A mural in Berlin in support of Ukraine "NEVER AGAIN?"

Berlin, 2022. A collaboration between one Berlin-based artist Fabifa and three Ukrainian artists Somari, Olga Sabadin, Ann Stativa to share their feelings about russia's invasion of Ukraine. The sketch of the left wall is by Fabifa, the right one by me. Two walls 21 and 18 meters high were made in 6 days. The mural had a website where the stories of the artists are written and there are links to donate to Ukraine. 

Description of my wall

This mural is the quintessence of my feelings about the war. It shows my parents' house in Sievierodonetsk, where I grew up, burnt down. A rocket is flying towards it from the east. My parents weren't there at the time, they had managed to escape a few days before. The town was bombed very heavily. From the first day on, there was no heating. On the 10th day, all the windows were broken and the water from the tap was gone. On the 13th day, they managed to get out of the city. My father has cardiac disease, and I don't know how he miraculously made it, but when my parents arrived at a more or less safe place, he wrote to me, "I don't have the strength to keep on going, we will stay here". Reading this scared me very much.

The hand indicates the direction to the east for a russian warship depicted as a kremlin. This is a reference to the recorded conversation and the reaction of Ukrainian border guards to the proposal of the russian warship to surrender during the attack on Zmeinyj Island. The border guards did not give up, but advised the russian ship to leave from where it came from, after which communication with them disappeared. Later it became known that the border guards were in Russian captivity. The ship is sinking and this prediction has already come true and the moscow ship sank.

At the base is a symbol of resistance of the Ukrainian people - an anti-tank “hedgehog''. On the third day of the war, my artist friends, who always only painted, went to weld these hedgehogs from metal profiles as volunteers. Other friends of mine went to make Molotov cocktails, the recipe of which is now officially published on the Facebook of the MVS of Ukraine.

My character Ptichka, which became a symbol of the struggle for justice in Ukraine, also watches everything from above. This character symbolizes my alter ego, the determined and angry part of me.

Volunteer help

On the second day of painting the mural, we realized that it was impossible to finish it on time and called for help on social networks. We were shocked by the response, a lot of helpers came. Someone was just bringing food or coffee. Ukrainians passing by heard our speech and came to get acquainted. While we worked, we met a lot of cool people and received so much help that in recent days we did not know what to entrust to anyone.

It was very touching. Most of the time I was depressed, but in those moments when I saw all these people working for many hours, with a smile, without words understood what to do, anticipated requests, tried very hard, most were like us and just came from the war, but all worked as a perfect mechanism. A real miracle!