EP.2: How to organize a music festival amidst an ongoing war with Vlad Yaremchuk

Luzia: Welcome to the podcast, Yak Ty? Ukraine Live. "Yak Ty" means in Ukrainian "how are you?". I am your host, Luzia Tschirky, a former correspondent reporting from Ukraine, now a book author and a freelancer. In this podcast, I'm always talking with a guest live from Ukraine. The goal of this podcast is to give people in Ukraine a voice and an opportunity to talk about their experience of Russia's war against its neighboring country. I am more than delighted to welcome today's guest on the show: Vlad Yaremchuk. Vlad Yaremchuk is the programming director of Atlas Festival, the biggest music festival in Ukraine, which attracted more than 600 000 visitors in 2021. He lives in a capital city in Kyiv, where he organized the Atlas Festival this summer. Amidst the ongoing war. Hi Vlad.

Vlad: Thank you for having me.

Luzia: I'm always starting this podcast with a question. How are you? Right now, how you?

Vlad: I guess... I would reply with a classic Ukrainian, I'm fine, that has so much more behind it than usual. But considering the circumstances, I really am. It's been a tough couple of weeks here, the last couple of days have been a bit easier. well, we just had the drones attack Kyiv this night, so I still didn't sleep well, but at least no explosions in Kyiv, so that's good.

Luzia: Is it difficult for you personally to talk about how you are when people ask you how you are? it difficult for you to talk about it?

Vlad: No, no, not really. For me, it's a bit liberating even when I get to talk about it to people outside of Ukraine. In Ukraine, you... I mean, no, we discuss it and we support each other but these conversations feel a little bit hollow because we all experience the same thing and it's nothing surprising but at the same time it's such an extreme shocking experience and when you actually get a normal reaction to talking about drones and explosions which is some kind of shock or lack of understanding that's... That feels good for your brain because you remind yourself that this reality we are living in is not normal.

Luzia: You are the programming director of the Atlas Festival. Can you briefly describe to someone who is not into the music industry what a programming director is responsible for?

Vlad: Basically, when I started with Atlas full -time, I was a booking manager. So that meant I was responsible for negotiations with the agents to book the artists for the festival. I was mainly responsible for international acts and there was a different person booking the local acts but now I'm the programming director so that's a bit more than that. I also oversee the formation of the lineup in general so sort of shaping the whole thing how the lineup should be, what are we lacking, how it should look so it's a bit more than just booking the artists it's also overseeing the process of creation of the lineup in general.

Luzia: So that involves, I assume that involves a lot of you know, knowing what makes Atlas Festival special. So what would you say, what makes it special, Atlas Festival, what makes it unique?

Vlad: Well, the reply would be I guess different depending when we're talking about it. So Atlas before, well, it was the biggest in the country and it was a very big diverse festival. One of its upsides, I would say that sort of as a very general music lover, can come there and you can find all the popular acts that you know that you want to hear. All of them are there. If you are an underground music lover who's really picky about what you want to listen to or you cherish the international artists a little bit more, you would also have a great time. It was so big and so diverse that no matter what kind of person you are, you just can come there and have a good time.

Luzia: You already mentioned that the festival changed enormously. When you organized it this year. How actually did this idea come up to organize like the festival amidst the war? How did it come up?

Vlad: So the last time we did it was 2021, which was amidst COVID. And that was also a very special one because we did it very much amidst the pandemic still. And that was a decision we made. We were lucky to have a chance to organize it then. We got the green light from the government despite COVID still very much being a problem. Not many festivals in Europe happened that year or they happened in much smaller formats. And luckily enough, I would say that that festival in 2021, it secured our future because if we didn't do it, that would mean that last Atlas that happened would be 2019. And right now we are in 2024. That means a five -year pause and by that time I think we would have just stopped as a company and as a business. In the beginning of the full -scale invasion we didn't expect to make a festival at all all the way until peace is restored but then we saw that even in the first summer of 2022 concerts and events started coming back in very weird formats but however it was possible they were being made. And we've just been closely following. We were not the first festival to happen during the full -scale invasion, but we've been the biggest this year. And so it just took us this time to see how others are doing it, how we can make it safe, where do we make it. And this year it was sort of a puzzle coming together. So first and foremost, we found a location in Kyiv which is the biggest shelter in the entire country. It's an underground parking of one of Kyiv's malls called Blockbuster. And we saw that shelter and we thought to ourselves, okay, this shelter is huge. It has multiple entrances. And that means that we can really quickly evacuate a lot of people more so than anywhere else in the country. And that meant to us that we can do this relatively safe. And then the other question was: Can we make it useful? How do we make this festival so that it's helpful? And we set ourselves a goal to raise for the military, to raise for the country's defense. We set ourselves a goal of 100 million hryvnias, which is about 2.3 million euros. And so these were the two main driving forces. First was to make it in a safe way. And this venue was that for us. It was like, OK, this means we can do it in Kyiv. And then we want to raise a lot of money with this and help the country. And obviously on the side, it gives our team a chance to come back together and work. It gives chance for the artists to perform, for everyone else to just catch a break and relive that festival spirit again, which was taken from us.

Luzia: And what was for you personally, like the main motivation, you know, to organize a festival this year for you personally?

Vlad: It was... It was sort of the challenge of it. It felt important to bring it back. At this point it's really obvious that this war is not going anywhere anytime soon. Or maybe if it does, it's not something we should expect and we certainly can't predict it. So it was a challenge to bring it back but also to adapt it to this reality we are living in. It wasn't a... We were not trying to create an opportunity for people to escape. Yes, it's a chance to rest, to enjoy music, to come together and unite. But at the same time, this festival was full of war still. In the NGO area, we had the recruitment tents of the military where they would teach you to tactical medicine or teach you something about the drones or tell you about your possibilities in terms of joining the army, signing the contracts. In between every performance we had auctions with militaries, selling of some trophies, artists selling physical and not physical things. 15 % from every ticket was an automatic donation to our main fundraiser. So it was a very different festival in that regard. We tried to implement fundraising in absolutely every moment and spot that we could. You we just tried to make it useful. was this weird trying to preserve a feeling of a festival, but at the same time, it had to correspond with the time and the situation we are living in.

Luzia: You mentioned that for you, the motivation was also that it is a huge challenge. What was the biggest challenge of organizing a festival in a war zone actually for you personally?

Vlad: All of it. Honestly, mean taking responsibility for that, for the whole team to just set out and do this festival is a big responsibility. No matter how much we prepare, how much we think we are doing it right, you never know until you do it. So when we only set out the idea for me, honestly, I was incredibly anxious for me. I was so worried that it might be the wrong call, but then we started developing all the evacuation plans, looking at how we do this. Many, many problems on my side of the usual stuff that I do. Booking is difficult. Trying to get international artists to come is almost impossible. We've only had a couple of months to organize this and you don't make a festival like that in a couple of months. It takes at least a year. So artists were afraid to come, artists couldn't afford it logistically or they were already booked for all these dates. So that one was difficult. Getting a team together was also difficult. Some people are in the military, some people left Ukraine. So even getting a team together, we had so many new people who had to learn to do Atlas on the spot. And I don't think I had any industry experience also that I can ask for. One of the biggest other challenges that happened is that on the 8th of July, I believe, was one of the most massive bombings of Kyiv, the one that hit the Children's Cancer Hospital, Okhmatdyt. That was Monday before the festival, so the festival was supposed to start on Friday that week. We were all shocked, but we also needed to address this somehow. It felt unreal to do a festival on that week. Everyone was, you we were all shaking still. People were getting rubble out of the way on the streets. Parts of our team were helping these hospitals. We were partnering up with them before the bombing happened. So we were obviously trying our best to help them. And it was obvious for the next couple of days there will be grieving, there will be all the attention on fundraising for those who have suffered and helping them. And that means that we cannot communicate in maybe the most crucial period before the festival. And on that Monday we had to make a difficult choice to move the festival because it felt that we just can't make it this week. It will feel wrong. Yes, these bombings happen all the time, but this one was different and we were planning to move it by one week or by two weeks, so we had this conversation in the evening and then we started contacting all the artists and saying, you know, can you do it next week or can you do it in two weeks? We needed to move the entire festival by one week, which is... you just can't do that, that doesn't happen. And we were really worried that we will lose a lot of the key artists because obviously they have their tours. Some are playing in other cities, some are playing in other countries. And we just messaged the key acts first, hoping that we can at least keep them. But by the next morning we've had 70, 80 % of the lineup saying, let's, let's do it next week. Of course we understand. And that was the same that we've had from the sponsors and the staff. And by that time, it's not just the core team of 40, 50 people. It's thousands of people building the festival, basically living in the venue for the two weeks before the festival. Everything had to stop. But we were just shocked that basically the very next day we announced that we move it by one week. And we never expected that just to be possible. But it's not a testament to our work. It's just a testament to how everyone involved in this festival wanted to make it happen and understood what we are dealing with. So we moved it successfully and it happened the very next week and it's still difficult to process that that even happened.

Luzia: Did you ever feel when you were in such a situation that you need to make a decision, right? And your decision is crucial for safety of people, whether people are safe at your festival or not. Did you ever feel a little bit left alone because there is no one you can call who can share his or her experience with you because there is no other festival who has been like on the same scale in the same situation as you are. Did you ever feel kind of a little bit alone with a very heavy burden? How was it for you?

Vlad: I wouldn't say it was a burden but it was just that's an interesting feeling knowing that you're doing something that didn't really happen before like that and that as after the festival when I tried to tell festival colleagues that we moved the entire festival and about the evacuation and about the fundraising and in the end we did raise the 2 .3 million euros we finished two days after the festival the next Tuesday we hit our goal and that for them is also shocking so it's like it's it's so amazing and impressive what we all together managed to achieve but it's in some ways it's just as shocking as everything that's happening here, but the bad stuff as well. It's so bad, it's so extreme that you can't even explain it to people. Like, I will tell someone about everything that happened during the festival, but it doesn't quite register because it's so much and none of it makes sense. It's such an... It's too much. It's like talking about the drones hitting us every day and having blackouts. Most people didn't experience that and so... Even with a lot of empathy, it's still difficult to put oneself in these shoes and imagine how it was. And in this regard with the festival, we are so happy because we didn't even have irate alarms during the working hours of the festival. The alarms happened during the curfew, which is also one of the things we had to deal with. The festival ended at 10 p so that everyone can go home by midnight and then... In the morning, everyone needs to rush at 5 a to the festival when the curfew is over. And it's just, you know, it did happen. That's where we are. And I'm just trying to share it. And it was just such a good feeling that we brought it back.

Luzia: How is it actually possible? You know, it sounds like a miracle to me that it was possible to organize this. Amazing what you've done, you and your colleagues. How is it actually possible to find funding for a festival in these times. How do you guys manage that?

Vlad: We've been, this is, I would say, sort of one of our maybe superpowers of the festival. We've been really good dealing with sponsors even in previous years. We became one of the biggest platforms you can find in the country and that helped us win over sponsors because of the way the economy is in Ukraine, we couldn't charge people a lot for ticket prices. If you look at our lineups from the years before and look at the ticket price, if you compare it to Europe, it's lovable ticket prices. It was really cheap, but that was the price that people could afford. And if we put it up any higher, would align people and they would not just buy the ticket and we were predominantly working with a local audience, which luckily we had a lot of. we managed to grow to 600 ,000 people in 2021 by having 90, 95 % local people in Kyiv from Kyiv, but also from all of Ukraine. And this year we used that superpower to drive the donation and fundraising. instead of just you know, asking sponsors for money in exchange for really highlighting their brand. We were also asking them if you give us a 5 million hryvnias donation, we will do this, this and this. If you give us 10 million, we will do this, this and this. And this was quite a big chunk of the overall fundraising is that our sponsor packages, including that trade, you make an amazing donation for the military. And a lot of the conscious businesses that we worked with do that anyway. So for them, they were absolutely up for it and that helped. also we've just, we've shown ourselves to be capable and we've shown the intent behind this festival that we will make it safe. Not for all sponsors, it was an easy decision. Some pulled out because it felt for them to be something that's too risky, but still we've had more than enough to organize this and... It's again, we really appreciate the sponsors, the artists, the staff. This festival would have been impossible if someone was thinking of themselves or was thinking about the money. If everyone didn't put 200 % of themselves into it, we wouldn't have moved it. We wouldn't have organized it. So it's, we're just incredibly grateful to everyone involved.

Luzia: How do you manage like you mentioned like the logistic like for the bands, but how did you manage it at the festival? You know, the whole logistical supply chain for equipment, electricity, like other essentials you need for the festival. How did you guys do that?

Vlad: Well, for festivals, working with generators is not something new. So in that regard, it was nothing new. A lot of the stages are powered by generators anyway. The blackouts were a big problem in the preparations for the festival because in the months before the festival we've had really huge blackouts in Kyiv. At times you would have 2-4 hours of electricity during the sort of your usual wake-up hours. That would mean that in a team call you would always have someone that doesn't already have home internet because it goes down in 4-6 hours and the cell towers start to go down so someone can barely speak, the connection is really bad if they're in the wrong part of the city or something like that. It was just, it was a big nuisance to deal with, you just can't, you need to be working 24/7, but you don't have the electricity to enable that. Even with sort of power stations and eco flows, it was still really annoying. For the work of the festival itself, it was fine. The blackouts were not a big issue because it's mainly based on generators anyway. But you know, with all the logistics and the rental stuff, it's something I've been mentioning to sort of industry colleagues a lot. We have incredible tech and rental here in Ukraine. I would say absolutely world-class. What they can build, do, the conditions they can work with and the money they ask for that is absolutely unparalleled in the European market. Some of these companies left sort of to Poland and other countries. Some of them are still here. So, and one of the good things from the festival happening is that we could just get our team back and pay them for a couple of months. We could give all those people jobs. This festival just gave a lot of people a lot of opportunities, which is great.

Luzia: Talking a little bit more into detail about security: How was it for you actually to announce the place that the festival is going to happen before? Were you worried that it might be attracted, that the place could be attacked, that the Russian army would actually choose such a place to attack just because there are many people in one place? Have you been worried about that before?

Vlad: I was still worried in a way because you never know and if Russians really did want to do something like that, they have ways of doing it that we cannot prepare for. You know, if they would think let's throw 20 ballistic plus Kinzhal missiles or something like that straight into that festival. You know, with the evacuation that we've had, we've planned it to be really quick. I mean, even if that attack that happened in Okhmatdyt on Monday before the festival. If that happened during the festival, I'm fairly confident that we would have evacuated everyone in time. have, for most of the Russian attacks in Kyiv, we have quite a lot of time to prepare. The difficult, one of the difficult things was also that people in Kyiv just don't react to sirens that much at the events. For some people you actually... We had to make a decision where we would be forcing people either to come into shelter or if they disagree we just have to get them out of the festival territory because we can't take responsibility for them if they don't go. Because with smaller events you could see people sort of just hanging by, yes the sound may stop but for some people it's too much. They won't go anywhere until they hear an explosion. This is not something we could risk here. So the plan was that we will very quickly, you know, that was so much communications wise, navigation wise, rehearsing evacuations. A lot of effort was put into being ready for that. But with the reality that we have here, you can't be, you can't be fully prepared. There is always that risk and it's not going to go away no matter how much air defense we have. Until the war ends, there is a degree of risk and responsibility that we are taking and I don't think it will become less in a year or in two if the war is still going on. So it's, there is sadly an element of a gamble, but we, we felt like we've done a really good job and we've been responsible enough. So there was this whole evacuation plan in place, all the routes, all the volunteers and security knowing what they will do, who goes where, how to get from every stage, because there are stages outside, there are stages inside the mall. We even had a stage in the parking lot itself. That was the single stage that wouldn't stop if there is an air raid alarm. And to be honest, that was one of the things. that reassured me because like I've said some people just don't go to shelter even if you ask them but I guess when we told them that you know if there is an air raid alarm and you go to shelter you will still there were bars and there was still music happening there that sounds like a good deal if if your own safety is not enough for you well we still have music there so you know we've we've tried our best and I feel like we've succeeded but like I've said also it's, you know, we can't get it as safe as a regular festival in Europe. Simply impossible.

Luzia: To people who are luckily, you know, living in a different reality, who are not living in a situation where you have like air rates and where you need to go to shelters. How would you explain what are the reasons for people like not to go into shelters anymore until, you know, you mentioned it before, until there is an explosion close by. What will you say to people asking you this? Why are people not going to shelters as much as they did two years ago, for example?

Vlad: In one way, the fact that our brains and bodies can adapt to what feels like almost anything is a fascinating thing in a good way. People here are used to the war and the stress. If they were not, I think in six months we would have all ran away from the country, backed to stop the war on any conditions just for the sake of stopping it, mentally completely disassembled ourselves. But that didn't happen, as you can see. Everyone is incredibly exhausted. It's been so long and we've got used to it. But the side effect of it as well that the explosions and the air raid alarms, once you've heard hundreds of them, you don't react to them in the same way. It goes against your common sense and against your survivor instinct, but sometimes there are so many of these alarms that if you would react to every single one of them by going into a shelter, this country wouldn't function anymore. the places wouldn't work, you would just spend most of your time in shelter and you can't really keep living life like that. there are very human factors in it as well. Sometimes Kyiv catches a break and there can be a very chill month relatively and then the bombing would come and almost no one would go to shelter for that one but then it appears to be a very big bombing. Say Russians renewed the attacks on energy again and everyone gets shocked by one attack. That's kind of what happened on July 8th feel like. That attack really took people by surprise by how much damage Russia can still do even in Kyiv despite the ever-growing amount of air defense. And so most of the alarms for the next two weeks you would see people absolutely run to shelters because they just experienced a very big stress. They heard explosions, people died, but then it goes down a bit again and you're like I want to sleep. I didn't want to go to shelter. If it kills me, it kills me. Then it has to be. And these, these odds of dying in Kyiv are also very weird. I mean, we are talking about Kyiv, but there are people living in Kharkiv. And they just sometimes they have alarms that go on for 36 hours. And those people live there for two and a half years. You can't expect them at some point you just get used to it and you accept the odds that you might die. Simple as that. You can't explain it with common sense but at the same time somehow we have to live and you get used to things and you get tired of things.

Luzia: You have like the impression that you know like music and festivals can play a role you know into I don't know giving people resilience and hope in these times. What you think? What is the role of music and festivals in these times?

Vlad: It absolutely you know it's, it's not a business anymore, no one's making big money on concerts and festivals. If someone wanted to make money, God, you can find so many other better and easier ways than having to create a concert with having a shelter near a venue, having a generator, having to evacuate and stop events if there is an aerate alarm, and then continuing or having the concert not happen because an alarm just came at the wrong time. But it's... It serves an incredible purpose. It unites people. This is not our first war against Russia. We've been suffering from their imperial ambitions for hundreds of years now. And all of a sudden people now rediscover songs like "Oi u luzi chervona kalyna", and other songs, and all these songs that generations of Ukrainians were singing before us. Doing the same thing, protecting their independence and right to exist. And now all these songs make so much sense, you listen to them, people sing them at concerts in the underground, you would see a lot of videos of people singing, because what else would you do? And you just feel such a strong connections to the generations that came before. It's something really empowering, it's really... It's about life, it's about living and it's about surviving. It's a big fuck you to Russia is what it is. It's that we are here, we are together and we are singing. And you know, no matter what you do to us and no matter what you bomb, the bombing and everything, we continue on. There are rare concerts happening in Kharkiv, in the underground or in shelter sort of venues. The Music Saves Ukraine team, which I'm a part of, did a little one-day free festival in Zaporizhzhia in a shelter and gave a chance to 600 people to listen to music, to listen to lectures, to just be in this space and to feel like the rest of the country cares about them. in Kyiv, life is normal, if you can call it that under these circumstances, because we are bit more protected and we just physically are more further from Russia. But how can we say that people in Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv don't deserve the same as we do? They deserve more, if you ask me. It's just a question of how much we can bring them. But those people that live there and stay there, they deserve everything that people deserve here and everything that people have in Europe. Living a peaceful life and going to concerts and seeing their friends and being there together. So music unites us, gives us that resilience. It helps process emotions. There are so many emotions that people can't vent. You can't put it into words. You can't speak about it. But for some people, listening to music or performing music or creating music is one of the only ways how they can process the absolute craziness that's going inside of them. And so it helps with that. And then it's such a major force for fundraising as well. You know, there was no concert where a percentage of tickets, but goes to the army or to medicine or to humanitarian help. You know, on a, on so many levels, music does so much to us. And when you think about it, it's not surprising at all. That's, that's always been a thing through history.

Luzia: Did you have the impression during the festival this year that the atmosphere was different than during other years? Had you had the experience for the audience, for all the people attending, was it a different atmosphere than in the years before?

Vlad: It is. It's a lot of contrasts. Since, like I've said, we've had performances and then in between the performances you would have the auctions all the time. You would have the NGO alley and at that NGO alley, one island would be, you know, recruitment tents from army brigades, learning how to do tactical medicine, learning how to use tourniquets, these kinds of things. So it's, it was this weird mishmash of trying to preserve what we remember festivals to be, but at the same time, doing them in this responsible way that corresponds with the time. Every performance every artist was saying something from the stage everyone would mention you know the defenders of Azovstal and the other POWs that we still have in Russia and talking about you know it's. There wouldn't be a.. You can't forget yourself at that festival for a moment, but not fully it's, at the same time, it gives you a chance to catch a break because it's music and it's people being together and united. But then at the same time, it was a platform for fundraising and platform for saying important things and reminding each other. Why is it even possible that we are there? It's everyone there understood that the fact that they are at that festival and that it exists in the country called Ukraine. People died for that. And that was always there and of course that always gives you a different energy but still in a good way.

Luzia: Has there been a moment when you yourself felt like proud of yourself and of the whole team that you were able to do it? Was there like a moment of pride during the festival for yourself?

Vlad: Yeah, a couple even. My little personal win was that I did manage to bring an international artist. A rather big one. It was Sharon den Adel from Within Temptation who've been incredibly supportive of Ukraine ever since the full-scale invasion started. And, you know, we were doing these international TV marathons in the beginning of the full-scale invasion and they helped us with that. No questions asked. Sharon came earlier thanks to the efforts of Music Saves Ukraine to shoot a music video in Kyiv. And then I asked them if they are ready to come play at the festival and they said yes. And even despite having to move the festival by one week, they still came. And it was a very special performance because the whole band couldn't come, so just Sharon came. And the idea was that we will rearrange their music for an orchestral format and she would perform on stage with an orchestra and a choir. And when we were discussing that, I had no idea what it takes to arrange something like that even in normal circumstances. Because someone had to arrange this, then there need to be rehearsals and then everyone is spread between a couple of countries. There were a lot of difficulties arranging that performance. It was falling apart until the very moment that it finally started happening on stage. But in that moment seeing Sharon and this incredible music but in this orchestral environment sounding absolutely surreal knowing where, how and when it is happening. It was always the proudness that we've had was always side to side with gratitude that everyone together with us made it happen. And gratitude, of course, to the armed forces that we could even do it and that we still have the pleasure of living in a free country where we can do a festival even if there are bombs raining on us. And then hitting the fundraiser goal, of course. For me, it was a very special moment because I was with Sharon already at the railway station. They were leaving Ukraine after the performance. And as they were going into a train, which was a very unusual one, it was Kyiv, Paris. And actually, no, it was a Kyiv-Chełm train, but it was taking the Ukrainian Olympic team to their flights to Paris. So there were Olympic rings and the teams and Sharon apparently is on the same train. And then I was saying, you know, we've almost hit the 100 million and then we did hit it. And we were already speaking through the train's window and I was showing her our Instagram post where it was their song on the video where we are showing that we've hit that target. So it was this very emotional, all these things coming together. We are saying goodbye to them. We've collected the money. It was a very, it was a great moment. And now is also, you know, we've raised the money and what we've done with it is that we fundraised for United 24. And it all goes towards drones and the new robots that Zelensky presented before the festival, which helped with evacuating people. Basically, you know, we are trying to switch out people for robots so that less people die and we are helping them raise for that. But half of the money was up to us which exact brigades we would be helping. So what we did is we gave every artist a little percentage of what we will raise and ask them who do you want us to donate to because every artist has their own friends in some brigades or they just help some particular brigades become sort of ambassadors for them so to, to inspire everyone to raise even more money. And artists helped us immensely. Every artist brought their own lots to the auctions. They reposted it. They asked people to donate. We said, you know, the more we raise together, the more you will be able together with us to donate to people that you want to donate to. And what's happening now for the next couple of months is that we are delivering that help to all of these brigades all over the country. And they all record videos saying thank you to the artists and to the festival and it just makes our days a little bit better. There are so many of these videos coming from all parts of the frontline and it's a very rewarding feeling. In Ukraine nothing makes you feel better than knowing that you're helping the soldiers on the frontline to save this country and keep us alive.

Luzia: You're a person who is connected to music on so many different levels. Would you say that during the war, for you personally, your connection to music changed in a way? Is music now something different for you than it was before Russia's full -scale invasion?

Vlad: Yes and no. For me, before music became my career and the job, which is something I never actually planned it just happened to me because I always was around music and when you do that with any hobby really it sort of drags you in even if you don't want that if you spend enough time with something and you passionately love it you can't escape it in the end so you know music was always a big part of my life just not not doing something just listening to it just discovering it. One of the scariest things in the beginning of the full -scale invasion, which happened to almost everyone, is that they couldn't listen to music anymore. For different amounts of time for everyone, some people couldn't listen to it for a couple of weeks, some for a couple of months, some still have trouble listening to music. For me, that was... That was a signifier of how bad things are. Like it was all so shocking and everything was happening so quickly that you can't even realize just the severity of it. But then to realize that I can't listen to music, which is for me is as natural as breathing. That really scared me. In the beginning of the war, I, with a couple of friends, was putting together a project called Together with Ukraine, which is a music compilation, which was raising money as well. And I couldn't even listen to what we were putting together. We released it in the beginning of March. I could only actually properly listen to it in April when I was slowly coming back to music. And so that was really scary. But now because of Atlas, because of Music Saves Ukraine and what we do at Music Saves Ukraine, it's... Music can achieve so much. It, it saves people's souls here, it raises money, it keeps the connections going, it's a tool, it's something that I breathe, it's all these many things, but you know, when I was doing together with Ukraine, every day that I'm working with Music Saves Ukraine and we are raising money with the help of music, when we did Atlas, in all those cases it was, you know, I spent so much time listening to music, I'm really passionate about it. But ever since the full -scale invasion, I see how much music can give back and how much music community can be there for you when you really need it. Because all my life I was like giving myself to music because I love it so much. And then when I and everyone here really needed it, people showed up and the music community showed up and it continues to show up. There are artists, even though they are rare, who are coming to Kyiv even if they are scared for their lives and they either have to fight with their loved ones or lie to them that they are not coming here because whenever they tell someone that I'm coming to Ukraine everyone freaks the hell out that they're going to die here and yet they do come and they do perform and all these European festivals that help us at Music Saves Ukraine to keep raising money and to keep telling people about the war and you know it's incredible what music is capable of. I know there are many other things and communities that can say about the same but it's just for my personal experience seeing how much music can really do.

Luzia: Thank you so much Vlad for being my guest today on the podcast and thank you so much for giving an insight you what it really means and how it feels living in Ukraine during Russia's full -scale invasion. I'm your host, Luzia Tschirky. We're going to be back in two weeks time. Thank you, Vlad.

Vlad: Thank you.