Artist's statement:

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Our Kherson apartment is (or was - I don't know what tense to use when I write about it) situated on the first floor. All the windows and the balcony face the yard (I am going to use the present tense, because it hasn't gone anywhere yet, thank God), except for one bedroom on the south side of the house, and that window is also covered on the side by the neighbor's balcony. And the yard itself is cozy, because it is surrounded by ten-story buildings. Therefore, I considered our home quite safe. My calculation turned out to be correct, until now. The explosion, which happened a few meters from the end of the building, near the third block entrance, which is next to ours, did not damage our windows - even the blast wave did not break them. It happened when we were no longer there. I don't even remember approximately when it happened, what season it was. I really don’t even care now. What happened - happened. Everything happens in life. Remembering exactly when it happened, gives it more relevance it deserves. The fact that it just happened is enough. I'd rather remember good things. Actually, the memory does it itself, without my conscious intervention.

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So, no matter what happened on the outskirts of the city, I slept pretty well at home in Kherson. Especially since I had my own "seismic sensor" there. The thing is that after we moved into this apartment (it was in the early 90s), my father made a basement for all kinds of junk under our balconies facing the yard. He made the entrance to the basement by cutting a hatch in the balcony slab. The hatch looked like a door in the floor of the balcony. A metal door. And it rattled. So, when I was lying in my cozy bed, in my bedroom, the window of which leads onto a balcony with a hatch to the basement, could determine the range of explosions in the city and even further, according to the rattling of this basement hatch. The vibration from the explosion on the ground is transmitted to the foundation of my house. The foundation of my house transmits vibrations to the concrete slab of my balcony. And the plate on my balcony transmits the vibration to the rusty hatch of my parents' basement, and it rattles. If I hear the sound of an explosion, but the hatch does not rattle, there is nothing to fear. If the hatch rattles a little uncertainly, it means that the shelling is a few kilometers from us, but there is no need to worry. When the shelling is close - even without a hatch, you could feel that it was close.

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Most of the time, I fell asleep peacefully, to the gentle tremors of my seismic sensor. Night cannonades could not even wake me up. And if they did wake me up, then I, quickly convinced of the inviolability of my fortress, fell asleep again.

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So, when I was lying in almost complete silence in the Kyiv dormitory, I looked at the ceiling and could not fall asleep. I heard someone shuffling upstairs. Heard the rustling of my roommate as he rolled over to the other side. And only when I heard the howling of air-raid sirens, and after a while some explosions, for a moment I was transported home, six hundred kilometers south of the capital and peacefully I fell asleep.

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The photo shows that bed in a Kyiv dormitory.

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