Intern Chen Lei, the surging news reporter Ren Wu
Classes were suspended, and for a week from February 24, Zhao Chen was trapped at home, watching the news the most he did. Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, more than a million Ukrainians have left the country to seek asylum.
"The first time it was so close to the war", Zhao Chen was terrified. She lives in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, the fourth largest city in Ukraine and the largest port city on the Black Sea coast. At night, the city is curfewed and it is so quiet that it makes people panic.
What makes her heart feel bottom is her boyfriend Sasha. Zhao Chen, a 25-year-old northeastern girl, came to Ukraine in 2019 to teach Chinese as a foreign language, and the following spring, she fell in love with Sasha, a 19-year-old Ukrainian who worked part-time in a restaurant. They walked the streets of Jereba, listened to locals play the violin, ate family-made red cabbage soup, pickled peppers, and quarreled over Chinese words they could not remember. But artillery fire stole these ordinary moments of joy.
For Zhao Chen and Sasha, uneasiness has already seeped into daily life in the longer past. International political conflicts and social rifts have intensified since 2014, shaking the pillars of their lives and those of many young Ukrainians: rising prices, few promising jobs and uncertain personal security.
On March 9, Zhao Chen told reporters that many barbershops and shops in the city have opened, and she will resume online classes next Monday, but the curfew has not yet been lifted. Also on this day, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Veleshuk said that the Ukrainian military agreed to cease fire from 9 o'clock to 21 o'clock Kiev time and open 6 humanitarian corridors for civilian evacuation. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Konashenkov issued a war briefing that has paralyzed 2,786 military infrastructures in Ukraine since the special military operation.
[The following is the dictation of Sasha and Zhao Chen]
Sasha:
Cannon fire
I live with my sister and Zhao Chen in the center of Odessa.
In the early morning of the 24th, I was sleeping quite deeply, and Zhao Chen woke me up and told me that the cannons had sounded and that the war had begun. My mother, who was also in Odessa, called me that day to ask about us and suggested that she quickly find important documents in her bag and "run right away", and I comforted her on the phone and told her not to be afraid. The phone was put down, and she quickly packed her bags according to her words.
Near the sea in Odessa, my friend saw about 1,000 people on the beach picking up sand and building a 10-meter-long, 1.5-meter-high wall of sand along the coastline. Others put sand on the central opera house, just like the defenses they did when Germany came in 1941. Our KFC, McDonald's, and other stores are preparing food for the soldiers. My sister and my friend were making donations to the army.
Two days after the war began, local conscripts were recruited for the use of weapons and guns and retired soldiers. A friend of mine has retired from the army because the war started and there is no way he can go back again. When he left the day before yesterday, he posted a message on social media, and someone at the bottom left a message: "We believe in you, come back early!" "Good luck with your safety!"
After gun 24 went off, I wanted to go to a more dangerous place to help, but I couldn't leave my family, and as the point of conflict of the war changed, I couldn't guarantee my family's safety. On March 1st and 2nd, I and many people around me collected bottles, put gasoline in the bottles, and made Molotov cocktails that could be thrown out and ignited. Once in danger, we will use this improvised weapon first.
Burning building
In 2014, the Crimean crisis broke out (Note: In March 2014, the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea was incorporated into the Russian Federation), and there were also internal conflicts, confrontations between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian people. I remember vividly what happened in Odessa, where I was.
Blood, fires, people falling to the ground... I was 11 years old, still in school, and the school was closed. There was a summit building near the Odessa train station, and on that day people were fighting in the streets, some people were running away, some were gathered around, some people (to escape) entered the building, and the police also went in.
Some people were trapped inside the building, and those outside threw Molotov cocktails into the building. The building caught fire, and some people in the building did not come out, and they were burned alive. Some people couldn't stand it and jumped off the stairs and died, while others were seriously injured. We didn't have a good impression of the police here, bad cops would take bribes and ignore the law, and I took a bottle and hit the cops. Afraid that my family was worried, I didn't tell them when I went home.
After that, I actually did not expect that there would be such a large-scale war in the country.
A friend I met at the place of work was from the Donbas region (note: "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic" are located in the area known as the "Donbas Region", and since February 2014, there has been a war in the Donbas region, and pro-Russian forces in the Russian-speaking areas of eastern and southern Ukraine have been at war with Ukrainian government forces. ) came. He has lived there since he was a child and came to Odessa at the age of 32. He felt that there was "no fun" there, these 8 years have been in war, artillery fire, food prices are twice as expensive as we are here. If a loaf of bread in Odessa is 30 hryvnia, there it may be 70, 80 hryvnia.
As a result of the fighting, some buildings in the Donbass region were destroyed, many schools were closed, and there were not many job opportunities there, only some jobs similar to those of migrant workers, manual work of moving heavy objects. Some local people think it is better to be with Russia, others feel better with Ukraine, and some of them have migrated to other ukrainian cities to live.
Young people working abroad
After the crisis 8 years ago, I can feel that the dollar is getting more and more expensive for us. The prices of gas, gas, water and electricity at home are rising, food prices are rising, and we used to be able to buy a good bread at 7 hryvnia, but now we have to spend 11-15 hryvnia.
I started working part-time when I was 14 years old in middle school. My family would give me money, but I always felt that it was not enough, and Ukrainians wanted to earn their own money and work earlier.
I found a part-time job online. I worked as a karaoke waiter and also worked in restaurants. During the summer vacation when I was 15, ten of my friends and I sold corn for three months at a local resort. Sold 7 days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. There are many people on vacation, and we can earn 17,000 hryvnia (about 3,600 yuan) a month. Sometimes the union went to the club to play that day, and I also fought with people in their teens and twenties.
Odessa is a tourist city, the service industry is popular, 17-24 years old often work part-time in restaurants, and people who are more good-looking peugeot will go to work in service places. Odessa is near the sea, and I graduated from the Professional School of Sailors. There are 17 people in our class, 5 people working part-time as waiters in restaurants and 3 people working as cooks. There are many vocational schools here, and after three years of study in our school, you can choose to work at sea or continue to college. Many of the people around me who are studying at the university work outside the home.
I now work as a warehouse clerk in a toy company, and I find the corresponding toys to be packaged and shipped according to the customer's ordering requirements. We can have a salary of 23,000 hryvnia (nearly 5,000 yuan) a month, and there are many people who give gifts on holidays, and our wages will rise. The general salary here is 9,500 to 14,000 hryvnia (two or three thousand yuan), and I earn more in my job.
Many friends will go to other countries to work for a short period of time in order to support their families, about three or four months, earn money and return to China, some of my friends are in Poland, the United Kingdom, I also wanted to go to the United Kingdom some time ago. A good time to go to the UK is in the summer, and many people will do relatively simple picking work, such as picking fruit, about 3,000 US dollars a month (nearly 19,000 yuan) salary, eat and live.
My grandmother liked life in the Soviet Union, she said that things were not expensive at that time, the government distributed a lot of things to everyone, the pace of life was very slow, unlike now everyone has to work very hard, the pace of life has become faster. Older generations are afraid of technology and change, they think it's better to live the way they used to, and we don't think much the same way we do now.
But the rhythm of life I have experienced this, maybe you sent a tweet and instantly caught fire, or do business all at once to make money. I think a lot of things are uncertain. A few days before the war, Zhao Chen and I were planning to travel to the Carpathian Mountains in Lviv, because the war could not go. I don't know what the future holds.
If I were just myself, I wouldn't have planned to develop abroad for a long time. But I want to go to China with Zhao Chen. The restaurant I used to work for was Chinese restaurant, and I worked there for two years, I like Chinese food, and the Sichuan hot pot is delicious. I like some interesting Chinese movies and want to go to Shanghai to see them.
Zhao Chen:
Summer without worries
I came to Ukraine in 2019, I studied Chinese international education, and came here to practice teaching Chinese in my second year of graduate school. I have heard of conflicts between Ukraine and Russia before, but I have asked many people who work and study here, and in 2019 the situation was normal, and considering that Odessa is near the sea, the climate is pleasant, and the city is beautiful, I came.
When I came here, I was also teaching myself Russian, so I could communicate easily with the locals. After the promulgation of the Ukrainian Language Law, The Ukrainian language has become the dominant language, and there are more places where the Ukrainian language is used (Note: In April 2019, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine passed the Law on Ensuring the Chinese Role of the Ukrainian Language, which stipulates that Ukrainian is the only official language of the country), and the cashiers and supermarket staff of some chain stores speak Ukrainian. Sasha started learning (Ukrainian) in the first grade, and I am now learning this language in my phD.
When I got here, I thought the locals were friendly and the men were more gentlemanly. For example, if a bus is full and a woman gets on the bus, there may be men who will get up and give up their seats. There are old people who are more troublesome to get on the car, and there will be many people to help him. The folk customs are relatively simple.
Ukrainian art is famous in the world, and many Chinese students come to Ukraine to study music. There's a street called Jerryba, which has a lot of history, and Sasha and I often go for a walk and see a woman in her 40s playing the violin, playing European music or famous songs, which is particularly good, many people will stop to see her, and some people will dance to her music. The atmosphere is still very good.
In the past, Sasha and Zhao Chen often went for a walk in the street where the local opera house was located, and the picture shows the local opera house.
Sasha's sister often pulls me to the beach in the summer to lie in the sun, and she prefers bronze skin. Asian girls don't like to get dark, so I wrap myself tightly under the umbrella. There was no fuss at that time, we basked in the sun, ordered a bottle of champagne, and if it didn't feel interesting to lie down, we could go for a swim in the sea.
Ukrainian beaches.
Recessionary economy
When I first came here, I remember that $1 could be exchanged for 22 hryvnia, before the war it went up to 29, and the war went to 30, 31. It may have stopped recently, it can't be replaced, it's really depreciating too much. Before the epidemic also had an impact on the economy here, some enterprises did not work, shopping malls in the red area (the local epidemic prevention and control dividend area yellow area) closed, and restaurants could not be opened.
There are few Ukrainians, the buses are relatively small, and the facilities and equipment I feel a bit like China in the early 2000s. The environment inside the car has not changed over the years, but fares have risen. Originally, the seat was 7 hryvnia, equivalent to about 1.2 yuan, and now it has risen to 10 hryvnia. The tram used to be 5 hryvnia (once) and now it's risen to 18 hryvnia, which is a lot more expensive. In recent years, many roads have been built, but overall the road facilities are relatively poor.
The gap in people's lives here is quite large. I had only been in Ukraine for half a month, and that time I waited for a train near the train station and ordered a McDonald's. There was a man, still dressed quite normally, who came up to my McDonald's and asked me if I could give him the burgers. I was afraid of trouble because I had just arrived, so I gave him a portion of fries. Sometimes when I was waiting at the station, my grandmother or middle-aged man would come up to me and ask for a 7-grid ride and say there was no money. In Ukraine, there are people who drive Ferraris, there are people who live in small houses built in sheds, without windows, and there are homeless people who eat up and down.
I'm teaching Chinese here. There are many students who usually work outside to earn money, can't come to class, and come when the final exam comes, make up my homework, I feel very helpless. A senior student, who applied for a scholarship to a Chinese school, also provided living expenses, but he felt that the living expenses were still a little small, and gave up this opportunity, which was a pity.
"We thought about it a lot, but it broke on the 24th"
I met Sasha here in 2019, and my friend and I often went to eat at the Chinese restaurant where he worked. The chef of his restaurant is from Sichuan, which is more suitable for our taste. At that time, there was a picture of him on the Instagram of the hotel, which belonged to the publicity bar, and I saw his Ins to say hello to his comments.
The first time we met, we had to translate our conversations at the hotel on our mobile phones. He was preparing for an English exam, and the original English was particularly bad. It was hard for the two of us to communicate. Later I taught him English and he got a little better. When my Russian is better, I can talk to him briefly in Russian. We'd talk about the interesting things he went to work and I went to school. We're together in the spring of 2020.
That year Sasha told me that I wanted to learn Chinese. It just so happened that I was teaching Chinese as a foreign language, so I started teaching him.
I often get angry when teaching him. I told him about it with my own usual classware. At the fourth level of Chinese, it takes two or three lessons at a time, and after the class, give him a day to review the vocabulary of the students, memorize, and then take him to practice. I remember teaching him the other day, he forgot to ask me about the content, at that time it was the feeling of "hating iron not steel".
He was a little aggrieved and asked me why I was angry, and I said why don't you read the notebook and have a little self-learning ability. Then again, he is very smart, he learns quite fast, he usually has to go to work, and he can only study for 2-3 hours when he comes back at night.
Sasha's notebook Chinese.
We're probably both culturally attracted to each other. He really wanted to explore my culture, would ask me about China, and now he thinks that Ukrainian food is not as good as Chinese food, I usually cook for both of us, and I also teach him to make Chinese food, relatively simple tomato scrambled eggs.
I am more interested in their art and wine culture. They really love to drink, and I party with them, including his friend's birthday, and everyone buys vodka to take to drink with them, and even gives friends gifts, maybe a bottle of wine. In the past two years, I have drunk more wine than in China, and the amount of alcohol has also improved a lot.
We had a cat. Last June, Sasha saw it on the side of the road. It climbed up to the tree and couldn't get down, and Sasha called the fire to save it. The cat was only two months old at the time and has been in keeping it ever since.
We basically didn't have a fight. He was much younger than me, but for so long, he had been taking good care of me, and I felt very relieved and happy to be with him. I had dinner with him, his mom, and my grandparents last summer. His mother would make red cabbage soup and pancakes, and the locals would marinate the peppers in bottles, very small peppers, red and green, especially spicy, and especially delicious with bread and red cabbage soup.
Before the war, we planned to go to Lviv on the 24th. He happened to be on a week off, and he wanted to go skiing and hot springs in the nearby Bukovel Carpathian Mountains, which we thought a lot about, but on the 24th it broke.
Red cabbage soup.
Final lesson
On the night of February 25th, my mood fluctuated quite a bit. I turned a video on Weibo, it was a Ukrainian woman in Kherson reprimanding a Russian soldier, and some netizens came to me and said, "Ukraine should fight, not to fight the next unlucky person is not necessarily who", "If you put the missile on your doorstep you will not fight", I am quite helpless. I'm in the place where the fire is, and I'm not thinking about these issues.
On February 28th, we gradually had Chinese people who could evacuate moldova. I have a friend who is leaving, and he is most worried about his cat Bobo, and pets can't be taken away together, so he asked if he could let us foster them. He was particularly uncomfortable when he asked on WeChat, feeling like crying, very reluctant, and said "thank you so much." I really don't know what to do. This evacuation was very urgent, and he did not have time to clean up too much. Sasha went downstairs and brought Bob back.
On February 28, people can go out during the day and there is a curfew at night.
Those two days I was struggling. My family also called me to suggest that I evacuate to a neighboring country. I told them I was okay and if not, I evacuated with my boyfriend to his hometown, Odessa Oblast, near Moldova. (Note: Odessa Oblast has 26 districts, 19 cities, the capital is Odessa City) My concern is that I don't know when I will be able to return to normal. A good country, a good city is really dead, like Kharkiv and Kiev, people are almost gone. I have mixed feelings.
If I didn't have a boyfriend and lived alone, my family advised me to evacuate and I should have withdrawn. Now I have a boyfriend to accompany me, and I have a bottom in my heart, so I wait here first. Before the evacuation (registration), I thought that the withdrawal would be temporarily separated from Sasha, and at that time I thought that the war would not be forever. My fear is that if the domestic fight is severe, Sasha will have to go to the army, and I am worried about this.
Now that I think back to the day the war started, Sasha and I rushed to the supermarket to stock up on shopping. The school still had to take online classes that day, starting at 9:45, I came home a few minutes late, and after clicking into the zoom class, I found that there were 9 people in our class, and it was 1 of me at that time. But the teacher still gave me a lecture, asked me questions, and checked my homework.
In the afternoon class, there was something wrong with my network, I quit halfway through, and when I clicked in, the teacher had already finished the content to be on the other two classmates. Seeing me enter the classroom, I was told from beginning to end again, asking me to do the exercises, and it felt like I almost understood and then left the class.
The next day, the teacher asked us how we felt, comforting us that "everything will be fine, don't worry, keep yourself safe."
In the evening, the teacher announced, "We are temporarily suspended. ”
When answering the teacher's question that day, I heard a violent "bang" outside the window. Russians attacked a local military materiel storage site in Odessa and an explosion occurred. I looked out the window, across the sparse branches of the winter day, and in the distance a gray mist spread out, accompanied by black smoke.
Zhao Chen's family looked out and saw the black smoke.
(At the request of the interviewee, Zhao Chen is a pseudonym)
Responsible editor: Huang Jijie Photo editor: Jiang Lidong
Proofreader: Yan Zhang