EP.13 Capturing Life & Death in Ukraine with Nikoletta Stoyanova

Luzia Tschirky: Welcome to the podcast "Yak Ty? Ukraine Live". "Yak Ty?" means "How are you?" in Ukrainian. I am your host, Luzia Tschirky, a former correspondent, now a book author and a freelancer. Today I'm joined by an extraordinary guest Nikoleta Stoyanova. Nikoletta Stoyanovna was born in 2002. She's a Ukrainian documentary photographer, fixer and video journalist. Originally, from Odesa, she moved to Kyiv, to Kharkiv, to be closer to the front line. Not out of impulse, but for a deep sense of responsibility and urgency to witness and Her work focuses on quiet human moments that unfold amidst violence and uncertainty, a touch between soldiers, a child playing near the dead, smoke in the sky above a summer beach. She believes in peace is not just the absence of war, but the presence of life that persists through it. Her photographs have been published in The Guardian, GQ, Bloomberg Getty Images and others. In 2023, she was awarded the Ian Perry grant, one of the most respected awards for emerging documentary photographers until the age 24. Welcome to the podcast Nicoleta. Thank you so much for joining me here today.

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Thank you so much for inviting me. It's really important for me to receive your message with invitation to this podcast. And thank you for your work, for everything that you're doing and talking about Ukraine. It is really important, especially right now, how hard it's getting right now.

Luzia Tschirky: As always, I start this podcast with the question how are you right now?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: I guess we need to be really clear with everything and we need to realize that we're really tired. We need to understand that all of us, Ukrainians and especially Amber, are not okay for sure because it's almost the first year of war with full skin invasion and it's getting exhausting in many senses. Especially right now, like exactly a week ago I received a devastating news that one of my close friends, Christopher Garrett, who used to be a British deminer. Veteran. He died because of during his job with the mining. The mine killed him and another our friend and it's really hard to realize when you spend so many time as person, especially when you're planning to do something together, because we're planning to spend this week together training militaries. I'm supposed to be translator for them. I was creating a huge huge kind of article about him and his work. They wanted the foundation to support him but we lost him and it's it's hard it's hard to to have the loss of friends it's hard to believe nowadays it's hard to hear the news about ceasefire but ceasefire does not exist unfortunately i guess it was four or five sirens or alarms today it's a lot so yeah it's kind of hard but we're trying to stay strong.

Luzia Tschirky: So much for being so open to us on the podcast. My deepest condolences, Nicoleta. I can't imagine how you're feeling after losing such a close person. I remember that I heard in Ukraine people saying to me that the war takes the kindest and the best people. How would you describe your friend Christopher Gary to someone who did not know him?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Like Christopher was the man who is, as I was saying, was a big soul And he was always feels like he have energy for everything He have average energy for texting you, your friends, his family, his wife, his relatives Anytime, doesn't matter how he feel himself He always have energy for work, he always have an energy for invite you for a wine, or for a dinner, or for everything. We like really remember him as the guy who's like hey, hey, hello, let's come there, let's do this. It's like it's really hard to lose such people and especially when you know that this is such a kind of professional and he's doing the mining for already 10 years and he was killed because exactly of mining it. That was really like hard to believe. It's still hard to that this is happening. Yeah, it's like, that's crazy.

Luzia Tschirky: Just mentioned that you actually planned to be with him, like on the day that he got killed by, that he could tragically killed in Eastern Ukraine while demining a place close to Izium if I'm not mistaken, but your plans did change and you did not spend like the day with him. Like being confronted with death at your age so regularly. How did that change you personally? You know, like that death is so close to you so many times. How did that change you personally?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: It's a really hard question. When the full-skin invasion starts, many of us stop to believe in the God, because many of are saying if the God will exist, he will never let all these things happen. But sometimes when things like that change in like a butterfly effect, and you realize that you can be in a place in which you can also particularly die, you never know. You sometimes realize that some, I don't know, heavy big... Things sometimes exist, because it happened to me already, I guess, free time, because one has happened in Kherson in 2022, that I used to be with Italian journalists filming evacuation of the civilians in Kherson, and this city was deoccupied after, like, occupation by Russia for almost half a year, and after that, after deoccupation, Russia was just... In a town kilometers from this big city and a lot of people of course need to evacuate themselves so we were planned to film that we see a lot people who came to get you know this humanitarian help like food, boxes with hygienic stuff etc so we get into the car and one of our friends said you know i have a birthday i'm like so let's have a cake for you let's go and have a So we left for 20 minutes when we left the car to have a cake with your huge and loud like shelling into the city and we realized that all the loud sounds was in the way of this of this point when those volunteers used the base. A lot of people was killed, the place where our car should stay there was a lot of kind of shrapnels. The grads hit this place and unfortunately volunteers with who we used to go to evacuation, he died. He was just lying on the ground and it was awful for us, for all of us, he was just paralyzed, sitting in the car and looking at everything, what's going on, it was crazy for all us and this is what that paralyzed us for a whole day, they just realized that we just left this place and exactly this place was shelled a few minutes after. That was really crazy. The second situation also happened like in February this year. We went with Azal. The small city near Pokrovsk, which right now is the biggest frontline city where butterfills is going on, and we went with drone operators and we stayed in a really small basement. I guess this is basement like my my workplace, it's really small one. And there was five of us and the oldest person was 23 years old. I was 22. Youngest guy was 19, another guy was 20 years old and he already had a prosthesis on his leg, he already lost his leg before and that was crazy, we were so young and at one moment we were just sitting talking, I was supposed to stay with them for one night and film there and we hear a crazy bombing around because we were sitting in the basement of the small house and the roof of the smaller house started to fall down and get into the basement, and exactly at that time... Guy from the throne was turning back and see how russians is bomb all the houses nearby our place with irl bombs it was like 100 meter close to our house and it was really crazy because these few seconds between every bomb which fall near your place it's it feels like a last one it was really scary nothing nothing is more scary than irl bomb because no one can survive this is such have a thing that can kill it at the same end. We did a big haul and we were just so lucky that all the things just fall near 100-100 meters. I guess it was three of them and it was already so much. We were just sitting, drone was turning back and filming everything, all the explosions. And we were truly shocked, truly shocked. And yeah, the last thing that's happened like a week ago when I supposed to go with Chris to the trip in which he died and I was really like... Busy with stuff, I was thinking that I need to end some things, apply for some grants, do some meetings in Kharkiv, and I was saying, guys, for sure we will spend next week together training soldiers, so let's give me just some space please and I'll do my stuff and for sure I could easily do your work with you, and i was thinking like, for sure we'll see each other, but we didn't and it's crazy, so yeah, it's strange to was this feeling when you can die. Every moment, but unfortunately this can happen not only in the front line, this can happen in every city of Ukraine. Unfortunately, Ukraine is just in general a dangerous place right now because of Russian invasion. Unfortunately there's no safe place, no safe place. It's Russian-related.

Luzia Tschirky: You say, I assume that you know people of your age who left Ukraine after the start of the full-scale invasion. Do you feel any difference between you and them due to the fact that you are living in such a different environment from them?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Of course, this is a difference between people my age who are facing the war, who are facing the real front line and people who isn't, who live abroad. But I cannot say that they are not right in their decision. This is really okay to want to be safe. I guess I also would love to be outside the country if I'm not doing my work or if I understand that I cannot do my job properly. I cannot do the picture which can help many people and I cannot say that I'm angry at them. I feel that they're doing their best, some of them staying abroad and helping Ukraine, but at the same time the problem that there's a big gap between us, even between people who just live in Kyiv, who never went to the frontline, who just try to live their normal life and between people who are facing the front line every month or every week or whatever. Some of people getting or mad at those people who didn't face the war or getting sad or whatever, but it's this huge gap even when you try to talk it feels like you're having the same country, the same language, the same culture, but you do not understand each other fully because some of the people cannot realize the whole face of war unfortunately and they sometimes do not understand what you truly used to face for. Like when I used to live in Kyiv, in the capital, that's the reason why I left Kyiv and changed to Kharkiv. Because every my trip which I spent in Donbass for a week or two, when I was turning back home, I cannot get out from my apartment, I guess for a few days and go to the cafe, see my friends, do just normal stuff. I cannot because I see that people have like and cafeteria. Coconut milk and all and talking about some business trips to Italy and you're like you just turn back from the front line when people are living in the trenches and eating kinda from the cans and you'll see everything was going on in Kyiv and try to compare and you have everything what you saw there you start to be like In a broken matrix, it's strange that this is one country sometimes. It's a really hard feeling to realize that such different things can be combined into one place, into one country. So yeah, sometimes it's really hard. I'm not getting angry at people; I'm just getting sometimes disappointed by everything that's going on.

Luzia Tschirky: When the war started in 2014, the war against Ukraine, you were about 12 years old. How is it for you personally to have lived in a country torn by war for half of your life? Do you have the impression that your youth was stolen from you?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Really good question but I think more yes stolen than not stolen because for sure even like we got the we call this war on the east when it was from 2014 till 2022 I was planned like travel around the world, doing a lot of things, doing fashion photography. I said I was not planning to become a photojournalist or war photographer. And East, it's also for me, it's a small motherland because my grandmother, one of my grandmothers, she's from Donetsk, which right now is occupied. And when I was a small child, I used to go with her every summer to the Donetsk to the Lugansk where her sister used to live so that was really strange to me when I was like 11 years old 12 and I see a lot of protests in Odessa we got the crazy protest on the 2nd of May in 2014 when I see how people were shooting from the I was still from the balcony and mom was calling me get out of the balcony to not be injured and I remember this strange strange activities which was going on but I was did not understand fully what's going on and up there. Was asking my grandmother are we going to the Donetsk? She's like no unfortunately not because war starts and I'm like war? There's no war around? How does it happen? But after that was feeling that a lot of Ukrainians forget about that kind of because it was not many not many information in the news not many nothing in general maybe I do not remember maybe I was not so interested but till the age of 18 I used to fully live the kind of normal life I was planning to plan what I want to do in a fashion and travel and everything when we realized that something goes wrong even already in November 2021 we see that a lot of troops in the border we see a lot training in the sea we already see that something is wrong and I start preparing myself mentally ok, what should I do if the full skin invasion will start? Are we gonna go? Are we going to fight? Or what? Of course, parents... To not give me a possibility to fight because I only turned 19. But yeah, I get my camera in the hand and start shooting. That's what I can do.

Luzia Tschirky: You said that you always had photography in your life and at the age of 17 you started studying journalism in your hometown in Odessa and there they teach you photojournalism. And then you realized that this is what you wanted to do, photography. What would you say talking about your work you do now? What is it about photography that is so fascinating to you?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Photography for me. It's a little bit deeper thing I guess because this was with me since my childhood Even right now I sit in with you in my workplace in my cabinet and here in my pin desk I've got the pinot picture of my great-grandfather who used to Who used to be from Donetsk, actually and here's in a military uniform because he used to fight during World War two But when everything is ended up, he start to work in mines and also do a lot of pictures, do photography. That's why my grandmother have, I guess, 15 kilos printed pictures by him because he have his own place for creating pictures, he said. And before his death, my grandmother moved to Odessa and she also moved with her a lot pictures of him. But I never saw him in my life. He died like few years before my born. And I was growing up seeing a lot of pictures taken by him. That's why my grandmother was taking a lot of pictures by me. She have few cameras because that was her father actually. And I would grow up with pictures. I was grown up by albums. I always like to have a look at them. Maybe because of that I think I started to do the pictures, maybe because of that. When the full-screen version starts I realized it. In the memory kind of of some of my grandmother, of great-grandfather, of my roots I really want to do pictures of my small motherland which getting destroyed day by day more and more and occupied more and more as we see right now in Pokrovsk and Konstantinivka Vy... Because I remember those places as a joy, I remember those places, as relatives, as family, as best time in my childhood because I really was loving those trips so much and this turned into kind of nightmare when you kind of left your life there in the ground and I guess that's why I started to do those those pictures in the front line because I truly want to do this in the memory of my parents, I guess, who was from there. Just kind of fight for my land through the lenses. I understand that I cannot fight, I cannot just mentally, but I really try to film the truth about everything that's going on.

Luzia Tschirky: You often photograph like contradictions, joy and grief, love and death and absurdity and tenderness. Why is it important for you to show these contrasts with your work? Because...

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Life still exists even during the craziest times even sitting in a shelter with soldiers or in the trenches you always can hear some kind of jokes stupid jokes from them they always have a starlink they can have a look some kind of memes showing you funny videos try and cheer you up offer you some tea, some sweets. I never see any dog out without any sweets or tea, they're always so like hostile soldiers, it's really really great guys and men and girls and women and I really happy that during these crazy and dark times and world gets around crazy, they can find a moment for just a normal life. It's really hard but people are really trying. Like I was filming the exhumation of the Ukrainian and Russian bodies where the volunteer group from the Slaviansk which is Donetsk region, they're going by themselves to the front line and the bodies of Ukrainian and Russians soldiers who was like killed like the eagle two weeks ago, whatever, and they're just doing exhumations with the idea to turn back the bodies to the home. And at one moment I see that one woman with girl was coming to this field with exhumation and girl was like kind of playing and running in the way of the main exhumator, Olexy, and she was like saying, dad, hello! And she was really small and she was running between all these bags with bodies and running to her father just to hug him. And I was like What is child is doing here just generally and I realized that that was wife of the main exclamator with his daughter and they just came visit him at work and bring him some food like tea etc just to cheer him up and I was kind of shocked looking all these bags with bodies, balloons really in a bad condition and I like and this girl was just running around giving me flowers and I'm like What's going on? It was really strange moment for me that when the childhood, this pure, best time of your life faces the war, and it's really crazy combination sometimes. When I used to film how people chilling on the beach in Kharkiv on the lake. And in one moment, all of us hear the like loud kaboom and we see the big amount of the smoke in the sky. And people were just again, chilling and looking at the smoke, just like, okay. Let's swim again. Yeah, life is going on sometimes and unfortunately some of the people can feel this, can't lose this feeling, can't loose this feeling of the danger around. They do not feel in danger anymore or they are facing those sirens so much that... Do not realize which sirens is dangerous or not. Like right now we've got five sirens today or four. I even do not remember it was many of them and every time it's different or it's like aerial bombs flying around or Shaheed's or another thing and you're like just oh my god I have no like so many time like going to the shelter. We get air alarms for 18 hours per day. So it's really a lot. You can spend all the time in a basement, unfortunately. So yeah, it's a strange life.

Luzia Tschirky: You talked about your great grandfather who was a photographer as well. The places he lived you cannot visit anymore because they're occupied by Russian forces. How is that for you traveling to places like you mentioned, Pokrovsk, a city which is under heavy fire by the Russian army and the Ukrainian army tries to defend it. When you travel there, do you think about that it might be the last time you see the city and the last time you. Take pictures of that city, do things like this come up to your mind when you're traveling there?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Sometimes that's really happened to me and it's hard to realize because Pokrovsk as a city used to feel much safer than Kramatorsk for example which is also second large city in Donetsk region which is in in our territory but right now we realize that Pokrovsk looking really crazy like one of friend was there. With volunteers and I see all these burnt out buildings, all these empty streets, all the graves in the yards between high buildings because people just cannot bury themselves, cannot have a funeral because it's too dangerous, the drones is flying around and you see these pictures of the of the graves just in the yards and it's really awful because you never think that this can happen, you're always feeling that this is going to be alright, but we need to be realistic and understand that already a lot of soldiers is in trenches in Dniepropetrovsk region because occupation step by step like a cancer eat in your territory and this is really sad, unfortunately.

Luzia Tschirky: What would you wish that people would understand about life in Ukraine during wartime, even now when there is so much talk about a possible ceasefire or no ceasefire, or maybe a meeting or no meeting and all these diplomatic talks. What would like people to understand about the life in the Ukraine at the moment?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: As long global countries and in general world is waiting, as fast they losing the people who can protect their countries. They need to realize that if they gotta wait too long with decision to give us weapons or etc. Sooner or earlier we will have no people who could protect this country. Even right now Ukraine this is the first country in the world with the biggest amount... The woman in the army. It's already more than or hundred thousand or something like that women in the Army and it's really a lot it's like every 10% in the Ukrainian army this is woman and we need to realize that we're losing our nation our territory and I really do not believe that Russia will stop if they will occupy Ukraine for example because they already occupied a bit of Georgia, they already occupy a bit Moldova which is neighbor of Romania, they already plan to do some stuff with Kaliningrad which is also in border with Poland and that's I guess I really would love people to understand that we're like losing the best people who is really ready to protect this country who is ready by all the costs, not money, not everything, just because they're Ukrainians to protect the land and protect the European Union and other countries because if they are not, if we lose most of them, or even the... Guys who was like Chris Garrett from the abroad. If we lose a lot of people like that, we will have no people who are going to protect us, unfortunately.

Luzia Tschirky: If I understand it correctly, you also have a little brother who is younger than you are, right? When you talk with him, are you sometimes afraid that he might at some point will serve in the army or go to the front lines as a soldier? Are you thinking about that and how is that for you?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: This is actually the crazy true about Ukraine that you cannot leave the country after 18 years old and even it's sometimes problems when you're already 17 you can't leave the country if you're not kind of registered in the army or something like that so my brother was 15 years old when Polska invasion starts and he already realized for himself as a teenager, that he didn't want to face the war and he didn´t want to go to the frontline by any cost, he was afraid as a teenager and I can´t belive that at 15 you´re really afraid of the war. As the person, and he also, who have roots from Bulgaria, he decided to study Bulgarian language, he studied really a lot and exactly a year ago he left the country at 16 years old. Study abroad because he really was scared to not leave the country or die at the front or whatever and of course mother support him in this decision and i already didn't see him almost a year i didn't visit bulgaria i planned to because he's got to turn 18 he was turning 17 in bulgarian and he's gonna turn 18 soon and it's crazy. So, yeah, he. Don't want to plan right now turn back because he thinking that he cannot leave the country anymore So he planned to stay abroad as long as he didn't get US Citizenship and the problem is that he also cannot see the father and father also cannot visit him because father also Cannot leave the countries. So it's problem for many people unfortunately right now for many Families who is separated by those rules and by the war and by a Russian invasion

Luzia Tschirky: Could you have ever imagined that you will live during your lifetime, you know, in a situation where it actually matters whether you are a woman or a man, whether you can cross a border or whether you see your father, visit your father or be with your father? Could you ever imagine that you would be in such a situation? Of course not. Of course.

Nikoletta Stoyanova: I even cannot imagine myself living in a kind of front-line city 30 kilometers to Russia and doing my job. I even can't imagine that I can do this. I never can imagine. Everything what I've experienced I'm sometimes looking at my gallery on the phone or sometimes I like uploading hard drive and my laptop and I'm looking at pictures like did I really do this picture? Did I really use to do this pictures? Sometimes you even have no time to process everything what's happened I miss you. Because so many things has happened and sometimes you're trying to do the reflection but it's really hard because every day, every month something happened and it's really emotionally hard sometimes but that's why I feel myself already, to be honest. 35 years old, not 22 mentally. After facing a lot of madness and... A lot of crazy decisions, you realize that that was pretty heartier.

Luzia Tschirky: How do you in your real life, how do you realize that you have grown up so fast, that you are mentally not 22 years, but 35 years old. How do feel that in your life?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: You're starting feeling that you're growing up too fast when you're facing things which no one used to prepare you and of course it wasn't impossible to prepare for the full-scale version and no one was preparing me to go to the front line, it was my own decision and when you are facing all these like things when you work and for example I used to work as a producer for international media and you're the kind of leader in a group of like 40-year-old man who is with you and it's really hard sometimes and you start to do things as a with the whole responsibility as you can to protect your team to organize your work to explain and help explain the people what's going on in Ukraine and after that of course you're growing up faster as you can realize because of course i would love to do partying i would have to travel around the world, but... I'm really not sure if I gotta be like that right now, if I was just having the normal life, not so serious to be honest. Yeah, but you really start to realize how serious sometimes your decisions and your pictures and your actions can be for...

Luzia Tschirky: You just mentioned that the decision to go to the frontline was your own decision. Not everyone was supportive of your decision to come to the front line. So you worked when the full-scale invasion started. You worked at Suspini, which is the public broadcaster of Ukraine. You worked there at the local branch in Odessa and they were not really supporting of you sending you as a photojournalist to the Frontline. Can you describe what has happened and why you make the decision nevertheless to go to the front line.

Nikoletta Stoyanova: I used to work in Suspilne in Odessa as a photojournalist. For the first half of the year of the 2022, I used to film all the consequences after a missile strike in the city and region. When you come into the place and you see all this destruction after the Russian missile. And of course I realized that I really wanted the moment to film more, to explain more. I have like maybe something to say. And maybe it was kind of, you know, this use maximalism, I don't know. At the time, I was really like... Fully mentally and morally prepared going to the frontline. I really want to and at the time even Nikolaev region which is neighbor region to the Odessa was the frontline because Kursyn and Kursin region wasn't occupied. So the guy who was 20 years old from the team of Suspinene he was allowed to go to the front line but I'm not as the only one photographer for the whole for the studio I'm like why not An editor said to me, I don't wanna soldiers think how to save your life, not how to do the war, or just ask permission of your parents, or something like that, and I'm like, what? I'm 19 years old, I can't do this, I really can't, I'm an adult, and no one was, no one believed me, no trust me. Of course, the girl who is 19 years and have no any experience in the war... Course they do not trust me and when I tried to apply for any job for any media who was looking for a correspondent there was in no way just no way sorry but you're too young I'm like okay so I just quit the job in Suspilne I moved to Kyiv and I started to do the producer job for international media and this has actually happened randomly and that's what impressed me European people, that they do not look at your CV usually. At the time. They did not ask for your graduation, it doesn't really matter for them your age, they were really looking at your passion for work and for them it was enough at the time. Maybe because it was not enough people who can do producing stuff and etc. So that's how I went to the occupied region of Curzon and I just started with translation, turned into to work in communication with soldiers and helping journalists. Come to the places and after I realized that I can do more than just producing I started to ask the TVs and journalists who I used to work Can I do just the pictures while working in stand-alone? Yeah, of course! And after they're like Can I have a look what you did? And I'm like wow, good picture! And that's how I got the portfolio in general So yeah, that was a strange experience But step by step I started having a look how the really professional used to can I start to... Have a look and do the same as they did before.

Luzia Tschirky: You mentioned that your mother was supportive of your brother's decision to leave the country. You're a grown-up person so you can make decisions for yourself. But how did your family react when they heard for the first time that you were actually going to Kherson and other frontline regions? What was the reaction of the people in your family?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: I guess everything again happened also step by step for them, because of course mother was every time worrying about me and place where I come into the missile strike, but when I explained to her that it's okay, there is no Russian, that there's no fire, it's kind of fine zone, it is far away from the front line, she was like alright, just text to me, alright just text me, and I was like texting to her like I'm going, I'm coming back. Maybe I'll have no connection or etc, so I tried to explain her everything and send her pictures. Of course, sometimes when I started going a lot to the Donbass and etc, I didn't say to her about some stuff that was going on to the zero line or sometimes just to not make her stressed out so much. Sometimes I was saying that I was somewhere already like months later, just like... Okay, I'm here. I'm next to you sitting. I have hands, legs, everything, but I was there. She's like, what?

Luzia Tschirky: From my own experience as a journalist, I had many people around me who were sometimes afraid that something might happen to me. Family members or friends, they are much more afraid. I sometimes had like this impression for them it's much more, you know, the feeling of danger is much more imminent and bigger to them than to me who is actually there on the spot. Do you kind of have the same experience with your family members, your mother or friends of yours.

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Sometimes I have this experience when I was abroad, when you see some news about or missile strike in the city or etcetera, and it automatically feels for you that it was missile strike on the whole city, not on a particular object somewhere far away. And then you feel Jesus, this is so bad, this so bad that I'm abroad, I want to be And the same sometimes happens with mother, she's like right now in Odessa, and father And every time when she is waking up and seeing in the news, and during the night there was a missile strike or drones is flying, she's like, are you all right? Are the drones like was far away? Are you sure that it was faraway? So of course, I'm actually, she is worrying. But also I'm worrying too, because when like my parents working for government and they working in the center of Odessa and when sometimes they see the. Reports from Odessa that missile strike has happened near the places when I knew that my parents' work of course I'm trying to call them immediately to understand if they're all right or not because you never know what can happen and it's really like bad feeling especially with understanding. All right now it's sirens again, starts.

Luzia Tschirky: Would you like to check whether kind of attack it is and whether you need to take?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Actually we got really proficient stuff in the telegram channels and in general in the social media every time they write in what's going on. This is right now lightning on dergachi lightning is the small variant of the russian drone it's a small drone with some kind of explosive not fpv something bigger but this can fly 20 kilometers or 30 it's going fast like lightning so they call this like that this yeah and right now it's going on the city it's gone under dergachy on the ct and probably it usually hits saltivka so for now it' s okay. You're not living in saltivk? No the center and everything around to be honest is pretty bombed already so i'm not sure seriously no really even i have few balconies and every balcony have this wooden panel. Only like right now after three years of this full-scale invasion some people came and start to Calculate everything just to check the windows because yeah like I can see from the balcony totally destroyed building And yeah, this is everything in the center

Luzia Tschirky: What would you say, how did the war and your experience so close to the frontline shape you as a person and as a photographer?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: For sure, it sounds strange, but it grows me up as we used to talk before. But at the same time, I'm not sure that I'm as happy as before after seeing a lot of things. I'm really scared to lose this light in the eyes, you know. When sometimes you're looking in the mirror and you realize that... This is your best years of the life, there should be. And you already look so tired and you're not sure sometimes are you doing this right? Are you wasting your young years or no? And yeah, it's just hard to realize if you need to do this, if you're need to this frontline and documentary photography or it's better to leave, like all the time I'm staying here in the memory of our dead friends or in the memories of. Family or just because it's not so many people who can cover the war right now unfortunately and yeah as photographer of course I realized how I grow up so fast in four years but at the same time I really would love to film some beauty I really would like to film more good things I never used to film weddings for example I used to film a lot of massacres funerals etc but I never filmed waiting. Even though Half a year ago, first time in my life, I filmed the birth of the child in a Kharkiv hospital and it was really beautiful. That was really beautiful when the mother having child who was only newborn, her husband who is military, who didn't see her for a few months is kissing her and it's newborn child. It's really beautiful It's here really beautiful how life starts not how it ends. That's why sometimes I offer my friends in car gift, do some fashion photo session. Just to just to take stress off and doesn't feel that your camera is a tense thing because when you're already holding your camera you realized it instrument with which you are doing important things because when your pictures start to be or important or you start them doing just not for yourself you're starting to do them for the world you realize the weight of responsibility of the camera and it doesn't feel like a joy anymore it feels like a hard job and when i see sometimes people with cameras in the park filming each other, smiling and playing on the camera. I wish to do the same. I really wish to film like that one day. So yeah.

Luzia Tschirky: What gives you strength to carry on your difficult job?

Nikoletta Stoyanova: I guess friends, parents and in general understanding that already I give those three years, whole three years for such job, maybe not just for nothing. If for example I did this podcast with you, if I won some grants, if already doing some stuff for getting images as for biggest global photobank, maybe I'm doing something right. And understanding sometimes that... Their picture is really important. I need to every time remember to myself about that because I can struggle and sometimes, I cannot be ashamed of myself that I'm not enough or something like that. I'm just like looking at the past steps which I did and I realized that I need to do more. I needed to realize that there's so many people whose stories isn't told. With stories you need to tell to the world and I really want to explain every loss in the family, every separated family, every destruction or every piece of joy during this war because it's really important. It's truly how life goes on here, it's how we're living in this broken matrix like... Two weeks ago, the whole week was really crazy, especially during the night, because Russians were sharing the city with Shahids and ballistics. So we cannot sleep for a few hours per night, so you're waking up at 1 because of ballistic, you're falling asleep. You're waking at 3 because Shahid is like zzzzzz and you realize that it's somewhere here and you're going to the bathroom like Jesus. And you cannot sleep till the 5. And you're wakening up so broken... But you see how people is like driving cool cars, going to have matcha in the coffee shop, walking their dogs, like, and life is going on and you're like, oh, okay. Some friends invite you to the party on the Friday and you like, what the hell is party? They're like rave, again, raves, it's spring. I'm like, which raves? They're, like yeah, we have raves here. Come on, I'm, like okay. It's really crazy here. We can see our friends, old years already in uniform, having coffee in the morning and they already like going to the frontline. And in the evening, they already turned back for a cup of tea or whatever. Workday is ended up, so I did my stuff. I killed some Russians as you see. I'm like... So yeah, it's crazy to live like that. It's so controversial. So controversial.

Luzia Tschirky: Thank you so much for being my guest today, Nicoleta Stoyanova, and thank you so much for sharing the stories of so many Ukrainians. I'm absolutely 100% sure that you're doing a very important job. And I'm very sure that whenever you take a picture of a wedding, that the couple you're taking a picture off can be very happy to have such a brilliant photographer who is taking the wedding pictures. Thank you.

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Thank you so much Lucy and thank you for inviting and thank you for supporting us. It's really important really. Thank you for spending time with me and let's tell the stories about Ukrainians together.

Luzia Tschirky: Let's do this! I think.

Nikoletta Stoyanova: Warmest hugs to you, Lucy.