EP. 11: From Electronic Music to Battlefield: Timur Dzhafarov’s journey

00:00:04: Luzia Tschirky Welcome to the podcast, Yak Ty? Ukraine Live. Yak Ty? means in Ukrainian, How are you? I'm your host, Luzia Tschirky, a former correspondent, now a freelancer and a book author. The aim of this podcast is always to give people in Ukraine an opportunity to share their very personal experience of Russia's full scale invasion. I'm more than delighted to welcome today's guest, Timur Dzhafarov. Timur is a soldier with the armed forces of Ukraine since the very beginning of the full -scale invasion. Before he has been an experimental electronic musician from Kyiv recording as John Object. Welcome to the podcast, Timur.

00:00:46: Timur Dzhafarov Hi, thank you for having me

00:00:48: Luzia Tschirky As always, I start this podcast with the question, Yak ty saras? How are you right now?

00:00:55: Timur Dzhafarov Today I'm relatively fine because I got a day off from my military service. I usually have to come in on a Saturday, which today is a Saturday. I've been indulging in my hobbies, which is I'm soldering a guitar pedal today, which is fun, enjoying myself today. And there haven't been massive attacks on Kyiv in the past couple of days, which is nice. I guess that's it.

00:01:24: Luzia Tschirky We are recording today on a Saturday, the past few days, diplomatic talks were ongoing between the United States and Ukraine and between the United States and Russia. As a soldier of the armed forces of Ukraine. What do you think about these talks?

00:01:43: Timur Dzhafarov I think, obviously, that they are extremely unfair and I feel really bad for our president because, for better or worse, I support him. I think he's a decent human being. I think he's doing the best that he can in this situation. And he's constantly being humiliated on the world stage, being put into this horrible position of having to either accept unacceptable terms or look like a person who wants the war to go on which is what are you going to do there's no there's no way out for him and i guess because of that for all of us so i'm really i'm really angry i'm pissed off i'm not i'm not happy with it at all that's why i try to not follow the news too closely because it's just if if i think about it too much i realize that there will come a time soon when, maybe not very soon, but at some point when the world is basically okay with everything that the Russians did and everyone just wants us to accept it and move on and like be friends with them or something. I wish people who are planning this for us, who are facilitating this situation and putting Ukraine in a situation would imagine what it's like. when Russians just kill your whole family. Like they just, because of course it's happened many times. You know, Russians have killed many families and the people whose families were killed often they're still alive. They're still reading the news, watching this. Just imagine having both of your parents killed with a drone or a rocket. And that's like, you're gonna live with that for the rest of your life. Your parents will always be killed by Russians for no reason at all. for being completely innocent, normal people, living in a country that just happened to be near Russia. And I wish that people that are making the decisions right now would imagine what it's like to live with that. And then for the rest of your life to know that, yeah, and Russians, no one ever punished them for it. Everyone just kind of shrugged it off, and it's like, yeah, well, it happens. Get over it. Those are my feelings, you know?

00:04:07: Luzia Tschirky I have like several follow -up questions on to this and especially on how you see the future of Ukraine. But before I would like to talk about the past and about your childhood, about your roots. You were born in Kyiv in 1995, so four years after Ukraine became independent. How would you describe your childhood growing up in Kyiv at that time?

00:04:31: Timur Dzhafarov I think it was kind of like being a tourist in a Soviet Union, maybe, I would imagine, my early childhood. Because everything around me still looked Soviet. It was still, you know, my high school and my school and my, what do you call it, kindergarten would have been built in a Soviet Union. All the furniture was from there, all the toys, all the games and everything. and a lot of the people around me were still... adults were still had the mindset of I would imagine a Soviet person and so but The tourist part comes from the fact that I was not taught to love the Soviet Union I was not limited by the censorship and repressions I suppose of the Soviet Union so I could just be myself I could grow up as a person that is free from it, but I was still in the same kind of environment and a lot of the mentalities were still present around me otherwise i mean my childhood was fine my parents were uh still are pretty progressive esthetically so we were not a well -off family in fact we were quite poor but we had western music rock music and pop and we had kind of a fashion sense about all we had. taste in furniture and everything and my father was still is sorry why do I keep saying that it's grim right my father is a photographer so he had western cameras and or actually eastern because it would be from Japan it was cool. I Thought that we were trying to act western and European, occasionally American. compared to someone actually from a more developed country we probably had we looked extremely poor and maybe kinda tasteless but compared to people from Ukraine at the time it was like yeah my parents have you know a better apartment or something like it we have posters of foreign painters and movies and stuff It was, you know, this cultural intelligentsia, I guess you would call it. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad I grew up on Western rock music, because that was the better option among everything that was available.

00:07:03: Luzia Tschirky You already mentioned your father. I read in an interview that your father came to Kyiv for his studies where he met your mother. Your father's ethnicity is Tabassaran. This minority is from the Northern Caucasus, a region that has been conquered by Russia in the beginning of the 19th century. The Tabassaran people suffered from Russian and Soviet imperialism tremendously. How did your father's heritage influence or shape you personally?

00:07:33: Timur Dzhafarov I think I was lucky to avoid this kind of monocultural view of the world because obviously it's always beneficial to have several cultures in your home well, in my opinion generally I think it was a privilege to have two, for example, two varieties of cuisine you know, at home, which is wonderful The Tabasuran cuisine is delicious, it's awesome. It's a lot of meat, so I'm not very much into it these days, but it's good. It's very different from Ukrainian, I think. And of course, my mother would cook wonderful Ukrainian cuisine, so I had the best of both worlds. I think generally, we never really spoke with my father, especially about his background. It was never really much of a conversation topic because. I don't think he wanted to... I think he wanted to fit in more than anything, so looking like, well, technically a foreigner, I wouldn't have done him any favors in Ukraine, especially at the, you know, in the early 2000s, maybe, because that was still the national sentiments were still kind of tricky. there were still divisions between people and having come from relatively far away would have been not necessarily a problem, but it wouldn't have been beneficial in social situations, in parties, when meeting new people, when applying for a job, I suppose, you know, not a huge problem, but just there wasn't really a point to it.

00:09:28: Luzia Tschirky What is your family's relationship nowadays towards people they know or are even related to in Russia? What is their relationship today?

00:09:40: Timur Dzhafarov I don't know, I haven't really asked, but my father's parents and several other relatives had moved to Ukraine way back in the 90s as well, so I would imagine it's not... we don't have any close relatives living in Russia right now, I'll say that, and I don't expect any of my relatives to be in touch with someone necessarily, because it's almost impossible to square up the differences of the quality of life essentially My father he's currently he left Ukraine a while ago. He lives in europe now i'm not Going to say which country because he he moves a little bit for work basically and My his mother my grandmother She lives in italy now with other relatives as well So they're not necessarily experiencing the Ukrainian life at the moment, but they're well aware of what's happening and my relatives in Italy are doing a lot of activism and a lot of helping the refugees from Ukraine. I would imagine they know better than to be in touch with anyone from Russia because what's the point?

00:10:59: Luzia Tschirky You were serving in the Ukrainian army since the very beginning of the full -scale invasion. I assume during your service you might have encountered minorities from the North Caucasus, maybe even Tapasarens on the other side of the front line, right, fighting for the Russian army. Did you ever have that thought? And what strategies, if you had that thought, did help you to distance yourself personally.

00:11:26: Timur Dzhafarov Well, I didn't necessarily encounter Russians to the point where I can speak to them or even see them too clearly. I've only seen them through the scope and binoculars or from a drone. So I never thought to consider this, to be honest, because to be frank, I also don't consider myself Tabasaran because I feel like since I was born here, I was raised here, and the only thing that's kind of tying me to that area is the DNA, I suppose, because I've never been there. Maybe some cultural background in terms of the cuisine that I like. For the sake of the argument, let's imagine some Tabasaran soldier shooting at me, which is, by the way, it's a very small nation at this point. I think there's just several hundred, maybe, people still alive. Let's imagine It doesn't matter. Who cares? Ukraine is also a multinational country to a smaller degree than Russia, certainly. Crimean Tatars, for example, are quite different from Ukrainians in terms of culture, but we're still together in this fight. The ethnicity is really irrelevant, I think, because it's what's in your head that counts, essentially. so if a tabasarian soldier wants to come to Ukraine and shoot at me he's no different to me than any other russian soldier to be honest because i'm no different to him than any any other ukrainian right so he's not gonna ask me oh do you have relatives in you know, northern Caucasus. Who cares?

00:13:15: Luzia Tschirky Before the full -scale innovation, you had a very different life. Professionally, you were on your path to become a successful musician. How did you become interested in experimental electronic music and what makes it fascinating for you?

00:13:31: Timur Dzhafarov Well, thank you for those kind words. I don't know if I would have become necessarily successful because it didn't happen for the first almost 10 years. So why would it happen now? But the experiment.

00:13:48: Luzia Tschirky I read that you were considered to be one of the aspiring musicians. I read that just in articles, so I assumed you were on your path.

00:14:00: Timur Dzhafarov I suppose in Ukraine I had some local following, which is very nice of course, I certainly appreciate that, but I feel like I was not on the way towards paying the bills from music. Certainly it wouldn't have covered my day -to -day existence ever. but the experimental stuff I think it's it interested me because I feel like... The feeling of novelty when you're listening to something, the experience of encountering something that you've never encountered before and never thought possible and never could imagine is something that I enjoy a lot. When I hear music that's unlike anything else I've heard before, to me that's, that is the feeling that I chase. That's the feeling that I look for in music. That is something that I enjoy more than pop music or hip -hop or whatever it may be that's built on the same kind of tradition every time and yeah I just felt like I had some ideas for sounds that I've not heard in music ever so I wanted to offer them to people and some people do enjoy hearing something that's unlike anything else and besides there was always this nagging feeling network. getting kind of stuck with electronic music because technically with a computer just a computer that's it you can make any sound in the world technically you know if you spend enough time because you can model it using like physics modeling you can do sampling synthesis any you know any old technology you can use and technically they're unlimited in their possibilities and i felt like we've never really Gone through every sound in the world. In fact, there's a bunch of sounds that we hear every day, especially sounds of the human body, sounds of, you know, everyday life in an apartment or in a street that we don't use in music and hell, why not? That was I suppose one of the uh... one of the reasons why i went in that direction

00:16:23: Luzia Tschirky You have trained your ears for years. You have to pay attention to the sounds in your surroundings, right? And you recorded it.

00:16:31: Timur Dzhafarov Yeah I would often there would be many times when I would be you know in the street or somewhere with friends and I well what is that sound that is awesome and i would pull out my phone record something be like i'm gonna make a track out of this at some point i don't finish a lot of music there's a lot of sketches that i haven't put out but trust me there's some stuff based on like my footsteps on the floor somewhere There was also a time when me and my friend we found a bat a bat that was dying under like Next to a supermarket somewhere on the ground and it was like screeching making these horrible Sounds of pain like very high -pitched kind of sounded like a like an alarm or something And I recorded that and I thought oh, maybe I could do something with this, but that would have been winter of 21 so right before the war No wonder I never finished anything.

00:17:32: Luzia Tschirky How did the war change your way of listening?

00:17:37: Timur Dzhafarov I started to listen to a lot less music because for the first year maybe or something I didn't even check out like the new albums or whatever something that was coming out because I was in service and it was very hard to find a time and a place where you could put on headphones and just zone out for half an hour even so that just basically destroyed my ability to be in touch with what's happening in the music scene which is another reason why my career has kind of taken a dive is because i'm just not aware of what's happening what other musicians are making so i feel like i'm not i'm not part of the scene anymore which you know that would that's what happens when you can't make music for three years but my listening habits i suppose you always have to listen to every weird sound that's happening in the world somewhere, like in the sky above you, like somewhere on the horizon, somewhere close by you have to listen to everything that's not musical. That's why I feel like listening to experimental and electronic music is not really an option, because a lot of that music will feature the weirdest sounds like just anything you can think of it's going to be in the music somewhere which is tricky because if you're listening to something on headphones and you hear something like a siren or something like an explosion you have to take the headphones out and be like wait is that in the street or is that in the track uh... so I'm right now I've listened to mostly stuff that's Just songs, you know, guitar based music. some synth pop from the 80s, but Just experimental stuff is no longer Interesting because it just gives me so much anxiety and so much fear I don't know what to do with that because I feel like that's not gonna change even after the After a ceasefire It's still gonna somewhere in there in my head. It's going to be there But we'll see

00:19:58: Luzia Tschirky During your service in the army you had been very close to the front lines. Did you take special precautions to protect your hearing as a musician?

00:20:10: Timur Dzhafarov Well, I haven't been close to the front line all the time, you know, occasionally, yes, but not. I spent a lot of time in the rear when I was just making documents and, you know, typing stuff and translating manuals. But yeah, at the front line, I actually, I took no precautions. I don't know why, but I suppose as... Someone who's like just a soldier, you know private just the the lowest rank in the military. I didn't really have a lot of Options I could have bought myself, you know some kind of protective headphone system or something, but Those are quite expensive Firstly secondly those are Valuable and I would be I would imagine that someone would ask me if they can borrow it and it would then trade hands all the time. I'd have to give it to someone else who's going to the front line, which is cool. But I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of having that system because it's valuable. People want it. So if I were to buy it for myself, it would be stupid to say, Oh, you know, I just bought this because I'm a musician. I want to protect my hearing, it's like... seems awkward you know i don't want to do that and besides like being a soldier being a private one of the things you have learned pretty quickly is that you always have to be listening for your commander because they might call you from somewhere you know like yell your name and you have to run over there it's tricky you can't have your ears blocked or plugged or have something in them you have to always be like ready to hear what's happening and besides a of the A lot of my work specifically was based on actually hearing the enemy artillery, for example, from way far off and be like, oh, I think they're starting to shoot at us. So you have to actually listen to the quiet sounds a lot of the time. If I was in artillery as one of the operators of the howitzer or mortar, then certainly I would have gotten myself something too. protect myself because that's extremely loud but I was in artillery but in artillery reconnaissance which means that you actually have to listen so now I never I never got any hearing protection which now I kind of regret because in the trenches when they were firing on us I feel like I've damaged my hearing I want to say like it's 20 % gone, maybe, which is fine. I can still live normally, but I have to, if I'm listening to music on my AirPods, I have to turn it way up to the maximum, which doesn't feel good, but.

00:23:15: Luzia Tschirky Did you have the chance to talk with a specialist to have a look?

00:23:19: Timur Dzhafarov Oh, no, I didn't go out of my way to go see a doctor. I mean, I'm still in the military service. I'm just continuing it from Kyiv, which means I don't have a lot of free time. And the one time to go, for example, would be today, Saturday, because I would imagine the doctors don't really see patients on Sundays, or maybe not even on Saturdays. I don't know. but if I have the option to sit at home and solder a guitar pedal, I'm probably gonna do that. It's way more fun, I'm sorry. I feel I put off a lot of medical issues, you know, I have other health issues that I probably should see a doctor about, but I'm just, I just want to live a little, you know, I'm tired of constantly facing problems, so I'm like putting them off. Eventually it's going to catch up with me, I know, but right now I'm mentally in a difficult space where I need to entertain myself at least a little bit to stay sane. But it's a good question. Yeah, I should probably get on that.

00:24:35: Luzia Tschirky You told in an interview before that it doesn't feel right to make music now, because from your point of view it doesn't matter. Do you mean it doesn't matter for you personally, or it does not matter for more in general the Ukrainian society as a whole, if one can say so?

00:25:00: Timur Dzhafarov It's a good question. I would say that neither. I think it doesn't matter to the world in general. Because Ukrainians, they like my music. Well, some of them. And I love that they like my music. So I would be happy to provide music to Ukrainians and do something for us. But once that music goes out into the world, I realized that I found that people are very good. at separating art from the artist, you know, which is a horrible thing. I think you should never do it because music is political, all art is political, everything is political. But what happens is that people are able to play my music and put my tracks in DJ mixes and all that stuff without realizing that Russians are killing us. And, you know, they can listen to my music and still be friends with Russians and still be totally ignorant of what's happening here. And that just, it annoys me very much, makes me very angry. So I would rather not. I'd rather not offer any music to foreigners at this point, because if it's not gonna help us win the war, then what's the point? Because my dream now is to win the war, it's not to have a career and be a musician. That would be cool, and I'm gonna still keep working on that, but winning the war is much more important. and if I have to sacrifice some kind of success however small it may have been I can do that, it doesn't really matter. I'm insulted and pissed off by people from other countries listening to my music and ignoring the context, and just not donating to my fundraisers, not helping Ukraine in other ways, not putting pressure on their own politicians, which are making decisions for us right now. When Germany sent us 10 Leopard 1 tanks, I think, which were in such a horrible condition that we had to send them back, because these are like tanks from the 80s or 70s, okay, but like obviously no one's going to give us new weapons because everyone needs them despite no one being engaged in a war. But those were not only all tanks. They were also in such a horrible condition that Ukrainian specialists They looked at them and they were like no we can't accept them because we'd have to fix them and we can't even fix them They're beyond repair. So we send them back and to know that Germans are you know, some Germans may be listening to my music and didn't you know Didn't really get Olaf Schultz, you know to step down or didn't impeach him at the time for this to me is insulting. Like, you don't get to listen to my music if you think it's okay to send broken tanks to Ukraine. If you think that's fine, you know, as a German, you should probably not be listening to my music, because it feels like a lot of people in the world that are listening to my music are basically would be okay with me being killed. They wouldn't want it to happen, but they're not going to do anything about it. So why should I entertain these people? What's the point? Which is why I think. The music that I still have time to make right now, I'd much rather it was just for the Ukrainians, so I have a new project that is basically centered around. My nostalgia for a lot of Ukrainian things from my childhood, you know, Ukrainian TV, Ukrainian radio, Ukrainian music that was made in the 90s by underground acts, that was quite wonderful, and I'm just working with that, and that music is not designed for foreigners, it's the titles and the song lyrics are in Ukrainian, so I'm not... giving it to anyone. I have to give it away during fundraisers because I need something to entice people to give me the money. So I do kind of share it a little bit but officially I'm not putting it out on my main accounts and I'm not showing it to anyone. I wish I didn't have to give it out as part of a fundraiser. I wish it was like a total secret from the world Just for the Ukrainians So far, I've not been able to do that.

00:29:52: Luzia Tschirky You said that every music is political. When did you realize then that music is political?

00:30:01: Timur Dzhafarov I think if you listen to enough music, it just kind of comes to you naturally. I don't know when, but maybe in my early teenage years, maybe because I was discovering David Bowie and Kraftwerk. both David Bowie and Kraftwerk have these really intense political connotations to their music. I think Bowie at one point when he said that he was gay, which he really wasn't, but he said it just to kind of make a scandal, I think that was a very interesting move and it's hard growing up in Ukraine listening to his music. interacting with other people who knew who he was. It was hard to escape the question about what do you think about him being gay? Like are you okay with that? And so of course that was immediately like one of the things that I had to confront and you know I'm fine with it. I think it's cool you know if he were actually gay. But it was like a big question and also Kraftwerk as well which is like the first generation of musicians born after the world war having to build a culture from scratch basically because there was nothing that you could preserve and build on it was all you know crap you had to burn it all down which is good and and I think Kraftwerk were smart in doing what they did and I think it was great music but of course it's It's hard not to see that. Also the Smiths with Morrissey, you know, being a horrible racist You know which? When I was first discovering them in my teenage years, I don't know if that was I think he had some kind of Controversies at that point already, but boy it got way worse so it's hard not to Not to realize that well, I'm listening to this music what if it's going to make me a racist or something? What if subconsciously it has some weird effect, maybe has like some magical sounds in the music to make you racist? Who knows? You know, it made me feel weird as a teenager. So I kind of, I would listen to the Smiths, but not so much Morrissey. Yeah, it just kind of comes to you. It's hard to and also of course, sorry, of course my Ukrainian background background the fact that I'm Ukrainian is also kind of a big part of it because there was a lot of Russian music that would cross the border and kind of play on the radio and and Yet you could very often you could Google one of the artists and they would have said something horrible about Ukrainians in an interview and be like what the hell How is it okay to listen to this? So, living in the country that is essentially an ex -colony or one of the smaller countries that has been occupied for its whole history is tricky because you have to make sure that the artists that you're listening to are not supporting. killing you and everyone you know so yeah it's inherent that as a ukrainian you can't separate art from artists you have to understand that it's political it's always going to be political and i think someone from the u .s for example or someone from germany or britain maybe they don't need to do that maybe they have the luxury of being like yeah i'll be fine even if this. you know russian musician thinks i should be killed you know will win the war if they have to you know fight with us will be will come out on top uh... for ucranian it's different so i guess that's that's the answer

00:34:16: Luzia Tschirky And did that change for you like 11 years ago during the Maidan and after the annexation of Crimea by Russia or did it change for you like when the full scale invasion started? When did that change for you?

00:34:31: Timur Dzhafarov I mean, I definitely was conscious of all of this before the full -scale invasion. I was always, well, not always, but there were musical artists that I used to like, and then I would, like, cancel them, you know, by deleting them, removing them from my library if they had done or said something just horrific. Morrissey, you know, for example, one of the musicians who I used to like, and I think his music has. There's a lot of great songs there, but I just not I don't feel comfortable listening to it. So I Kind of removed him from my library. It wasn't something that I Was Kind of translating into the world. It wasn't something that I was telling people to do I was just it's my own personal preference. I'm not comfortable with it and I'm not Lecturing my friends or people on the internet about it. It was fine. Regarding when that changed it's hard to say. I don't think I have an answer because To know, I would have to compare growing up in a country in which the war never happened. You know, I can't, I can't tell because when Maidan happened and I was there as well with my friends, I would have been 17 or 18, which is just, you know, the beginning of adulthood, I suppose. So. I think regardless of what would have happened in Ukraine at that point, that's a time in life when you become conscious, when you become more mature and adult and you realize that you have to vote in the next election and realize that you have to kind of draw political lines between yourself and the world. so who knows who knows I. I don't know whether it was because of my done or i think it's probably because that's what happens when you grow up unless you're extremely privileged and sheltered and you don't have to care about politics but that's that's very few people.

00:36:47: Luzia Tschirky You already mentioned that you're joining us today from your hometown Kyiv, and you came back to the city after serving in a more combat -engaged brigade in eastern Ukraine. You described your current duty in the army to be more like an office job. So, what made you switch positions within the Ukrainian army?

00:37:10: Timur Dzhafarov It's scary. I'm a coward. What can I say? I mean, it's

00:37:13: Luzia Tschirky What do you mean, you're a coward?

00:37:15: Timur Dzhafarov I mean, it's horrifying to be at the front lines, you know, I don't want to be there. I feel like there are I've seen people who seem to be more mentally stable. But of course, yeah, I don't know, I can't compare. What happened was essentially I was offered a job in Kyiv, I didn't look for it. I didn't seek it out. I was just offered a position here. And, of course, once I was offered it, I said, yeah, because it's hard to... say no. And also it was What I do now is a bit more tailored to my specific set of skills, which means that I'm probably more useful and more efficient here. I hope so. So yeah, it was just that someone found me and called me and offered me a different position. I was, yeah, sure, get me out of here. But of course, it took a long time. I was waiting to transfer for about a year or something. and that's just awful waiting you know and thinking or maybe today i'll get the papers and i'll you know get in the car and drive to Kyiv maybe who knows maybe today maybe today and it's like every day you wake up thinking that it's really hard it it may have done may have made my service a lot harder than it would have been otherwise if i didn't have this false hope It can happen any day now. But yeah, I'm here now, which is cool.

00:38:50: Luzia Tschirky Coming back to Kyiv has not been easy for you, what made adaption to life far from the frontline more difficult for you?

00:39:01: Timur Dzhafarov That's a good question. I think my relationships with a lot of my friends, especially male friends, have suffered because first of all, of course, I was away. So I was not aware of everything that's been happening. I've not been going to the same bars and clubs and venues. I've not met the same new people that everyone that I know has met. I've not been basically part of the part of the crowd which is means that I don't get a lot of the jokes I miss out on a lot of the cultural events. But also, of course, male friends who did not enlist. We have kind of a harder relationship now because because I think me kind of being here reminds them that someday they will have to go and serve as well and a lot of people maybe would rather not think about it because it's it's a scary thought and I get it but also it's just this weird damage that's hard to it's hard to talk about it it's hard to discuss it with anyone because no one wants to talk about it of course And maybe after a couple of drinks, you know, some things can come out that are. strange and hard to put into words. I think it's fine you know I'm not personally mad at anyone I don't think no one owes me anything you know but it just creates this barrier that's hard to overcome and I'd like to tell people that you know there's no I'm fine with it there's no barrier you can talk to me you can be my friend you can be honest with me but I think On the other side, when I'm talking to someone, you know, maybe they feel it. Uh, it's gotten better lately, uh, because I've been here for a while, you know, but when I first got here, it was, I felt a big divide between me and people that I used to know a lot of it also has to do with the everyday life being so different because I would come here and I would have to learn. how to socialize, how to say hi to people, how to talk to people, how to cook, and how to, what to wear, you know, because I totally lost my fashion sense, by the way, which I don't even remember what I was wearing before the service. So yeah, a lot of it is my problem, because it's, I've forgotten how to live, basically, so you have to learn again.

00:42:00: Luzia Tschirky Do you have the impression that your male friends maybe feel kind of shame that when they see you that they kind of feel a certain obligation for themselves to serve as you did and as you are still doing, while they're not doing it, could that be, might be a part of the thing that makes it more difficult for you to talk?

00:42:27: Timur Dzhafarov I don't think I can speak about that. What I imagine is maybe it's not necessarily shame because shame implies that you have to believe that this is your responsibility as well. And there are, I think, a lot of people who sincerely believe that serving in the military is not for them, you know. I've spoken to some people and it's a weird thing to say, you know, but. I've spoken to some people who are not necessarily my close friends, but, you know, associates who ended up telling me, you know, I don't think this is my issue, I don't think this concerns me, to be honest, which is a crazy thing to say, right? But I think for those kinds of people, it's more of an, my presence is more of an inconvenience because it's more of a Reminder that there's work ahead. It's it's it's more of an obligation Socially than mentally. I don't ethically or morally for some people. So, I don't know I'd rather not think about it too much because it's It's awkward and I don't I don't think I'm in any kind of position to judge anyone or feel a certain way. You know, I do what I do, other people do what they do, it's fine. Because I have a lot more ethical and moral pretensions towards people from outside of Ukraine. You know, if you're a Ukrainian man, regardless of whether you're in service, like I love you and I appreciate you and you're my family, but man, people from Germany, for example, boy. Or people from the U .S. I mean, the U .S. is technically our enemy now, right? Like they've, they're actively taking steps to stop helping us, which they're still, they're still helping us a little bit. I do appreciate that. But they're actively going towards making sure that Ukraine loses the war or accepts Russia's conditions. But yeah, any Ukrainian man who's not even In service, you know, I have endlessly more respect for them than for any American.

00:44:52: Luzia Tschirky Talking about the current situation, you already mentioned the situation with the United States, and there has been a lot of talk about a ceasefire lately, but no clear agreement has been yet signed, and it's unclear whether there will be ever any agreement at all. What is your personal opinion on a ceasefire?

00:45:14: Timur Dzhafarov It sounds very temporary, you know, it doesn't sound like the end of the war or it just sounds temporary. So of course, the fire will start again, because it's Russia, you can't ever trust them. You can't ever have an agreement with them. We've tried many times ever since from way back in the 90s, you know, nothing no agreement with Russia will hold up ever. That's, you know, just something that... all the Ukrainians realize, but regardless of that, I think that ceasefire, whatever it may be, it implies or rather it Russians will only agree to it on the basis of us giving them territories that they have occupied and signing them over and Ukrainians were just not going to do that, you know, if we have to keep fighting, we'll keep fighting, you know because The ceasefire Proposals that I've heard basically imply that we give Russia what they want this fascist government that had started a war in this country that has been conducting essentially a genocide for three years and you know small scale war for another seven years let's all just yeah they're right let's give them what they want maybe you know we tried to fight, but you know, it's okay. They win, you know, let's just give them a quarter of our country, it's okay. You know, I think that's insane, that's just literally insane. I think telling Russians that it's okay to do this, you can do this, you can get what you want by killing people and shelling people for many years. And no one's going to punish you, it's going to be fine. You know, so next time you have a disagreement with Poland or... the US or any other country you can just bomb them for three years and they'll give you what you want you know telling russians that giving them the green light that this is all cool is possibly the worst thing you can do in this situation like no not possibly really it is the worst thing you can do it guarantees that there's going to be another war with us or with someone else but russians will start another war or they will continue one of their old wars And yeah, I have no, this ceasefire to me is, sounds like not only the humiliation of our president, but also I'm gonna be humiliated. I'm gonna have people texting me and being like, congrats, it's awesome, I'm so happy for you. Can you come and play a show for us in Germany or in France or somewhere? And I'll be like, no, this is not, this is not, this is not cool, like. They killed a lot of people and I'm not over it. I'm not gonna go somewhere and hang out and have fun because russians have Out of the goodness of their hearts. They have stopped shelling us. Finally, you know, that's not there's nothing to celebrate it's in fact, it's something to mourn and something to be Really upset about and something to plan ahead. It's something that will mean that we have to grow our army, we have to get more people in the military. I'm probably gonna still have to do what I do and continue my service because obviously any ceasefire would be used by Russia to restock their ammunition and you know get ready for another war. I can guarantee that to you, it's 100 % true. So that will mean that We in Ukraine will have to amass weapons and personal and make sure that we're ready for round two, because there's going to be a round two. I have no doubt about it. So yeah, the ceasefire, it's stupid. It's done only for Donald Trump to say that he ended the war, because he was dumb enough to promise this to his followers. I have no idea what an election in the US has to do with me. bombs falling on my head, and everyone that I know, but essentially for some reason he made it into his campaign promises and now he has to do it, so he's going to do it by agreeing to whatever Russians want. Well, too bad for us, obviously when he either finishes his term or when we don't agree to the terms, the war is going to start again. But at that point, you know, if he's not going to be the president of the U .S. anymore, he's going to be able to say, well, I did what I promised. I ended the war just because they started again. It's not my fault. Right. So sorry.

00:50:15: Luzia Tschirky I assume for you as a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it's very difficult to hear Donald Trump talking when he even suggests that Ukraine will be handing over territories that are currently occupied by the Russian Federation due to the fact that you know personally people who died fighting in these places. How is that for you?

00:50:45: Timur Dzhafarov It makes me so angry, I can't even tell you. I don't have the words to describe it. But also, I think it's important to stress that I'm not, the size of Ukraine and how many regions it has is not necessarily important to me. I don't really care. If Ukraine is big or small, it doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that... we don't give the russians the fascists what they want because there's a fascist country next to us and if we tell them yeah if you kill a lot of people you'll get what you want that's fine no one's going to take you to the hag and do a criminal court you know and put you in prison no one's going to do that you can just as long as you have more weapons than anyone else you'll be fine as long as you have the atomic bomb you'll be fine uh... it's that to me is uh... The problem is... encouraging Russia. We're never gonna be the people that they've killed. They're not gonna Know what's gonna bring them back right? They're dead. It's over. It's not I'm not gonna see them again What I want to make sure is that at least my children have a safer future when they're not being killed by Russians again and telling Russians that yeah, if you fight with enough cruelty and if you do murder people as much as you can, you're going to win giving the bad guys the victory, you know that to me is is insane and it's going to lead to more death. everywhere it's inevitable you know as long as we have a fascist country that's technically the largest country in the world in terms of land mass not in terms of population but still the one like is it one seventh of the land mass of the earth maybe one eighth i forget but that being like a huge fascist shithole. I'm sorry. How do we live with that? How do we? continue to exist in peace and as, you know, a mutually respectful society. You also have to understand that any fascist government can only stay in power by being in a state of war because the Nazi Germany, it needed a war to be constantly happening because the only way for a fascist government to stay in power is to tell population that we are the only people who can protect you we are the only people who know how to win this war and we're in the war and you have a lot of enemies that's why life is so horrible that's why we don't have a lot of food that's why we're poor that's why the production lines of making shells instead of making you know toys or something that's why the economy is in wartime mode it's because we have enemies and we have to fight them and that is also one way to make sure that you never have to have an actual real honest election or you don't need democracy you know so you can be fascist as long as you have an enemy and you're at war so the russian government it's they're never gonna uh admit you know that okay there's no reason for us to be at war with anyone we don't have enemies no one's actually killing Russians, for the crime of being Russian. And so there's always going to be a war, just it's a question of with whom, you know, if you look at the history of independent Russia, it's, yeah, it's always had a war, it's always he was either preparing for a war or, you know, actually waging war on someone. So yeah, doing a ceasefire on those conditions, it's just giving Russia time to get more weapons and, you know, enlist more people.

00:54:47: Luzia Tschirky Uh, this leads me to my last question for the podcast. What are your plans for the future? Like when the war will be over, do you have any plans for this future after the war?

00:55:02: Timur Dzhafarov It depends on how the war ends because if it's a ceasefire that's not really the end of the war right but someone from outside of Ukraine can ask me you know the war ended what are you what's your plans you know what are you doing and I'm like no it's a ceasefire it's going to start again in 10 years and five years and next year or something so I don't really make plans anymore it depends on what is left of when the war ends, if it ever ends. It's possible that I'll never even see the end of the war, so I don't think about it. I'm in the military, I'll do what I have to do every day, and I'll do some fun stuff after work, or on Sundays and Saturdays maybe.

00:55:54: Luzia Tschirky Timur, thank you so much for taking so much of your precious time talking to me, and I'm sure... You have every right to be very angry with many people. I'm very sure about that. Thank you so much for joining.

00:56:11: Timur Dzhafarov Thank you, thank you, it's been a pleasure, thank you for asking uncomfortable questions, I suppose, or letting me say uncomfortable things. Thank you, I hope you have a good day.