This Is My Homecity, Kyiv, On The 2nd Of January After Russia Attacked Ukraine With Shahed Drones, 16

Georgians are stronger than me, because if protests in my country were constantly confused with the state in USA, I would throw hands

What Ukrainians ate to survive Holodomor

(translated excerpts from an Історична Правда article): + images source

The villagers would dig up the holes of the polecats to find at least a handful of grain hidden by these animals. They pounded it in a mortar, added a handful of oilcake (from hemp seed), beetroot, potato peelings, and baked something from this mixture.

Those who managed to hide at least a little grain would grind it in iron mills made from wheel axles and cook "zatyrukha" (a concoction made from a small amount of flour ground from ears of grain).

Acacia flowers were boiled and eaten raw, and green quinoa was mixed with crushed corn cobs. Those who could - and this was considered lucky - added a handful of bran. This food made their feet swell and their skin crack.

The peasants dried the husked ears of corn and millet husks, pounded them, ground them with weeds, and cooked soups and baked pancakes. Such dishes were impossible to chew, the body could not digest them, so people had stomach aches. Pancakes, the so-called "matorzhenyky", were made from oilcake and nettle or plantain.

It went so far that peasants would crumble straw into small chips and pound it in a mortar together with millet and buckwheat chaff, and tree bark. All this was mixed with potato peelings, which were very poisonous, and this mixture was used to bake "bread", the consumption of which caused severe stomach diseases.

There were cases when village activists took away and broke millstones, mortars, poured water on the heat in their ovens. After all, anything found or saved from the food had to be cooked on fire, and matches could only be purchased by bartering for their own belongings or by buying them in the city, which was impossible from villagers that were on "black lists".

Chestnuts, aspen and birch bark, buds, reed roots, hawthorn and rose hips, which were the most delicious, were used as food substitutes; various berries, even poisonous ones, were picked; grass seeds were ground into flour; "honey" from sugar beets was cooked, and water brewed with cherry branches was drunk. They also ate the kernels of sunflower seeds.

Newborns had the worst of it, because their mothers had no breast milk. According to testimonies, a mother would let her child suck the drink from the top of the poppy head, and the child would fall asleep for three days.

In early spring, the villagers began to dig up old potato fields. They would bake dumplings from frozen potatoes, grind rotten potatoes in a mash and make pancakes, greasing the frying pan with wheel grease. They also baked "blyuvaly" (transl. "vomities") from such potatoes and oatmeal mixed with water, which was so called because they were very smelly.

They ate mice, rats, frogs, hedgehogs, snakes, beetles, ants, worms, i.e. things that weren't a part of food bans and had never been eaten by people before. The horror of the famine is also evidenced by the consumption of spiders, which are forbidden to kill in Ukrainian society for ritual reasons.

In some areas, slugs were boiled into a soup, and the cartilaginous meat was chopped and mixed with leaves. This prevented swelling of the body and contributed to survival. People caught tadpoles, frogs, lizards, turtles, and mollusks. They boiled them, adding a little salt if there was salt. The starving people caught cranes, storks, and herons, which have been protected in Ukraine for centuries, and their nests were never destroyed. According to folk beliefs, eating stork meat was equated with cannibalism.

The consumption of horse meat began in 1931, before the mass famine. People used to take dead horsemeat from the cemeteries at night, make jelly out of it and salt it for future use.

Dead horses were poured with carbolic acid to prevent people from taking their meat, but it hardly stopped anybody. Dead collective farm pigs were also doused with kerosene to prevent people from dismantling them for food, but this did not help either.

After long periods of starvatiom, the process of digestion is very costing for the human body, and many people who would eat anything would drop dead immediately out of exhaustion.

If a family had a cow hidden somewhere in the forest, they had a chance to survive. People living near forests could hunt/seek out berries and mushrooms, but during winter this wouldn't save them. People living near rivers could fish in secret, but it was banned and punishable by imprisonment/death.

My boi in national Ukrainian clothes and my part in DTIYS by @/linyvets_chan (Instagram)! Drawing this was fascinating, I'm happy with the result. Thank you, linyvets_chan, for such an interesting experience.

😄

Мій хлопчик у національному українському одязі й моя участь у DTIYS від @/linyvets_chan (Instagram)! Малювати це було прецікаво, результат мене радує. Дякую, linyvets_chan, за такий цікавий досвід.

It's Vyshyvanka Day y'all!! Go and appreciate beauty of Ukrainian national clothes cause my art is just a small part of how majestic it looks

I often think about Hlodan family. Please take a moment to learn about them.

On April 23, 2022, on Easter Eve, russian missile hit the Tiras residential complex in Odesa, Ukraine. Eight people were killed, including Yurii's family - his wife Valeriia, three-month-old daughter Kira and mother-in-law Liudmyla. Yurii survived, because at the moment he went to the shop.

Look at baby Kira's tiny pink hat. Cute little onesie. That baby was so wanted and loved. Mother's post on Facebook form February says "These were the best 40 weeks ever. Our girl is 1 month old now. Daddy got her her first flowers. It's a whole new level of happiness".

Yurii donated diapers, one of the few things he could find in destroyed apartment, to the charity. He also took photo albums, his wife's collection of sugar packets, handwritten notes.

Yurii spoke about his wife very lovingly and tenderly: "Her ability to communicate with different people, to understand people, the way she knew how to talk, how beautifully she wrote... You can’t even imagine how she wrote! And what kind of mother she was... You can’t even imagine! This is a mother, this is a friend, this is a daughter - with the best qualities... I simply cannot find another person like her. Person like this can only be given by God once".

After losing his family, Yurii decided to join the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. On 5 November, 2023, his colleague Oleksandr Yakovenko reported that Yurii was killed at the front. The whole family is gone.

proud to see my country do this, in spite of russia targeting our fields and grain silos. please support ukraine and palestine 🇺🇦🇵🇸

The last time I was genuinely happy was in the summer of 2021.

My grandad called me and told me to come outside so he could buy me some ice cream. We stood there discussing what I was planning to do in Odesa, and he joked about our grandmother being a hard woman to live with, but we loved her nonetheless. Five days later, I would lose him. Six months later, the full-scale invasion would start. Nothing would ever be the same again.

That could've been you in Bucha, you know that? they didn’t choose who to kill, they killed everyone on their path? Your luck, then, that you were born in the western part of the country. The only thing you lost are your childhood memories of Crimea, Melitopol, and Zatoka, not your home. But the war continues: your flat could still become the final destination of a hypersonic missile. Don't forget it. Hopefully, you won't hear the siren that night and will die in your sleep. Hopefully, they will find the remains. Hopefully, it will be the entire family, so you won't suffer without each other. Because at the end of the day, your death would mean nothing but pain for your loved ones. The world will keep on spinning; missile parts will be sent to Russia. People will still pity the Russians, but they won't pity you or your family.

Suddenly, you realize that you no longer believe in what you believed before. Do you believe in something good? Well, your small, naive inner child is still alive then. Barely. What? You thought those institutions were meant to maintain peace? That's funny. Probably, that peace is more needed in expensive restaurants hundreds of kilometers away from the frontline.

I genuinely don't know why I'm writing this post again. Is it to be seen by the same 10 people? I know they feel the same. We just sit here together, slowly going mad, hoping someone will finally react. Maybe someone who reblogs your fandom post will find some sympathy. But sympathy is not what I need; I want to be heard.

Fuck you watched "Don't Look Up" with an ironic smile on your lips. And now, you are the main character.

All of you here preach about giving voice to the oppressed, but are you really doing it? The moment you become uncomfortable, it suddenly becomes not your business - "keep ___ out of politics." God, I would've loved that. I would've loved to not know anything. Not to know the names of military equipment. Not to understand that your life can literally depend on the presidential election in a completely different country.

I'm so tired of fighting for my right to be heard. I'm so tired of having to prove my right to live, to speak my own language. "Your country doesn't exist," "Your language is artificial; speak human (Russian)." Don't be too emotional. Don't hate Russians. Don't wish them anything bad. Don't open your mouth. Don't call out organizations. Just shut the fuck up or die.

No one will care if the biggest country in Europe disappears. No one will care if millions die. If your culture will finally be dealt with, if Russia will finally succeed in doing so. A thousand years of history can burn down in just one night. No one will bat an eye.

The world will keep on spinning.

russian opposition everyone keeps telling us about

24.02.2022.

The day that changed my life forever.

24th of February 2022 should have been my usual day. No, not usual. A wonderful day. I should have been checked with a doctor, gave notice to teachers in high school of my absence, and then fly away on vacation, my parents wanted it so much.

On 23rd of February 2022 I felt happy. I had a secure, happy life, preparing to finals, hanging out with my friends, already having an offer from university.

Until 5AM 24.02.2022.

I had not a single class in my school since then.

I haven’t seen my friend group in 2 years.

I didn’t have my finals.

We did not have that vacation.

“Daughter, wake up. This old psychotic man attacked us. We are leaving.”

That was my first photo of the day, trying sarcastically keep myself normal. I remember that actual emptiness, reading my classmates texts about how their windows were shaking because of explosions, the sky was orange. They sent that video.

He called it “a special military operation”.

I collected random clothes, some hobby stuff just to keep my sanity, grabbed my pet, emptied my safety locker. I was scared that russians would intrude into our home and steal all my savings, so I throw away key to that lock. This key became my symbol of war, I have never found it even after return.

When I with my parents and pet got out of flat to car we heard for the very first time air raid siren. We would hear so many more of them, we would learn to differentiate them, but then we were confused.

It was my second photo. People were going away. Foot, cars, bicycles. I remember such a surreal picture. Some moms were carrying their toddlers, one woman was carrying a bucket of water with turtles, other people were carrying cages with parrots, with dogs, with cats, with exotic pets despite air raid siren, temperature, rain. Everyone was so confused and scared.

Few days later the road we were riding was occupied. Bridges destroyed. Factories burnt. Supermarkets demolished. Houses in ruins. Road in holes. On the side of the road burnt cars with “DO NOT TOUCH, POSSIBLY EXPLOSIVE”. That gut wrenching feeling seeing photos of dead bodies and recognising the place.

But back then it was still lively, not a road of death. I remember reading news then. First victims, first shelling. Invasion from East. Invasion from Kharkiv region. Invasion from Crimea. Invasion from Chernihiv. Invasion from Zhytomyr. And we were in Zhytomyr region at that moment. Explosions in Kyiv. The border was destroyed.

I felt nothing. Just emptiness.

This precious girl was keeping my head cool all the road. She was also scared and irritated, but she was so strong, such an amazing girl. I am so proud of her.

We were heading to my grandparents who lived closer to West Ukraine, so we would be safer. The road that takes usually just 4 hours but that time it took 13 hours. 13 hours of driving exhausted and nerved. We saw soldiers, trucks, jets, how barricades were built, signs were removed.

But we made it. We were lucky. Lucky to be alive, to have family alive and mostly close to West, further from russia. Even though, part of my extended family still was under occupation in Chernihiv region, suffering from such close border with belarus.

When we arrived, we were just silent. Then collected mattresses for shelter, asked grandpa to grab some patrol (we knew that they would definitely destroy reservoirs and literally next day the started doing that), and just fell asleep in something that we arrived in, being so scared.

That day I also cut ties with russian friend who I am shamed to admit having. He was proving me that this is just a military operation, no one would be harmed.

Then, arrived spring that I will never forget but at the same time never remember. I remember 10 people in one floor house. I remember the whistle of rocket that woke us up. I remember sirens. I remember news. I remember losing hope. I remember first photos after deoccupation of Kyiv region. I remember how forgotten friend of my dad suddenly called him saying that his city is fully destroyed, his neighbour right on his eyes was exploded attempting to get into the car and evacuate.

I remember my first mental breakdown. How I was crying in the darkness, but quietly so no one would notice.

We were able to return home three months later. But we are just lucky. Someone would never return. Someone is not even alive to see their home again. Someone’s home is forever destroyed.

I was lucky that I have secured my place at foreign university before war, but my whole family is still in Ukraine.

War is not over at all. 20% of Ukraine is occupied. So many displaced civilians, so many deaths. No one could even count, we do not have any access to bodies. Only way to identify is to deoccupy and find mass graves. No other means. Children are suffering from PTSD even in such a young age. Almost in every city, big or small, you would find graveyards covered in Ukrainian flag, grave of the soldier.

Maybe media does not talk that much of us, but it doesn’t mean that everything is alright. Avdiivka is destroyed, right now operation searching for people under debris of the civilian house after attack is undergoing.

And this is happening all the time.

Who was punished for Olenivka? Who was punished for destruction of Kakhovka Dam? Who was punished for all fully destroyed cities? Who was responsible for all that absolutely atrocious videos torturing Ukrainian soldiers?

Please, remember, Ukraine is still on fire. People are still dying. Soldiers cannot even counterattack because they do not have enough ammo, just for protection. Information war is also waging, sharing all that misinformation, Nazi narratives, russian propaganda.

Remember.

Help.

Share.

russia is a terrorist state.

Glory to Ukraine.

Glory to the Heroes.

Our (Georgian as in the country) government quietly made new additions to the foreign agent law today.

1. The foreign agent law will affect not only organizations, but individuals. Failure to comply with the law causes a 5000 lari fine.

2. The law will allow the government all of your personal information including your political stance and sexual relationships. It makes every organization forced to comply with handing over all of our information to the government. If you are queer, have differing political views, or are part of a non-governmental organization against domestic violence, your anonymity is no longer guaranteed.

3. Only thing this does not include is country's secrets, nothing else is off the table.