Victoria Amelina at the beginning of the war in Ukraine ‹Literature Center

When Russia entered February 24, 2022 on February 24, Victoria Amelina wrote a novel, took part in the country's literary scene and educated her son. Now someone became new: a researcher of war crimes and chronicler of extraordinary women like her who join the resistance. On the evening of June 27, 2023, Amelina and three international writers held dinner in the competitive Donetsk region. When a Russian cruise missile hit the restaurant, Amelina suffered serious head injuries and lost consciousness. She died on July 1. She was thirty -seven.

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My February 24th

Our flight to Ukraine is planned on February 24, 2022 for 7:00 a.m. When we drive a taxi to the airport, it is still dark in Egypt. Everyone else in the half -empty coastal hotel seems to sleep peacefully, and I decide not to cycle, but to carry my suitcase past dark bungalows so that nobody is woken up because of me. Or maybe I just want to hear the calm of the world as if I already know that it will change forever.

It is 4:00 a.m. in Egypt and in Ukraine. I look: the sky is clear and the constellation of Ursa Major seems bright above our heads. Other constellations do it too, but I don't recognize them. When I was five years old, I saw a starry sky in Luhansk for the first time. At that time we lived in LVIV and there was always too much light pollution to see the stars well enough to learn how to recognize constellations.

In Luhansk, the relatives we visited lived in a house, in a street that was dark enough at night to see all the stars above. Someone showed me a five -year -old, Ursa Major in Luhansk. Maybe it was my mother. The sky full of stars thus became one of my memories of the city. Stars meant my childhood and Luhansk for me. I grew up, Luhansk was occupied by Russians in 2014, the world changed, but I have not learned to recognize other constellations. And February 24th is not a day to learn something about constellations.

I ask my son to hurry up; If we miss our flight, we will get stuck in Egypt, beautiful, but not simply navigating to a family that no Arabic speaks.

On the way through the desert, I try to read the news. The connection is poor again, almost not available. Despite all my efforts, I only make it a message, in short, like a telegram from the Second World War from the front. It is: “Explosions in Kyiv.”

I quick to air. This must be a mistake. Many noises may appear as far as distant explosions appear when they are afraid. And what if it is just a fireworks, someone joke? We have read too much frightening messages lately, we have looked at the toys in the stacks of the broken bricks, not the stars, we thought about the wrong things and made the wrong wishes. In addition, the explosions could have all possible explanations. What if this is a gas explosion? Gas explosions are a possible thing. The bombing of a European capital is not. I don't mean anymore. Never again, right?

“Can you see the stars through the window?” I ask my son. “I can't,” he replies too sleepy.

“I can see Ursa Major, the big bear,” I lie, so he always tries to see the constellations on the window despite the glare of my phone, while I try to contact our family and friends in Ukraine. I don't quite remember who I write and call; I usually fail anyway. The desert is endless.

“Oh, I see it!” My boy calls over the big bear.

We thank the driver and hurry into the airport building. When we come home, everything will be clear.

“Do you know what happened?” The Egyptian official asks me as soon as we enter the building. I do not answer for a moment and repeat himself again and again as if he is helping me to recognize:

“You can't go to your country.”

“You can't go to your country.”

I can and I think. I hurried on the Blue Screen with the drains. This is the last time that I see Ukrainian cities on such a screen: LVIV, Kyiv, Kharkiv. I will search the blue screens at every airport, hoping that the nightmare will end.

In an hour we are the only ones left at Marsa Alam's tiny airport, Egypt. The desperate amount of the Ukrainians left the building into the buses brought by their tourist agency. The Ukrainians should be taken to a random hotel, so that they will not prevent passengers from getting happier countries into their flights. I booked the hotel and the flight myself and had no agreement with a tourism agency. When everyone else got into the buses, we stayed. The airport officer asked us to go.

“You can't stay here,” repeats the guy in the airport uniform. Apparently he likes repetition.

I explain that we cannot go anywhere, but he doesn't seem to understand.

“We had a revolution in 2011 like yours. We also protested injustice. We did it and Russia punishes us for it, ”I suddenly said. I was also able to mention that I wrote a book about three revolutions, 7 those in Egypt. But war is not time for small talk.

The guy interrupts me: “Shhh. We cannot talk openly about the revolution now. Okay, you can sit here near the entrance. “

I thank him, sit on the floor and look for flights.

How does it feel to capture in an empty airport in a strange country because he knows that the ruthless enemy attacks the cities you love? I feel a mixture of anger, grief and. . . Relief. Yes, I also feel relieved. It seems shameful and yet inevitable to feel like this, and I justify myself by thinking I am not the only writer who has hit the beginning of an apocalyptic war with something other than despair or anger.

Czesław Miłosz, Polish-Lithuanian poet and Nobel laureate, described as he felt in 1939, as Nazi Germany and the USSR Poland. “The nonsense was finally over,” he wrote. “The longstanding fulfillment had freed us from self -streaming lies, illusions, and sub -processing; The opaque were transparent. “

I accidentally bought Miłosz 'book in Kraków, the city, to which I desperately try to find tickets on the floor in the empty terminal. The reasons for Milosz 'relief were not the same as mine, but I agree with the main point: the nonsense is finally over.

My son's last birthday wish would never come true: the war with which he grew up was never ended, but developed, grew and turned into a full war that we have not yet seen. We enter an open fight with Russia. It is time for everyone to name war a war.

The season of the fantasy peace is over; Everything is illuminated like this empty sunlit terminal in the middle of the desert. From here there are no tickets for Kraków. I don't know where to go. And I recite a poem by Derek Walcott in a whisper:

. . . And this season took a moment like the break between dusk and darkness, between anger and peace, but because it takes our earth.

I think when the world ends, some people cry, some scream, some are silent, some swear and others recite poems. To be honest, I also swear a lot. Over time, I will also learn to laugh a lot again. The end of the world is not as fast as everyone imagines. It's time to learn. However, there are no instructions.

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Out of Watch women who see the war. With the kind permission of St. Martin's Press, Copyright 2025 by Victoria Amelina.