Andriy
An activist to the core or a person deeply touched by the war.
He was born and spent his childhood in Makiivka. Educated as a historian, he pursued a career as a television producer. Currently, he manages a shelter for internally displaced people in Lviv, which is located in a century-old two-story building on Lychakivska Street, which had been vacant until recently.
After university, he worked as a teacher at a local lyceum for three years. Later, he left his hometown and went to seek his fortune in Kyiv. With the help of friends, he accidentally ended up working as an administrator at the STB TV channel. Soon after, the Maidan happened, and later separatists, with Russian support, seized Donetsk. The last time Andriy was at home was in the fall of 2014. By then, all pro-Ukrainian public movements had already been suppressed by the so-called militias.
Andriy moved to Kyiv, while his parents stayed in Makiivka. They thought it would all end soon, and everything would return to normal, but it seemed like the 1990s had returned to Donbas. Gangsters, extortion, and racketeering were rampant, and everyone had transformed into militia members, imposing their own order.
“Before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, I had a very strange feeling. I got in touch with my sister and said, ‘Let’s go to the supermarket, buy everything we need for an emergency bag.’ It was February 23. Early in the morning, I woke up to some sounds. I turned on the TV – nothing there. Then I checked Telegram, and the feed was running so fast I couldn’t keep up. That’s when I began to understand what was happening. War. Kyiv was under fire. I called my mom, woke up my sister. In just 30 minutes, we packed and left for the outskirts of Kyiv.”
At around six in the morning, Andriy and his sister got in the car, but they only left Kyiv at around 2 p.m. The traffic jam towards the Zhytomyr highway was terrible. On the way, seeing columns of military equipment and planes in the sky, they decided not to stay near Kyiv but to go to their relatives in Khmelnytskyi.
“Since then, my job has turned into a form of volunteer work over the phone. After the ‘Master Chef’ project, I can handle anything…”
In Lviv, Andriy meets his colleague Victoria, who used to be a producer on projects like “I’m Ashamed of My Body” and “Pregnant at 16.” It turns out she works with internally displaced people in a large shelter on Doroshenko Street. Victoria offered him an official position in the charitable foundation that oversees the shelter. The choice was quick, and Andriy worked at the shelter on Doroshenko Street for the next 9 months.
Andriy had working connections with various charitable organizations. When the “Support & Protection Center UA” offered him to join the construction of the shelter on Lychakivska Street and later to lead it, he immediately agreed. But he had to learn unfamiliar functions again – fundraising, grant writing, budgeting, financial planning, creating applications and donor forms, and painting walls and hanging heaters. Every day, without weekends, sometimes even at night.
“We shared a vision that we would help until the last person leaves us and says, ‘Thank you, goodbye, we no longer need you.’ Then I will know that I can go back. But after what I heard and saw, this will no longer be the entertainment sector.”
Andriy is collecting his own database of stories from people he encountered in shelters. He maintains contact with some and follows their further fate. This material could become the basis for a documentary project. Andriy believes that the war affected everyone differently. People leaving the conflict zone have a different experience, and this is especially noticeable here in Lviv.