Inside a shelter dubbed ‘FemApartment’, residents help each other as they assist others affected by the Ukraine conflict.
Lviv, Ukraine – Boisterous feminine laughter emanated intermittently from the nook unit of a colorless, Soviet-style residential constructing. Sandals and a pink lamp sat on the entrance to the warmly-lit condo, reached through the gloomy communal hall.
Inside, the scent of baked fish wafted from the kitchen.
Twenty-three-year-old Mira Kapitan, a cheery copywriter and hip-hop artist initially from a suburb of Kyiv, had simply popped mackerel within the oven. Additionally within the kitchen was her flatmate Tanya Vynska, an 18-year-old political science pupil with dyed orange hair.
Over the previous few months, Mira, who arrived within the western Ukrainian metropolis of Lviv with only a small suitcase, has loved sharing garments and elegance suggestions with Tanya. “We each love attire,” she grinned, divulging how Tanya loaned her a gown for a date the opposite day.
The suburban Lviv condo the place Mira and Tanya reside – recognized affectionately as “FemApartment” by its residents – was initially meant to be a brief dwelling to 5 younger ladies. Now, nonetheless, it's a refuge for the ladies – strangers to 1 one other till June final 12 months – for so long as they want.
The ladies had been compelled to flee from completely different elements of Ukraine – principally within the nation’s northeast – when the full-scale invasion by Russia started in February 2022. Unable to afford to lease a room in Lviv, they discovered themselves homeless, however via TikTok and different social media, they realized a couple of shelter for ladies concerned in several types of neighborhood activism.
A house for activists
Katya Dovbnia is a coordinator at Feminist Workshop, a grassroots-led NGO that conducts seminars and different actions on social points regarding ladies, together with gender-based violence. When the conflict broke out, she secured non permanent housing in Lviv from non-public house owners for about 23 ladies and youngsters who misplaced their properties in February, and lodging for internally displaced ladies activists. Other than taking good care of the lease at each locations, Feminist Workshop gives fundamental necessities like family and hygiene merchandise and a weekly meals basket. Each properties are supported via on-line fundraising and grants from different NGOs in Europe.
To qualify to reside at FemApartment, the ladies needed to have some expertise in activism and be keen to volunteer to help others additionally affected by the conflict. These necessities, Katya says, are according to the organisation’s ethos that feminism tackles a variety of social injustices.
On a day in late July, Tanya, sporting a pale pink T-shirt and trousers, stood by the wall whereas Mira checked on the fish. Katya and Veronika Yuzepchuk, an 18-year-old movie pupil, joined them.
Expressive and outgoing, Tanya says that she and her flatmates practise “non-toxic dwelling” by making certain that everybody’s private area is revered. “All of us agreed that we’ll all the time ask permission to do issues if we’re in the identical room. For instance, simply because somebody is right here within the kitchen with me, doesn’t imply they really feel like speaking to me in the meanwhile. I ask in the event that they’re within the temper,” she defined.
These habits, Tanya confused, are vital within the context of shared dwelling. She added that they “love” their responsibility roster, which stipulates their cleansing duties for the communal areas. Cohabiting has been surprisingly simple, the three ladies agreed, regardless of their preliminary apprehension about sharing a flat with unfamiliar housemates.
“We’ve by no means had any arguments, no critical conflicts,” Mira mentioned with amusing. “We deal with each other nicely.”
The flatmates
Regardless of a number of the ladies having to share a room, the condo feels spacious. Tanya confirmed me the room the place she shares a double mattress with Veronika who's from Kharkiv, a metropolis within the northeast area of Ukraine that has been one of the closely attacked all through the conflict.
Shy and wearing an outsized shirt, together with her darkish hair pulled right into a ponytail, Veronika mentioned that the evening in June earlier than she left for Lviv, a missile struck her neighbourhood, destroying a faculty simply 30 metres (about 100 toes) from her home.
Behind their mattress is a photographic mural of the New York cityscape and fairy lights hold over their shared dresser. “We attempt to reside as usually as we are able to, but it surely does really feel like we’re having a sleepover each evening,” smiled Veronika, referring to the relative lack of private area.
Two doorways down is Mira’s room. She has a mattress whereas her roommate, Yana, who was out, usually sleeps on a mattress on the ground. “I play the ukulele right here generally if Yana doesn’t thoughts,” Mira mentioned, “and we simply hang around collectively right here, on the finish of the day.”
Ivanka Kutsenko, 29, a volunteer for the non-profit Lviv Vegan Kitchen, who was out delivering free plant-based meals by bike to individuals who can not afford meals, is the one lady in FemApartment together with her personal room.
Feminist initiatives
Tanya had been dwelling with different college students from her Lviv college when the conflict began however realised she had nowhere to go when the dormitory shut for the summer season in June, with quite a lot of uncertainty about whether or not it will reopen. Her dad and mom’ dwelling within the wider Lviv area was “too far for me to go and reside” with them, she mentioned. So she discovered a spot within the metropolis to remain for when college restarted.
Her proficiency in English meant that she was capable of finding loads of volunteering alternatives with worldwide NGOs which have flocked to Lviv because the starting of the conflict, together with translating for a group of American medics who had been caring for injured folks, and distributing humanitarian assist alongside the Polish border.
However she has additionally discovered volunteering alternatives via a feminist initiative began by Yana, which Ivanka can be a part of.
The initiative, Bilkis, works on academic tasks to lift consciousness of points surrounding ladies’s rights resembling home and sexual violence and in addition organises humanitarian help for ladies and LGBTQ folks. By way of social media, together with on its Instagram account, Bilkis has additionally documented quite a few accounts of ladies who've been sexually harassed or assaulted in Ukraine. In latest months, Bilkis has additionally participated in boards to debate the position of ladies in rebuilding Ukraine after the conflict.
Together with one other member of Bilkis, Ivanka has additionally created a zine centered on ladies and LGBTQ folks engaged in neighborhood activism, which is supposed to function a software for folks hoping to get their very own humanitarian tasks off the bottom. In the meantime, Tanya has helped to supply academic supplies for Bilkis’ tasks. “If not for this condo, I might by no means have heard of Bilkis, and grow to be so near them,” she mentioned of her flatmates.
‘Not only a shelter’
Mira feels equally impressed to be taught what the opposite ladies are engaged on.
She misplaced her job at a inventive company at the start of the conflict and felt that she was beginning “from zero” when she got here to Lviv.
However she says she’s now happier about being within the metropolis since transferring into FemApartment. “I’m actually comfortable that I got here to Lviv as a result of there are such a lot of inventive professionals right here who simply need to do one thing good for society,” she mentioned, reducing into her fish. “And most significantly, I could be myself on this place – it’s not only a shelter, it’s the place I can be taught from different ladies and assist folks round us, collectively.”
Within the early days of the conflict, dwelling simply 10km (6.2 miles) away from the city of Bucha, the place a minimum of 458 civilians had been massacred in March, Mira may hear the incessant sound of gunfire from her dwelling.
Mira, whose music is usually centered on “preventing misogyny” inside hip-hop and in Ukrainian society, stopped writing lyrics.
“How may I be writing songs when rockets had been killing folks on daily basis?” she asks.
In the identical month, she fled to western Ukraine the place she heard a couple of room at FemApartment. She discovered a job in Lviv copywriting at an organization that creates a variety of merchandise and NFTs that includes ladies leaders in Ukraine resembling First Girl Olena Zelenska. Proceeds go in direction of rebuilding faculties and universities destroyed by Russian forces. She has additionally began making music once more.
A pet rat
At 4pm that afternoon, Tanya left for her job on the second shelter opened by Feminist Workshop. She works on the shelter as one of many three managers, organising remedy and psychological help for its residents, managing any conflicts, and dealing with different on a regular basis duties such because the distribution of meals and different groceries.
Her flatmate Ivanka, additionally a volunteer on the shelter, was there and gave Tanya an enormous hug when she noticed her. That day it was quiet as the opposite managers had taken the ladies and youngsters out for a day journey to alleviate their anxieties concerning the conflict.
Chopping a diminutive determine, Ivanka has lengthy hair neatly parted into two braids, and a particular tattoo of barbed wire throughout her brow. Her flatmates say she is essentially the most beneficiant of all of them.
“Ivanka is all the time providing you an ice cream, or asking you if you wish to borrow her garments,” mentioned Mira.
Ivanka is barely extra reticent than Mira and Tanya however shortly warms to any speak about her volunteering actions. Initially from Rubizhne, a metropolis within the Luhansk area of japanese Ukraine, she fled her dwelling for the primary time in 2014 when the battle first broke on the market.
Over the following seven years, she settled in Kharkiv, working as a nanny and babysitter. In March 2022, she was compelled to go away once more when the shelling started, ultimately discovering her option to Lviv the place she stayed in a faculty briefly housing many displaced folks. “I solely had my pet rat with me – my greatest pal and solely household,” she rued. “In my first month right here, I used to be actually sad. I couldn’t assist however really feel prefer it hadn’t been my selection to return right here.”
A feminist household
Even so, Ivanka started volunteering with the conflict effort on the very day she arrived, sorting humanitarian assist and serving meals to the traumatised and dazed folks arriving at Lviv railway station. Being busy assuaged a few of her preliminary loneliness in a metropolis the place she had no buddies.
Ivanka believes that her rat was equally sad. Her pet died out of the blue one month after they arrived in Lviv, and left her feeling “alone on this world.”
However at present, she feels extra settled. Other than volunteering on the shelter, she cycles across the metropolis delivering free vegan meals to members of the Territorial Defence Forces and households in want. She cares for the shelter’s 9 displaced youngsters, instructing them to learn and write, taking them on walks when the climate permits, and giving them artwork classes. “Sooner or later, I want to work extra with youngsters with delinquent behaviour,” she mentioned.
She has discovered a substitute household at FemApartment and thru her wider volunteering. “At first it looks like there’s no one ready for you, and that no one actually wants or needs you right here,” she mentioned. “However then you definately realise that feminism is sort of a large machine, it really works nicely when each lady decides to be one small a part of it.”
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