Second Trip
The day after I returned to Moscow, Lyosha, who helped me with money and fundraising, called me and said that he had someone who would give me 300,000 rubles for my next trip. There was no question I'd refuse such an offer.
I never found out who the man was - he was reluctant to talk to me in person. When questioned, Lyosha remained infuriatingly evasive.
My blog, e-mail, and social media continued to be flooded with messages offering help. I didn't have time to respond to them all. The flat started resembling a warehouse again. My correspondents didn't know me - they'd never seen me. They had just read my posts online and that had been enough to bring the war home to them. It had gone from being some sort of remote, intangible conflict, to a palpable struggle on their doorstep.
One girl, who donated children's clothes, was standing awkwardly, looking shy in the corridor. Finally, she plucked up the courage to look into my face and asked: “Can I give you a hug?” And she hugged me. And then she ran away.
We returned to Ukraine just before New Year's Eve. Two others came along - my childhood friend Ruben and Sasha's girlfriend Oksana who came from Gurzuf in the Crimea.
During this trip, we managed to get to Pervomaisk, which is still (as of January 2015, author's note) surrounded. Pervomaisk is a town I would come to know painfully well. Every time I went there, I'd see more and more destruction, new victims. People would recognise me in the street, guys from the commandant's office became my friends.
It was on that trip that I met Yevgeny Ishchenko for the first and last time. This is the man who took over management of the city when everyone else fled. Now that it's quiet, many have returning. And all those who had quit Pervomaisk - the city councillors - returned to their offices and once it got quieter they unleashed a reign of retrospective recriminations. But I remember Pervomaisk under siege, when the OSCE was afraid to drive through the streets.
The town was empty - there was no one there. Only Yevgeny and his men were trying to do something.