Ukranian Experiences Today

Video Transcript

I feel like when everything started, like the revolution was over and the war–let's call it "war"–started, people were very patriotic. I think 95% were like, "Oh my gosh, we have to fight!" but the longer it procrastinated the longer we see that the world community, European countries, they're not supporting us, they're not helping us. It's like everybody turned their backs on us. The more the patriotic feeling was going down, down, down... especially the older generation, like my parents, and my generation, they feel like they're giving up. Why am I thinking that? Because more and more when I'm reaching out to my friends from, I say, "my past life," they're emigrating. They're going to other countries looking for another job, they're looking for some other opportunity to escape Ukraine, which is painful. But they're like, "Hey, it's a mess here. I found a job in a hotel in Arab Emirates–a very popular place, and very easy to get in–so, I'm working there right now." Or the second most popular place is Poland. To go to Poland. People are giving up their jobs, like nurse or doctor, and going to Poland to, I don't know, bake croissants. It's like, I see that the patriotism is going down, down. They're like, "I don't know when am I going to win this war, how it's going to end. At this point, it's a huge crisis." And people feel like, we're tired of fighting, we're tired of struggling. Also, this joking way, my generation, we're tired of living in a time of historic events; the Soviet Union fell down, the 90s, which were very hard, our parents struggled, then another revolution, then another revolution. We're constantly living in a historic event. Crisis after crisis, another huge crisis came, and we're like, "God, when's it going to stop, when am I going to just have a happy life. Why does my generation have to live through all of these historic events." Like, "Done!" So patriotism is definitely feeling like it's going down.

A Ukrainian national discusses frustrations among the generation that came of age during the Maidan Revolution.