Arina Hryhorieva 15, female from Zaporizhia

Hi, my name is Aryna, I’m from Zaporizhska oblast, oblast-hero. On the first day of this war I had heard  explosions, only, then these were farther away than now. War – my life coach. She changed and created me, as I am now. We are all following our parents, my mom and dad are journalists, so, from 12 y.o., I had known all russian crimes. What is at all to be a daughter of journalists in war county and living all 3 years near the frontline (less than 30 km)? This is saw, as they five days a week walk, barely able to withstand the flow of information they writes about, and returns to normal only on weekends. For three years. In the first year they decided, after consulting with us, what in our family will be + one person. She’s name Oryna (almost like me, so we call she Orysha). When she decided on our family, she had been 3 y.o., now she’s 6. This is a really funny and friendly girl, whose parents are missing persons in their native city – in Mariupol. This was and is very hard, but I already say so much, what I don’t have to say, only Orysha can talk about she, when she grow up.

I dream that I will be a diplomat, so already now I have started to prepare for end-of-school exams, which will be in june 2026, as I want to go to one of the best Ukrainian university. This is my goal of the “provincial girl” from a family with 4 children. Already now I have a minimum of 2-3 hours in a day to read news and learn the politics world, one hour to prepare for the exam and trying to have good school estimates. I love Ukrainian theatre (which I think is a very important part of our culture), poems, books. My favourite history persons – Oscar Wild and Les Kurbas, the best Ukrainian theatre director.

At one time my parents went from Kyiv back to native Zaporizhzhia, where they began to earn much less only  because they wanted a big family. I want to take a good job and help them in future, because inflation in Ukraine for the last three years is terrible. We have so-so-normal-life only through soldiers and volunteers, from our and other countries.

Living in Ukraine, I grew up quickly, so already in 12 years first in my family started to speak Ukrainian. In our region not many people speak Ukrainian, but my decision inspired many relatives, not only my main ones, to do the same. And I hope to continue to change my dear Ukraine, which I have learned to sincerely appreciate, in the same way, as this did my ancestors. In the 17s century this did my grandfather’s ancestors, as the registered Cossacks, as my grandmother ancestors in the 20s century in the ranks of the underground army for the ondeoof Ukraine.The most painful thing is that I learned this from archival documents, and for many generations my descendants did not know about these facts because the Soviet Union deliberately destroyed our history. But it didn’t work.