Still united with Ukraine: "There will be Life and there will be Love..."

Milla Hope’s friends who remained in Kharkiv took this photo of a bombed apartment complex, and playground.

Five months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some locals are still paying close attention: those with family, friends & colleagues there. Here, qL catches up with those who shared their stories in April’s issue.

BY DESIGNER, ARTIST AND MODEL MILLA HOPE

We thought that COVID-19 was the biggest evil in the world until February 24, when Russian troops entered the territory of Ukraine from Russia, Crimea and Belarus. Kharkiv is my hometown, Hero-city, the city of my dreams now.

Milla Hope (right) in Kharkiv in 1978 on the “Square of Constitution.” The Russian patriotic monument celebrated the victory of the 1918 Red Revolution. The monument was demolished in 2014.

My relatives are mostly located in the now occupied territories of Balakliia (Kharkiv region) with cut-off Internet access and no communications with them. The only thing I know is that there is nothing left of the property that my grandfather left me. Nothing survived after the aerial bombing of the village, including an acre of my beautiful sour cherries garden.

Milla as a student in 1980, the summer she worked constructing buildings in Kharkiv. Many of them were destroyed in March.

My friends had the most difficult decision to make: stay in Kharkiv or evacuate. Three generations of families have been separated, the children with grandchildren left town, my friends stayed in because the older generation refused to leave.

Friends for life in 1979; both of these friends are still in Kharkiv.

One of the friends left with her daughter who gave birth last month to a beautiful baby boy. Some friends without children came back after two months away from their beloved city.

My son refused even to discuss the possibility of leaving Ukraine. I can not do anything about it, his life is his decision.

Ukrainians are getting stronger in their willingness to protect their territories. They are not asking for charity; they want to exchange grain harvest for weapons and military gear to help them to protect lawful, God-given territory of Ukraine.

My friends are grateful to people around the world for the help they are getting during these tragic times. To my knowledge, they are experiencing a shortage of medications and personal care products. My reflections are as follows: Life has been reset, someone left and still does not know that forever!

Someone stayed and is waiting for a miracle, not knowing that everything will not be the way he draws in his pictures. Someone will come back and start all over again! The former life is no more, but there is life and everything will be, not so, it means differently, but still, it will be!

And now the most important thing is to be ready to accept the new reality and not resist it. Be flexible and move forward, ahead is the door to the unknown, which everyone needs to open and enter ... on their own.

Scary? Highly! But this is the road to life!

The qathet artist, designer and model wears a vyshyvanka and crafts a traditional seed bead necklace.

Now only one thing is required of each of us – to go forward and not stop, because stopping is a step into depression and apathy, this is a step towards death ... We pull ourselves by the hair and go to live!

Because there will be life and there will be love. And there will be another peaceful spring.

Milla photographed in Powell River

by Andrew Bradley

We know it still will.