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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 house, reached by way of the gloomy communal hall.
Inside, the odor 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 scholar 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 magnificence 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 house the place Mira and Tanya stay – recognized affectionately as “FemApartment” by its residents – was initially meant to be a short lived house to 5 younger ladies. Now, nevertheless, it’s a refuge for the ladies – strangers to at least one one other till June final 12 months – for so long as they want.
The ladies have been pressured to flee from totally different elements of Ukraine – largely within the nation’s northeast – when the full-scale invasion by Russia started in February 2022. Unable to afford to hire a room in Lviv, they discovered themselves homeless, however by means of TikTok and different social media, they discovered a couple of shelter for ladies concerned in several types of group 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 battle 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. Except for taking good care of the hire at each locations, Feminist Workshop offers primary necessities like family and hygiene merchandise and a weekly meals basket. Each properties are supported by means of on-line fundraising and grants from different NGOs in Europe.
To qualify to stay at FemApartment, the ladies needed to have some expertise in activism and be prepared to volunteer to assist others additionally affected by the battle. These necessities, Katya says, are in step with the organisation’s ethos that feminism tackles a variety of social injustices.
On a day in late July, Tanya, carrying 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 scholar, joined them.
Expressive and outgoing, Tanya says that she and her flatmates practise “non-toxic residing” by guaranteeing that everybody’s private house 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 mean time. I ask in the event that they’re within the temper,” she defined.
These habits, Tanya pressured, are essential within the context of shared residing. She added that they “love” their obligation roster, which stipulates their cleansing duties for the communal areas. Cohabiting has been surprisingly straightforward, 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 severe conflicts,” Mira mentioned with fun. “We deal with each other nicely.”
The flatmates
Regardless of a number of the ladies having to share a room, the house 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 battle.
Shy and wearing an outsized shirt, together with her darkish hair pulled right into a ponytail, Veronika mentioned that the night time in June earlier than she left for Lviv, a missile struck her neighbourhood, destroying a faculty simply 30 metres (about 100 ft) from her home.
Behind their mattress is a photographic mural of the New York cityscape and fairy lights grasp over their shared dresser. “We attempt to stay as usually as we are able to, nevertheless it does really feel like we’re having a sleepover each night time,” smiled Veronika, referring to the relative lack of non-public house.
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 typically 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 residing with different college students from her Lviv college when the battle began however realised she had nowhere to go when the dormitory shut for the summer time in June, with a whole lot of uncertainty about whether or not it could reopen. Her dad and mom’ house within the wider Lviv area was “too far for me to go and stay” 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 for the reason that starting of the battle, together with translating for a staff of American medics who have been caring for injured individuals, and distributing humanitarian help alongside the Polish border.
However she has additionally discovered volunteering alternatives by means of a feminist initiative began by Yana, which Ivanka can also be a part of.
The initiative, Bilkis, works on academic initiatives to lift consciousness of points surrounding ladies’s rights comparable to home and sexual violence and likewise organises humanitarian help for ladies and LGBTQ individuals. By social media, together with on its Instagram account, Bilkis has additionally documented quite a few accounts of girls who’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted in Ukraine. In latest months, Bilkis has additionally participated in boards to debate the position of girls in rebuilding Ukraine after the battle.
Together with one other member of Bilkis, Ivanka has additionally created a zine centered on ladies and LGBTQ individuals engaged in group activism, which is supposed to function a device for individuals hoping to get their very own humanitarian initiatives off the bottom. In the meantime, Tanya has helped to provide academic supplies for Bilkis’ initiatives. “If not for this house, I’d by no means have heard of Bilkis, and change into so near them,” she mentioned of her flatmates.
‘Not only a shelter’
Mira feels equally impressed to study what the opposite ladies are engaged on.
She misplaced her job at a inventive company initially of the battle 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 shifting into FemApartment. “I’m actually completely satisfied that I got here to Lviv as a result of there are such a lot of inventive professionals right here who simply wish to do one thing good for society,” she mentioned, reducing into her fish. “And most significantly, I might be myself on this place – it’s not only a shelter, it’s the place I can study from different ladies and assist individuals round us, collectively.”
Within the early days of the battle, residing simply 10km (6.2 miles) away from the city of Bucha, the place no less than 458 civilians have been massacred in March, Mira might hear the incessant sound of gunfire from her house.
Mira, whose music is often centered on “combating misogyny” inside hip-hop and in Ukrainian society, stopped writing lyrics.
“How might I be writing songs when rockets have been killing individuals day-after-day?” 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 comparable to First Woman Olena Zelenska. Proceeds go in the 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 assist 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 in regards to the battle.
Reducing 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 probably 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 rapidly warms to any speak about her volunteering actions. Initially from Rubizhne, a metropolis within the Luhansk area of japanese Ukraine, she fled her house for the primary time in 2014 when the battle first broke on the market.
Over the subsequent seven years, she settled in Kharkiv, working as a nanny and babysitter. In March 2022, she was pressured to go away once more when the shelling started, finally discovering her method to Lviv the place she stayed in a faculty quickly housing many displaced individuals. “I solely had my pet rat with me – my greatest buddy 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 come back right here.”
A feminist household
Even so, Ivanka started volunteering with the battle effort on the very day she arrived, sorting humanitarian help and serving meals to the traumatised and dazed individuals arriving at Lviv railway station. Being busy assuaged a few of her preliminary loneliness in a metropolis the place she had no associates.
Ivanka believes that her rat was equally sad. Her pet died immediately one month after they arrived in Lviv, and left her feeling “alone on this world.”
However as we speak, she feels extra settled. Except for 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 kids, educating 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 kids with delinquent behaviour,” she mentioned.
She has discovered a substitute household at FemApartment and thru her wider volunteering. “At first it seems like there’s no one ready for you, and that no one actually wants or desires you right here,” she mentioned. “However you then realise that feminism is sort of a huge machine, it really works nicely when each lady decides to be one small a part of it.”
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