering, and by the night because we still have the martial law, starting from 8:00 we would gather filming different short videos like poetry, songs, and then we felt that we also need to use our voice in the instrument that we know how to operate with which is theater and performative art. And it felt really weird and really inappropriate rehearsing in these times. And it took some process to get over it, to get through it up until the premiere because we had a live audience and I guess that was one of them turning points into realization how important theater is, how it is a strong tool to talk to people on empathetic level not just during the news or headlines. And we had our premiere on 27th of March and we had a stream to Berlin Theater. But, the most important thing was what happened in this moment when we had live audience. We are performing and the sirens are going off. Explosions are still there and you are making theater and you have this here and now connection with people. And that felt really - I can not still name it. I don't have name for that feeling because I've never felt anything like that before. But starting from then, we continued creating, continued working on new performances, no matter what, no matter how odd it may feel. But I felt very strong thought and feeling that culture is a basic human right. And by making performances, no matter what, connecting to people, we are defending our rights and we are resisting. It's a form of resilience, for sure. And what was the most important for me is that it gives people who come to our performances this opportunity to come to theater show. 

Rachael Cerrotti: You mentioned that you had this feeling like it felt really wrong. And now when I hear you speak about this, you're saying, no, this was really the right thing to do. What were the conversations that were happening with your fellow actors and actresses? Tell me a bit about that tension that you all were feeling. 

Alina Zevakova: So one of the curious things that me and my colleagues have expressed is that during all this time, whatever we have done was not enough. We didn't feel like we are contributing enough. And fixing was the closest thing that gave you this fulfillment because you literally risk your life. You see everything with your own eyes. You basically donate your body to the purpose. And this is as close as I personally can come because I know for sure about myself that there will be no use of me in the armed forces, but especially with guys who could have gone to army but for one reason or another didn't, they had the guilt all over. And, you know, making something like art and theater didn't make any sense at this point for us. It took some people who had determination and felt like, yes, this is what we should be doing, directors who organized us. But almost every rehearsal took emotional breakdowns. It took talking for hours about it. But right now, I have a very, very strong determination and I am deeply convinced that theater is a weapon. Theater is a strong voice that helps us transmit everything we are feeling, everything we are living through to people. This is, for me, the most important thing. Because we need to build these bridges to win this war and in order to build bridges, we need to talk to people in a language that is universal, that everybody understands. And therefore, I have such a strong feeling that I am where I should be in this war and I'm doing what I know best and therefore this is my best contribution that can possibly be.

Rachael Cerrotti: Did you ever think about leaving Ukraine?

Alina Zevakova: No, not once. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Does that surprise you? 

Alina Zevakova: You know, before the start of the full scale invasion, I always thought that if something dangerous will happen or something that, you know, makes sense to leave for survival purposes, I would be the first one to do that because I have friends and people who are willing to accommodate me, to help me in Europe and United States. But the moment it started the first day, I just had no doubt I was sure that I need to stay. There is no other place where I can be. It is my home. So therefore I need to defend it. I just couldn't bear the idea of running somewhere, of being away from it all. I have recently traveled for ten days outside of Ukraine for work purposes and it was the worst ten days of this war. Even the explosions and the missiles did not feel as bad as this.

Rachael Cerrotti: Why? What do you mean by that? 

Alina Zevakova: I was traveling to Slovenia for an international festival about global awareness where I was presenting my workshop, RAW - Relief Acting Workshop, which is a workshop that we are organizing in our theater weekly to help people cope with their traumas with the help of drama therapy, art therapy, different means. And we invite different coaches each week and we hold it both in Ukrainian and in English so it's accessible to everyone. And this is currently one of my missions, how I help, because I really want to help people with what I know. So I was traveling through Poland as well because I was gathering the interviews of refugees who fled from the war and first of all the trip is physically demanding and hard because under martial law of course none of the airports are working. So therefore, you need to go either by bus or by train. And it takes different times on the border. So from two hours to seven hours, you can just stay waiting on the border. And then I arrived to Warsaw. And it was thunder in Warsaw at that day. And I was prepared for the fact that I’m going to see airplanes in the sky and those are not dangerous. But I wasn't prepared that I'm going to see airplanes with the sound of thunder. So that was the trick and I didn't feel safe. I felt very anxious from the moment when I crossed the border because for the first time in my life I felt foreign. And I'm the person who traveled half of the world and who speaks seven languages and who loves cultures. But I felt like a scared little animal who was let out of the cage. But at the same time, I didn't feel like moving at all. I didn't feel like communicating with people. Loud sounds bothered me and I was surprised that they didn't bother anybody else. And when I got to the festival. People there are very open minded and very caring. They are aware of what is happening. But the thing is that you stop being a person, you become an information stand, which is okay because they came there for this mission. But it's also because you are this information stand, you are a stereotype. And for different people, stereotype that stands for different things. For example, when I arrived to Poland, I didn't arrive to Warsaw directly. I arrived to a small city on the border and people there, Polish people, are very exhausted, very tired of seeing Ukrainians. And I can understand them because Poland took a very harsh hit helping us because so many millions of people fled. And, you know, this is one of the first points where all these people come. But you already feel judged just by the passport you have. And you feel the assumptions that are made based on your passport that ah okay you’re a poor refugee. You know, like they don't treat you as a person and that's fine. But — 

Rachael Cerrotti: Is it fine?

Alina Zevakova: That's not fine. But I can get why. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Mmhmm

Alina Zevakova: That's the thing. And I don't blame them because the main reason is not them. It would not all happen if we didn't have a war. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Mmhmm

Alina Zevakova: So I tried to stick to the root of the problems rather than the consequences. And the hardest point of the trip was right in the middle when I was still in Slovenia. There was a missile attack on Kyiv on the district where majority of my friends are, my boyfriend is. And, one of my friends lost his apartment because the missile hit exactly the building and luckily he wasn't there and his family wasn't there, but there is no apartment anymore. And yeah, I felt very guilty that I am there in safety in Slovenia for my close and nearest ones have to wake up from this. And I was counting hours until I can get back.

Rachael Cerrotti: What did it feel like to walk back into Ukraine?

Alina Zevakova: It felt great. It felt amazing. I felt that this is my home. This is my land. This is where I should be. And prior to the full scale invasion, I was really considering at some point of my life moving somewhere just, you know, because I can. Because I would like to live in another country. But right now, it's not even an option. It's so 100% certainty the fact that I will live in Ukraine always, because I just physically can not anywhere else.

Rachael Cerrotti: Let's circle back to your past generations. So we started this conversation - you were starting to tell us a little bit about your family history. What has been the dynamic between your immediate family, your extended family?

Alina Zevakova: On the first morning of the 24th, the only phone call I made was to my mom. And I called her asking very worried. How is she doing? What is going on? And she was sleeping at the moment because it was 5 a.m. in the morning. And she was like very not understanding why am I so agitated. She said, no, we're going to work. Everything is fine. Why are you so worried. I’m saying that we're being bombed, we're being attacked. Russia started full scale invasion and she said, ‘what are you talking about? It’s a provocation. This cannot be true.’ And she asked me not to post anything on Facebook, anything of my position because she was afraid that we will be under the occupation and that I'm going to suffer because of that. But yeah, I tried my best to bring her to her senses, but she just didn't want to realize. And for me the most important fact was that she's in safety so I could focus on my survival. So I did. And the weeks after that, it was very hard emotionally because pretty much it was the only thing that got me out of balance emotionally that brought me to emotional breakdowns is talking to my mother because she was supporting Putin like all my other family - my aunt, my grandmother. 

Rachael Cerrotti: When you say they're supporting Putin, can you just explain what exactly that means? Like, was that supporting Russians invading Ukraine? Was that just supporting Russia as a country? Like what does that mean?

Alina Zevakova: Basically what all my family believes in is very straightforward Russian propaganda points which is they are defending Donbas region in the eastern part where the war has been going on for eight years starting from 2014, and that Ukrainian cities are bombing themselves. It's not Russians. Russians are coming to save the people who have been suffering in Donbas. And the hardest point was the turning point for me because after that I stopped communicating with my mother at all was Bucha because she didn't believe what I was saying and she thought those bodies are there on display. It's all a big masquerade that those people could not have been killed like that. And everything that I told her she didn't believe because she watched some stream on one of the Russian channels, how the de-occupation was happening. And she believed that it's Ukrainian forces did that while de-occupying the territories. 

Rachael Cerrotti: And what about your family in Russia? Your grandparents are there, right? 

Alina Zevakova: My grandmother and my aunt are in St. Petersburg. And I didn't hear from them up until I would say May. Nothing at all.

Rachael Cerrotti: Not a word? 

Alina Zevakova: Not a word. And then my aunt sent me a video, not saying ‘hello, how are you?’ Nothing of that. Just a video where some religious leader is talking that Putin is the greatest political leader of everyone who is alive currently and that the West is bringing famine to the Slavic territories. And there is a huge mischievous plan of Western partners and Ukrainian territory is just a place where it all unfolds. And I just couldn't help myself back. And I asked her does she really believe that. And she said yes, this particular theory she believes. And I sent her the picture of a burnt church in Irpin and then a couple of videos that I took along those territories on which she responded that everything is not so black and white. We will see who is right only in time. And there is so much of fake news nowadays so it's hard to determine where is the truth. And I wrote that the difference of us is that the pictures and videos I send are not from the news or internet. I took them on my phone and this is our 24/7 reality. So, there is no point for us to talk anymore. And she hasn't responded ever since.

Rachael Cerrotti: So, Alina, the invasion began on February 24th. We are now speaking on July 20th. Is the energy different now than it felt some months ago? 

Alina Zevakova: Definitely. The energy is different. The approaches are different of how we are fighting this war because on the bright side, we are much more aware of details - what is going on, how we can help and what should we do. Because basically on the first days we didn't even know what to do during the air raid siren or what to expect. What is the difference between different sounds that we heard? And on the bright side, more and more people are coming back to Ukraine who have left. And, you know, it doesn't feel like a ghost town anymore - Kyiv. Many institutions and many premises start working again like coffee shops, restaurants. You know, there's just the feeling of life which is very nice and which is also resilient because we are keeping the economy going however we can. But on the hard side it’s that there is still this uncertainty for how long it's going to last. Nobody knows. And for how long we are running this marathon which definitely feels like one. Everyone in one way or another starts to feel tired, starts to feel exhausted. And right now, what I feel in the air in Ukraine is that because we are reaching that limit in all the resources – patience, mental, financial, physical, we are starting to be more edgy. We are starting to find reasons to fight within our own country. For example, many questions became very radical. The question of a language became an issue because as it is known, Ukraine people spoke historically both Ukrainian and Russian. Ukrainian is a state language and everything official happens in Ukrainian, but many people choose or chose to speak Russian in everyday life. And right now this language is associated with murders and atrocities. And therefore —

Rachael Cerrotti: Speaking Russia suddenly becomes political rather than cultural.

Alina Zevakova: Yes. Right. And culture becomes political. Well, it always has happened in Ukraine. But right now, there is a cancellation of Russian culture which I support and I believe is the right thing to do. 

Rachael Cerrotti: And that's partly your culture too that you're talking about. 

Alina Zevakova: Exactly

Rachael Cerrotti: This was a culture that your family is there. It's a language you spoke. 

Alina Zevakova: Yes. I was born in Russian speaking family. I studied in Russian speaking school and Russian speaking university and I, up until 24 with February, I was speaking Russian in everyday life. But now I am principally and consciously speaking only Ukrainian and yeah, it is kind of giving up on your personality because I love the Russian literature or movies or theater, but right now as if it doesn't exist. I'm willingly giving that part up. 

Rachael Cerrotti: I know we were just talking about awful, awful violence against civilians. And I know giving up culture isn't the same thing as death, but there's something about having to give up culture that just feels so tragic. 

Alina Zevakova: But it doesn't feel tragic for me, though. For me, it feels like a revelation. It feels like everything that was passed through generations of my family to me feels like not mine, feels like it was forced onto me and something that I don't share - I don't believe in. And if you dig down deep into history, this is what Ukrainian people have always been doing. They have always been fighting for their existence, for existence of their culture and of their language. And thanks to them, we still are able to speak it. We still are able to have, you know, heritage of Ukrainian culture because again, historically it started so, so long ago. For centuries that Russian empire didn't want to acknowledge our nation as one that has right to exist. For me, it's just historically I've been born into the surroundings that ignored all of that. And throughout my own research, I was shocked with the facts that I discovered. I mean, we all discover them in school, but it's different because at school you never pay attention to what - to history lessons. So it hits differently when you are doing it consciously and trying to find out what's going on and how is that historically based everything that is happening now. Because again, the history is like a spiral and everything that started somewhere is unfolding with us now. Therefore, I feel even liberated. I feel like I'm finding my own path which doesn't come with my blood, but comes with my heart.

Rachael Cerrotti: Speaking of your heart. Can I shift gears real quickly.

Alina Zevakova: Yeah. 

Rachael Cerrotti: I know you know where I'm going. 

Alina Zevakova: Yes.

Rachael Cerrotti: So I know a little bit about your personal life and so if you could indulge those of us who are also in the dating world. Umm, you met a boy. Tell me about the boy. And also tell me about what it's like to develop a romantic relationship against the theater of war. Pun intended because you guys met in the theater.

Alina Zevakova: Yeah. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Actual theater, so –

Alina Zevakova: Yeah. So we knew each other prior. We met a couple of times on different theater events but we just spoke, barely. And then starting from the full scale invasion, from day one - his name is Valera - and he was writing to me each day how I was, whether I'm safe, do I need anything? And we were in close contact by texting all this time. And then we started rehearsing this play during the time when he was in Lviv, in western part of Ukraine because he was evacuating his parents and all our rehearsals were on Zoom. So there was a huge projection of him on the wall. And, you know, we didn't share the physical space, but we shared the rehearsal space. And so we had a reason to talk. We started FaceTiming. And he was there for me throughout all these points to support me, to give me the feeling that I needed in that time because especially during the war time, it is unbearable to feel lonely. And, taking into consideration my situation with the family, it was rather hard to go through all this - coming back from Bucha and Irpin each day and yeah something that I was looking forward to every night is our conversation. And we had a tradition that he sends me a song each night which I fall asleep to. And then, I knew that he was planning on coming back to Kyiv at some point when he was done with everything that he needed to finish in Lviv. But we didn't specify when or how and at some point he was texting me that I will have bad connection for a couple of days, so don't worry. And I was coming back from Bucha that day, I came to shelter. I was cutting the salad for dinner and opened the door. And there is Valera. He didn't tell me he wanted to surprise. And interesting that at that time we still were like close friends so we just hugged and we talked. And then this is the thing of war romance because I would never, ever do that in a peaceful lifetime. But I asked him, can I spend the night at his place? Not because —

Rachael Cerrotti: I didn't say anything, I didn't say anything.

Alina Zevakova: But because I wanted to sleep, to have a proper shower and to sleep on the bed –  

Rachael Cerrotti: Uh huh.

Alina Zevakova: – for the first time in a month and a half. So he said ‘of course.’ And the next day I arrived after my journalist not to the shelter but to his apartment. He made a beautiful dinner for me. And yes, since that time I stayed and never left.

Rachael Cerrotti: You know, I don't know much about your romantic past before him, but how do you feel developing a relationship during war is different than during, let's say, quote-unquote, normal times?

Alina Zevakova: You understand from the very first sight or very first encounter whether this person is your person. And it is instinctive. It's not like in normal life you would have this doubting process. Oh, I don't know. Here it's either yes or no. Very straightforward. You feel that physically. And also it's the feeling of, you know, it's not only about this romantic life, but in general, you feel the preciousness of each moment of being alive because you are aware that each day can be taken away from you. So you value it differently and it also brings you closer together going through all these moments. Like we kissed for the first time during the air raid siren and we've been through different stages of this war together. So I guess connection like that is immediately deeper and in a very short amount of time becomes something more. 

Rachael Cerrotti: You know, you've spent now all these months during the war living your own story, helping journalists collect stories, helping individuals work through their own trauma and experiences through theater and collecting testimonies and oral histories from other Ukrainians. That collection of storytelling, that variety of experiences - do you feel as though there are any key takeaways that you've learned from interacting with other people's stories that have impacted the way that you've been living and experiencing this war yourself? 

Alina Zevakova: Oh, definitely. I physically feel how being connected to people through stories helps me digest my own, what's going on and why it's going on and what was going on prior to it. What baffles me, what astonishes me in a way is the power of ancestral trauma because throughout the interviews that I have taken, there is this line of people with different experiences of their own generations that have felt them physically during this war. Different people fled because of different reasons. Some people who I'm interviewing have very similar points of view that I do, but they word it differently. And it makes me to look at myself also from a distance, from another point of view. For example, I was interviewing a girl who also didn't leave Kyiv all this time and I asked her why and she said, I choose comfortable discomfort rather than discomfortable comfort. And that made so much sense to me because literally you feel more comfortable in the place where missiles arrive when air raid sirens go off. But you feel comfortable here. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Mmhmm. 

Alina Zevakova: Crazy. Yes and stuff like that. That really helps me digest and, you know, reflect.

Rachael Cerrotti: Alina, thank you so much. 

Alina Zevakova: Thank You. 

Rachael Cerrotti: This is going to sound weird because I want the war to be over. And I don't want you to experience this anymore. But I'm also looking forward to keep having these conversations with you as the months go on and after the war is over and to hear how these reflections keep changing. As you know, my late husband was Polish and he had this phrase that he would say and I don't really know where he got it from, so I can't totally source it, but he told me it was a Polish saying, so I'm going to believe him. And he said, there's this Polish saying that our grandparents were soldiers so our parents could be engineers so we could be artists. 

Alina Zevakova: Wow.

Rachael Cerrotti: And I really, really like the saying, but it always has made me ask the question. If I'm the artist, you know, who comes next? Do we restart this cycle? And seeing what's happening in Ukraine. And it just makes me feel like, yes, indeed, the cycle starts over. And, I feel like you have brought that to life for me by letting me in and letting us in. And I just, just thank you for letting us witness you witness the war.

Alina Zevakova: Oh, you make that very emotional. Thank you very much. And I am as well looking forward to this conversation because it is important for me to talk about it as well, as a person, as a, you know, human being. That's how you make me feel as a person who-whose voice is valuable somehow. And the phrase that you just quoted is so beautiful. And, you know, like, it's not even the repeating the cycle. It's this cycle right now happening at the same time because the soldiers who are fighting are giving the abilities to the engineers to work and for us as artists to create.

OUTRO

Rachael Cerrotti: Thank you to Alina for joining me today. There are links to some of her performances and more information about her Relief Acting Workshop on our website.

The Memory Generation was created in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation which is home to more than 55,000 testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide. You can learn more about their work and the Visual History Archive at sfi.usc.edu. This episode was also supported by StoryFile. 

You can find additional links, book lists, testimony clips and all types of other resources and stories on our website: memorygenerationpodcast.com. Our editor is Lene Bech Sillesen. Our executive producer and co-creator of this show is Stephen Smith. The music is from Kodomo.

I’m Rachael Cerrotti. We’ll be back next week.