The Cacophony of the Donbas (2018) Movie Script
With the support of Ukrainian State Film Agency
and the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.
This is not an abstract picture.
And not a star that went out.
This is our planet, the Earth.
The ground of the Donetsk Coal Basin has frozen through. This is Ukraine.
Donbas.
The Cacophony of Donbas
A film by Igor Minaev
It is the place where the most important Soviet myth
about the greatness of the working class was born.
The myth about the miners of Donbas.
"Enthusiasm" or "The Symphony of Donbas",
the film director Dzyga Vertov, 1930.
It is not a ritual dance of aborigines.
That is how Dzyga Vertov imagined miners
getting ready for their work in the mine face.
"Towards socialism".
A new person is more perfect than a machine. Especially in a team.
I, a strike worker of Snizhnyansky mine 9,
promise to give 28,000 tones
over the norm in the end of the year.
"The reality, as such, does not interest me",
declared Dzyga Vertov.
What interests him is the mechanical movement of the human masses.
"Long live shock work, hooray. "
This is the paradise of human masses.
Now these masses needed to have a face.
The historic night of 31 August 1935.
In 1935 the task for mining coal
was 7 tons per miner in one shift.
Oleksii Stakhanov surprised the world.
On 31 August 1935 he mined 102 tons in one shift.
Oleksii Stakhanov was chosen
by the party to embody the image
of the hero of the shock work and was placed on a pedestal.
"New people new technical standards. " Joseph Stalin.
The Stakhanovite movement started.
It spreads throughout the country.
The heros followers raise standards higher.
"The labour has glorified our country and time.
The native land of the road we stride.
Stakhanovs tribe is on the way to their goal.
The miners are going to fight for coal!
Stakhanovs tribe is on the way to their goal.
The miners are going to fight for coal!"
"Their names"
"were given"
"to the Soviet country"
"by Donbas"
This is not a foreign delegation
that came to see the legendary miners.
These are famous actors from Moscow,
Kyiv and Kharkiv
who arrived on the party's order to bring the intelligentsia
and the working class together.
The contrast in the styles of their clothing
was immediately noticed by vigilant Soviet propaganda.
The next time
when Stakhanov is triumphantly welcomed in Kharkiv,
he is dressed like everyone else. They bought him a suit.
For motherland.
Did Stakhanov know that his photograph would appear
on the cover of the American magazine "Time? "
Did anyone know that in reality there was no record,
that everything had been organized by propaganda,
that four people had worked on this so-called record,
and that the word stakhanovets
would enter dictionaries of the whole world?
Stalins favourite, Stakhanov, will move to Moscow,
and ultimately believe in his feat.
The symbol of Donbas miners' will lose his head of drunkenness
and rampage and will cause Khrushchev's rage
who will order him out of Moscow.
He will return home. To Donbas.
After his death his hometown "Kadiivka" will be renamed "Stakhanov. "
Never again will Stakhanov go down into the mine.
Even his relatives will despise him as a degraded drunkard.
However, Soviet propaganda will keep using his name
as a symbol of shock work.
He will die in a psychiatric hospital
taking the truth about his record to grave.
Happy and carefree life of miners as viewed by Soviet propaganda.
Waltz in the House of Culture for Miners.
In Chistyakovo in the Palace of Culture of the mine No 27
the graduates of the 10th form met old miners.
Flower beds in mines,
coal combines, daylight in mine faces, sanatoriums,
Palaces of Culture, like ours. You think that it cannot be otherwise!
We can see the canteen of the mine "Stokehole".
The canteen which looks more like a Greek temple.
Stuffed fish, various salads, pates and grilles chickens
appear like from the cornucopia.
Its not Chanel but smells no worse!
Accordion for the atmosphere.
Clothes to any taste.
And enough money for a beautiful life!
Today miners receive their salary.
"Coal is like gold: it shines and is valuable",
they say in Donbas.
The first salary of Ivan Kucherenko makes 1,500 rubles.
The salaries of old experienced miners like Shevelev,
Butenko, Kartuzov get up to 4-6 and even 7,000 rubles a month.
In the 50s the average salary of a worker in the country is 700 rubles.
A loaf of bread costs 1 ruble 20 kopeks
and a bottle of milk 2 rubles 40 kopeks.
Miners are interested in tweed for suits
and their wives prefer crepe de Chine, crepe - gorge and satin.
Dressmaking and tailoring establishment of "Stokehole".
Like ancient athletes they train in a gym with columns.
The new houses of "Stokehole", are being tenanted.
Soviet propaganda built the world where everything was available.
Mikhailo Ivanovich Morgunov, a coal mine worker of "Stokehole",
is having a busy day today.
Vova Morgunov is moving into a new house.
Lilya Fisun has already settled in a new place.
Her father, a coal mine worker of "Stokehole",
Vasyl Stepanovych Fisun and his wife
Mariya Kostyantynivna finish furnishing the flat.
Miners, their wives and children
watch the same program which continuously broadcasts "Swan Lake".
A magnificent industrial landscape.
Metallurgical plants and blast furnaces. This is Donbas.
Burning hell is at the bottom, happy life on the top.
Life is easy and fun. People fall in love, get married.
Dear friends, you enter a garden,
this garden is your love.
There are no flowers, fruits, berries in it yet.
It is eagerly waiting.
And whether this garden will blossom, depends on you,
on your generosity and work.
In the name of beautiful and high.
This is Family Day.
Even in the Soviet paradise everything begins with Adam and Eve.
However, here Adam turns down an apple and prefers a bottle of beer.
The Family Day is wonderful.
Look at peoples faces, there are so many smiles,
their eyes and smiles are full of kindness.
Since childhood girls get ready for the role of mother.
These newborn babies will see the innocent, pure, perfect world.
In this world miners come to work in white shirts
and ties. They drive "Volga", the most expensive car of that time.
These are cossacks of the mine "Novopavlovsk" in Donbas.
The speaker presents miners as heroes, as demigods.
They are known to the whole world.
It seems that they have no faults, except perhaps one.
Alcohol.
I started drinking at about 12.
Then I finished school and started to work.
First began to drink when paid an advance, then wages.
Then, the further, the more I began to drink.
And recently Ive started to drink daily.
Could not live without vodka.
Woke up with the only thought - to drink.
Used everything I could find at home to get a drink.
Fortunately, Soviet medicine has
the most modern and effective means.
To treat alcoholism
doctors try to combine rational psychotherapy,
hypnosis with medical therapy.
You are actively using the treatment methods
prescribed to you by the doctors.
You accept this therapy with delight.
You are positively determined
to create disgust towards alcohol.
It will give a good result, the reaction
will be stable and long-lasting.
You wont be able to drink alcohol
and will feel disgust towards it.
Without smelling it drink quickly in two gulps.
Do not put it off, everybody, raise the glasses
and quickly drink in two gulps.
Take some in your mouth. Gargle.
Hold it in your mouth, gargle!
Unpleasant, disgusting!
Please, take another sip.
It seems to be working!
Steel melters and miners are back to normal life.
Due to propaganda this lifestyle became a showcase of Donbas.
A happy, sunny and shiny window.
People went blind.
They believed it was real life.
Blind members of the party welcomed blind
young people to the ranks of the working class.
Life seemed a musical. Builders, miners
and steel melters sang and danced in that paradise.
So you couldnt help believing and loving
this charming artificial world of cardboard decorations?
One day the decoration collapsed
and real miners went into the streets to speak out about their true life,
real problems that had nothing to do
with the life polished by propaganda.
The strike of the miners of Donbas began on 15 July, 1989.
By July 22, 109 mines out of 121 had stopped working.
90 thousand miners went on strike.
The strike was supported by 12 mines of Lviv region,
all 11 mines of "Coil of Pavlograd" stopped their work.
Comrades, Makiivka has stopped and will keep doing it
until they fulfill all our requirements.
You and we are being fooled.
They offer to go to work for a shorter term,
however, nobody will return to work
until all the demands are met.
Dont believe anybody. We are being told that
Donetsk is working, Donetsk has stopped.
We assure you that Makiivka will not return to work
until complete fulfillment, we will give you full support.
We are in sympathy with you.
It became uncertain and intimidating.
It doesnt reach the Supreme Soviet,
our real truth doesnt reach them.
They dont get it and they are afraid.
They catch us with the help of any tricks
to make us go back to the mines.
Now they are like a mouse in a cage
which has been caught and is waiting for its time.
So it is necessary to help Mikhail Gorbachev
find out about it somehow.
I do not know, of course, how.
I'm not a very smart person.
I am a miner. I'm not educated.
Wait. Can I have a minute of your
attention, please, one minute?
I have a huge responsibility to my motherland.
We must start today to work.
No!
Quiet, comrades.
Do not stop the strike until the Supreme Soviet
has approved all our requirements here!
All without exception!
I am a representative of the strike
committee of the mine "Sotsdonbas".
You can see these correspondents.
After all, the whole world is watching us.
Is our government going down to such nastiness
as not to sign this agreement?
This is a political scandal.
I know that the fascist party is probably
associated with the communist one.
Sad, so sad!
Although I was brought up with its ideals.
I tell you there are no Soviet correspondents.
Wait.
And why dont they let television in?
When there was a strike in England,
everybody supported the miners.
They even collected money.
Why are they silent that we are supported?
Why are they silent about the fact that
miners all over the world support us?
They send telegrams, even financial
support is sent to us.
Why dont they talk about it?
Sooner or later the cup of endurance had to run over.
If it hadn`t happened a week ago, it would happen in a year.
It would be more terrifying I suppose.
"2 years in a mine face, "Mine October".
For 400 rubles in a mine face.
When we get out, you can see only our teeth.
Once my mother came and did not recognize me.
I said, "Mum, come to see me".
She did not recognize me, started crying.
Thats right. Son, what did they do with you?
When we leave the mine, we look like stokers.
And we are given one bar of soap a month.
Moreover, some get it, others dont.
I can say the same, one bar.
For the record, when we started demanding,
they gave us two. Only after we kicked up a fuss.
In "Lidiivka" they give only one bar of soap.
One bar of soap.
In "Abakumova" they get only one bar as well.
In "Gorki" they give half a bar.
Is one bar a month enough to wash yourself?
Its not enough for me.
I paw this mining combine like a woman.
Covered in fuel oil.
And there is no soap in shops.
For 70 years of Soviet power
weve reached such a level that,
to be blunt, we have nothing to wash our ass with.
My name is Nakashidze. I am a fixer.
Comrade miners, personally I got tired, tired.
But that does not mean that someone can separate us.
We need to unite in a big powerful team, in a fist!
And to prove that we are workers and
that we can stand for ourselves!
And dont go away from here until
they meet our requirements.
Theyre discrediting us! Behave yourself!
Just look at what is going on. Heres a batch,
there is a batch, there is another one.
They want to separate us!
They will discredit us now and our strike
will be over! Let's stick together.
What on earth have we been sitting for 4 days here for?
Not to be discredited, guys!
Im a miner just like you. You see we are creating chaos.
The mine has decided to strike until all the
requirements are signed by the Supreme Soviet!
Who supports us, lets stand up, guys!
After a week of talks,
Mikhail Gorbachev signed all the demands
of the miners who struggled for their salaries
and improvement of working conditions.
Yes, it's a revolution!
Yes, guys, it's a revolution.
Nobody thought that a miner would
suddenly turn into a personality!
Guys, lets forget the old, but remember the new.
Its victory, friends!
Thank you so much, guys, thank you! Thank you.
There was a proposal to call our square
"The Square of Fraternal Solidarity of Miners"
and to consider July 24th the Miners Day.
Comrades, 24th is signed, 24th, comrades.
What do you think about this? Bravo!
Signed M. Gorbachev
And then it turned out that miners were not demigods,
but were mere mortals.
And they died in mines from methane explosions.
Soviet propaganda never spoke about this.
There was a gas release.
What did the workers get this for?
A disease? A slight fright?
What is this slight fright for?
Because they swallowed some dust?
Why? Thats what we need to know.
Let those who sit there very high see this
and think that people also want to live.
"To Sasha from mother"
"To my beloved son"
In the early 1990s, a resident of Donetsk, Vladimir Borumensky,
decided to do away with the Communism forever.
He collected sculptures of the Soviet leaders,
took them to the Crimea
and lowered them to the bottom of the Black Sea.
At the depth of 12 meters
he installed a bust of Lenin
hoping that the spectre of Communism
will never rise from the bottom of the sea.
In this underwater museum he created an alley of leaders.
There he buried a bust of Karl Marx,
who pressed his shoulder to Lenin,
Stalin and Dzerzhinsky.
A boy holding Lenins hand
went for walk along the bottom of the sea.
Local people liked this idea so much
that they decided to bury everything that got into their hands.
At first they buried a sidecar motorcycle.
Then a statue of Maxim Gorky in tragic loneliness.
Tchaikovsky and Pushkin.
Vysotsky and Yesenin.
Lev Tolstoy surrounded by brothers of the quill.
Lermontov and for some reason another bust of Esenin.
Over time, the storm mixed the classic authors with the Bolsheviks.
However, for fish passing by it doesnt matter
who is who on this alley of leaders.
They do not care about their new neighbours.
They do not care about communist ideas
and they will never tell anyone about them.
Nowhere I feel like a stranger
And no one is a stranger to me,
The world around me is familiar
Please, come in my heart
and feel free.
We are such a big family and I hope
That my heart will be always that large
Stay, my heart, as big as the country!
In July 1989 more than
a hundred thousand miners were on strike in Dobas.
It was already a victory in itself.
But nobody could foresee that the main turmoil was ahead,
no one could predict that the miners' strikes
would be the beginning of the end
of the seemingly indestructible communist empire.
In 1990 miners returned to the streets again.
This time it was a political strike.
Their demand was the resignation of the communist leadership
and the transfer of the power to people's deputies.
Our suggestion is to abolish the regional party committee,
the city party committee,
and to delegate all the power
to the regional government here and now.
And we begin to work out our further actions together.
How do you see the way out of this situation?
If only resignation, and there is nothing behind it,
I do not agree with you.
Alexander Vasilievich, comrades,
dont forget that microphones are working here.
Resignation! Resignation!
There were rumors among people that armed soldiers of special forces
were in the building of the regional committee of the party,
ready to shoot at the miners on the first order.
The thing is that we dont call for chaos.
Keep in mind that your steps, or rather,
the consequences of your steps will be significant.
These arent ours, theyre your steps!
These are your steps!
And you have nothing besides the party discipline now,
as you put it yourselves, on your hands.
So what is this for?
You blame us for our ambitions but as we see,
you have nothing but your ambitions.
Resignation! Resignation! Resignation!
Tell us what the solution is?
On our part, we offered everything we could.
Were ready to meet half-way, ready for anything.
The answer was: "No. No, the regional committee will not resign."
Our solution is that here and now
we declare that we go on a political hunger strike
until our mines come here.
Until the question is solved
whether the regional committee resigns or not.
Until then we stay on the square. The reinforcement is now on the way.
Political strike, March 1990
Mine "Lydievka".
Regional committee to resignation!
Resignation! Resignation!
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Mafia. KGB. Propaganda.
Theres no other land full of beauty and bliss
Where everythings done by the people
Nobody could put Donbas on its knees
And nobody will ever manage to it!
I am a miner, yes. I'm already retired.
I worked in a mine for 25 years.
And there it is, you live in such conditions.
What can I do? Who to turn to?
Maybe somewhere in other enterprises people
live better than we do.
Despite numerous miners strikes
their lives didnt become any better.
They promise to give a flat to the neighbours.
And nothing.
And how do children study in such conditions?
They do, go and have a look.
There is a table, that's where they do homework.
When one does homework, another sits and waits
Then the second sits down to lessons,
another goes for a walk.
Thats how they study. The light is
also on here all day long.
Its daylight in the street but
its dark in the house anyway.
And the roof, here, have a look, please.
Here, I can lift it for you.
The roof is leaking, just go to the roof right now.
Im afraid of going up there because I might
end up in the house together with the roof.
How can I retile the roof if its shaking?
Thats how we live. When winter comes, thats it.
Its unbearable in the house.
You cant get furniture, anything. Whats going on?
Where are washing machines? There are none.
Where are sewing machines? You cant get anything anywhere.
Our chief accountant earns 1,800 rubles.
It doesnt matter to her where to count!
Whether in the kitchen she is a hief accountant
or in the trade she is a chief accountant,
on the collective farm she is a chief accountant.
It doesnt matter to her, she counts
her debit and credit back and forth.
She doesnt care. She gets 1,800 rubles
and I rot away in the mine face,
risk my life for 500 rubles.
Nowadays Ukraine must only be independent.
As every independent republic, we can survive,
we have everything for this.
When there is one master, it is easier
to put the house to rights. Yes.
What will happen next? What will the payment be?
How will life change?
What are the plans for the future?
Just let ntrepreneurship live.
However, entrepreneurship does not mean
that the working class has produced something,
they just sell it three times as expensive.
Here is your business.
For some reason, the working class
cant become millionaires,
and some businessman becomes
a millionaire in three months.
That also beats everything!
At that moment money won.
It was necessary to survive.
You could buy anything for it.
Money has become the main criterion in life.
I come from a small town
Im neither stupid nor proud
I lived in a dormitory that was like a train
So I know everything, dont fuck my brain.
Im fed up with penniless boys,
Their guitar songs and very cheap toys
I want beautiful life and changed my plan
I need to meet a man like Petya businessman.
Ill look into his eyes and beg on my knees
To find the right man who will be my bliss
I came to the Earth to drive a Mercedes
And need Petyas advice to live like goddess.
Ill look into his dimmed glasses deep
And see myself fucked up indeed
I came to this world to suck someone dick
So Petyas sex offers do not make me sick.
I saw an advertisement, I heard in the newspaper,
well, I read that there was a college.
I came there. Here I am, studying and working.
The dormitory is great.
We have a dormitory of the old type.
And girls live on 13.5 meters - three girls.
And on 19 meters - four girls.
On an ocean liner or on board of a cruiser
Im ready to turn up my tail to a freezer
And if he lets me buy a dress
Ill let him fuck me in the ass.
When you look at a miner smeared with coal,
he looks one way,
and when he rinses coal, he's 23 years old,
otherwise he's 63.
Those guys who worked with us died long ago, I think.
We raised their profession to
the level of the former glory.
Because this profession was at a lower level
in those years. It was 1997.
And that was one of the reasons why there was
such flexibility in communicating with miners.
I went out of there with gray hair, that's right.
That's what art is about.
This is a performance, it's not taking a photo.
This is a connection of one cultural group
with another working group.
And pictures were already like a condition
of the game of the artistic part.
But first you had to fascinate, persuade, show something
and only then get some effect in the form of photos.
This is not just history, it is already a part
of my creative work, of what I was doing then.
I did the impossible to cultivate the
lagons of Soviet mythology,
such as miners, such as the opera house and ballet.
It is almost as strategic as vodka and nuclear weapons.
These clashes of such myths, they lead to such ...and these are
the key forms of Dadaism, that is, the understanding of it,
of course, that all this together is possible,
if it exists. Do you understand?
And that's why such a story with miners.
And it is not the change of clothes that is important
but the change of one myth into another.
And due to this some third myth arose,
which is still debatable for example for you.
We were some gods who began to praise them. Do you understand?
And they, on this drive, on some kind of love.
Because no power, no money ...
Yes, and I didnt have such money then, didnt
have such money then that I could there ...
It was, as if, some appreciation on some food, on vodka.
And then Russia came to Donbas.
Russian media declared there was
no Russian military contingent in Donbas.
Guys, who is from Russia?
I am.
Everybody, everybody here is from Russia.
Hi, Chita.
Hello, Ulan-Ude, Chita, Yasnogorsk, Noginsk.
Kaliningrad.
Salam aleikum.
Ufa, hello.
Russia, Russia, hello.
These are simple workers who are really
fighting here. There is no one here.
And not Russians, by the way, but locals.
All locals.
Hi, Chelyabinsk.
Salam Aleikum, Dagestan. Allah Akbar.
Everybody is from Donbas. Everybody is.
Minvody, Belgorod, Belarus, Nizhny Novgorod.
Russia! Russia!
The myth of the greatness of the Russian Empire came back together
with patriotic Soviet songs and flags.
This time to separate everyone.
We were filming in the north of the region,
which was and remains under the control of Ukraine.
Were already returning to Lugansk. And in the city of
"Schastia", at one of two separatists posts we were stopped.
Actually, I took it absolutely calmly.
I had all the documents, a press card
We got out of the car. They began to inspect some things.
And at that moment an automatic gun butt
struck my head, I fainted immediately.
We were taken to a cellar and for two and a half days
there were interrogations, interrogations, interrogations.
Tortures, interrogation.
Then they took us again to the cellar
and we stayed there for some time.
They took us up again, everything repeated again.
Pro-Ukrainian activists and journalists who present
the situation in negative for militia light are persecuted.
Many of them go through captivity and cruel torture.
Not all of them could survive unfortunately.
I went through that myself.
I can say that, indeed, people there are absolutely twisted.
And they are pleased with what they are doing.
Besides I was beaten with hands, various
objects, sticks, it was torture.
Starting with the militia classics. The so-called "elephant",
when they put on a gas mask on you and close the trunk.
Or "swallow", when the arms are fastened,
in my case, with zip ties
behind the back and are sharply raised up.
They stabbed my heels with stationery knives,
or, I do not know what it was.
There were such very thin cuts.
They broke my ribs with pliers.
They burned my hands, I dont know what with,
whether those were cigarettes, or a soldering iron,
but something round, deep enough.
They beat me on the back with various objects,
continuously for several hours.
I lost consciousness, then they brought me
to life stabbing the heels again.
I was back to senses and it started all over again.
Then they sat me at the table, questioned.
And at that time they started to beat my partner
so that I could hear him shouting.
And then they had us change places.
Beasts!
Killers!
In 2014, on Independence Day of Ukraine, Ukrainian captives were led along the streets
of Donetsk as German prisoners in 1944 in Moscow.
Ghouls!
Where do they take them? To the crematorium?
At best.
And as in 1944 irrigation cars drove
after them to wash off their tracks.
On 1 January 2016 there were many wounded people
because there was a raiding group, and 6 people
were injured with wounds of different stages.
Unfortunately, one soldier died but five stayed alive.
There were injuries of the stomach, the chest, the limbs.
Sometimes there were comic situations, when, for example,
among this number of patients
there was a patient with appendicitis
who also needed an operation.
And we operated on a wounded soldier,
on the next table there was a soldier
with appendicitis who also had to be saved.
And when there is no opportunity
to take your eye off the ball,
you ask the patient with appendicitis
to hold the hooks to help him.
Because there arent enough hands
to physically hold this wound.
It must have looked funny.
Peoples understanding of the fact that
there was shooting was so atrophied,
although they were firing quite a lot,
they did not realize that
that was a real war that shells are falling down there.
They went out into the street calmly.
One of my friends, Kolya, went out for a walk with his baby.
The baby was in the carriage.
And at some point a few shells came.
Kolya wasnt lucky because one of the shells hit him,
and he basically covered the baby with his body.
The child was not more than six months old.
Of course I am lucky if I could say so.
They hit here twice, and both times I was lucky!
It hit the car by which my father,
a doctor, was going to give help,
it killed everybody who was in the car, except him.
He had a very serious leg injury and
he spent a lot of time in hospital.
My mother took offence at Ukraine
because of my fathers wound
and my father, of course, has changed
a lot over these three years,
and having been a person with a neutral attitude,
he did not turn into a proponent of the separatists of Lugansk,
but rather he became a hater of Ukraine.
Now we have general conversations about weather,
trips somewhere, some ideas, etc.
We dont talk about the war,
there is no sense to try to prove to each other
what none of us will understand.
That's how we try to communicate, and at least
we have somehow saved our family unlike my friends
who just lost contact with their parents.
In fact, you know, war isnt an obstacle
isnt a barrier to feelings, isnt a barrier to love.
So we decided to do it now, why not? The dress is suitable.
They are shelling, so what?
Id like a dress in the military style,
probably its better to say, on a military subject.
Happiness isnt about a dress. Not at all about it.
And that's why something new is necessary, not usual.
I like it when its not like everyone else has.
Now a kiss, now a kiss.
What encouraged me to help after all
was that horror that I saw
when I went to, not even a checkpoint
but a position taken by the Ukrainian military.
I stopped at the side of the road, got out
of the car and went towards those tanks.
I was scared, but I became even more afraid
when they made a warning shot there.
I stopped. Then I showed that I had nothing with me,
that my hands were empty.
A man with an automatic gun went
to meet me from the Ukrainian side.
We stopped and I told him that I was from "Yasinuvata"
and that there were many of us who wanted to help them
at least somehow, we really wanted to help.
My voice was trembling and we hugged each other.
He said, "Just thank you for the fact that you are".
And he said, "If you bring something,
there you can see a shrub along the road,
like a tree. Just unload everything over there."
Because it was really frightening that
we had to return through the checkpoint of the separatists again.
And that when you stop in front of
the Ukrainian army and unload something,
cars going by could record your number.
And we realized that it was dangerous.
The tab where the information was stored,
I sent to Mariupil with my husbands colleague.
And he was stopped at the checkpoint of the separatists and beaten.
He said, "No, I'm on your side, I can tell you that
I'm transporting the Ukrainians` bag,
I know she was going with the flag of Ukraine
I'll tell you her address. " He said
the addresses of both my house and my salon.
Of course, they came to check.
They arrested me, they searched the house.
Found a Ukrainian flag - that was the most terrible crime,
they found this wreath.
They trod it, broke Ukrainian flowers,
you see, these ones with ribbons.
It happened very quickly: they beat you, attach you in a crowd.
You can no longer resist and you say whatever they want you to.
Then they took me out to this crowd, they pushed me,
grabbed at everything they could, shouted into my face.
I was taken to a room on the 3rd floor,
handcuffed to the radiator
and then they took me to the interrogation relentlessly.
At first, they didnt beat me, they just scared to me a lot,
they were putting pressure on me, as they say
And then they lost patience, but they
did not want to get their hands dirty.
First, they showed me an ampoule and a syringe
and said they would give me an injection
of "truth serum", they called it that way.
One of them had his nerves frayed and said,
"We will now arrange a tough interrogation for you.
It is enough to beat about the bush here."
They left. Five minutes later five men
in a camouflage came in, strong men.
They grabbed me by the hair, the back
of the neck, by my legs and pulled me.
First, they dragged along the floor,
then by the back of the neck down the stairs.
They pushed me, beat me.
They took me to the room where there were about 15 of those men.
They began to unfasten the belts and zippers
on their pants, do you understand?
I was crying, screaming, tears and saliva
were streaming down my face,
I was screaming, yelling and crawling on the floor.
I didnt see anything because of fear,
I didnt hear because of fear,
because all that was jumping around me.
And one of them, Zaur, did something to his gun.
I didnt see the details, I was lying on the floor.
And he began to shoot in the floor next to my ear.
I was deafened because it was a terrible sound.
He shouted at me, "Now I'll shoot in your head"
and pressed that gun to my forehead.
From behind someone was pulling down my pants.
They were discussing with each other,
"Tie a flag to her, put a plate on her and well take her
to the checkpoint which the ukrainians have zeroed in.
Now we will be raping you there publicly"
well, he didnt say "rape", he said in his "correct" slang.
"How do you like it? In the mouth or in the ass, or ... ".
I was brought to that square, that checkpoint,
there were bags and reinforcements everywhere,
they put me in the middle near that pillar,
they locked at me, they jumped around me.
Then Babai came, such a character with a beard and golden teeth.
He started to pull my T-shirt up, mauling my breasts
saying, "This is second-hand, what are we supposed to do with her?
Come up, she is a killer, she is a fascist,
she collaborated with ukrainians,
she attached radio beacons here to the houses
where your children are, she kills your children."
And people went by, some just lowering their heads to the ground,
some stopped and showed that hatred,
they believed them, he believed what they said.
And that plate was on me, people read and said,
"Oh, you are a fascist! Oh, you are a beast!
You are killing us.
You came here to kill us".
They beat me, beat me for 4-5 hours.
Mostly, local women beat.
A Jeep car came, all painted with "Allah Akbar",
as I understand with spray paint.
And a man wearing a bandanna came out,
I realized that he was a Chechen.
They turned to him and called him,
"Chechen, you are Chechen".
He came up and said,
"Hey, stay away, everybody, I'll shoot into her knee cup."
I begged, screamed something like "Dont do that,
dont do that". And he shot past me. Do you see?
I realize that such things must be told.
I've lived for 53 years, it has never crossed my mind
that men can treat women that way,
that people can just do this to other people.
That is, until you find yourself in a military conflict,
you can read about it in books
and never associate it with yourself.
At some point it happens,
and you think whether you are alive or you are already in hell?
This is Donetsk.
Artema Street.
Krupskaya Library is on the left.
This is the waterfront area near Ilyich Avenue.
This is the Central Park of Culture named after Shcherbakov.
This is hotel "Ukraine".
This is a working district on the outskirts of Donetsk.
This is our planet.
The Earth.
There are only 7 billion of us in the boundless space.
However, how much hatred there is here.
Written and directed by - Igor Minaev
Director of photography - Volodimir Palilik
Music by - Vadim Sher
Produced by - Iurii Leuta
Editor - Olexander Podopryhora
Mixage - Oleg Kultchitski
Voice-over - Olexander Ignatusha
Voice-over written by - Igor Minaev, Anne de Pouvourville
Interviews - Arsen Savadov
Vyacheslav Bondarenko
Vadim Elizarov
Yevhen Spirin
Irina Dovhan
and the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.
This is not an abstract picture.
And not a star that went out.
This is our planet, the Earth.
The ground of the Donetsk Coal Basin has frozen through. This is Ukraine.
Donbas.
The Cacophony of Donbas
A film by Igor Minaev
It is the place where the most important Soviet myth
about the greatness of the working class was born.
The myth about the miners of Donbas.
"Enthusiasm" or "The Symphony of Donbas",
the film director Dzyga Vertov, 1930.
It is not a ritual dance of aborigines.
That is how Dzyga Vertov imagined miners
getting ready for their work in the mine face.
"Towards socialism".
A new person is more perfect than a machine. Especially in a team.
I, a strike worker of Snizhnyansky mine 9,
promise to give 28,000 tones
over the norm in the end of the year.
"The reality, as such, does not interest me",
declared Dzyga Vertov.
What interests him is the mechanical movement of the human masses.
"Long live shock work, hooray. "
This is the paradise of human masses.
Now these masses needed to have a face.
The historic night of 31 August 1935.
In 1935 the task for mining coal
was 7 tons per miner in one shift.
Oleksii Stakhanov surprised the world.
On 31 August 1935 he mined 102 tons in one shift.
Oleksii Stakhanov was chosen
by the party to embody the image
of the hero of the shock work and was placed on a pedestal.
"New people new technical standards. " Joseph Stalin.
The Stakhanovite movement started.
It spreads throughout the country.
The heros followers raise standards higher.
"The labour has glorified our country and time.
The native land of the road we stride.
Stakhanovs tribe is on the way to their goal.
The miners are going to fight for coal!
Stakhanovs tribe is on the way to their goal.
The miners are going to fight for coal!"
"Their names"
"were given"
"to the Soviet country"
"by Donbas"
This is not a foreign delegation
that came to see the legendary miners.
These are famous actors from Moscow,
Kyiv and Kharkiv
who arrived on the party's order to bring the intelligentsia
and the working class together.
The contrast in the styles of their clothing
was immediately noticed by vigilant Soviet propaganda.
The next time
when Stakhanov is triumphantly welcomed in Kharkiv,
he is dressed like everyone else. They bought him a suit.
For motherland.
Did Stakhanov know that his photograph would appear
on the cover of the American magazine "Time? "
Did anyone know that in reality there was no record,
that everything had been organized by propaganda,
that four people had worked on this so-called record,
and that the word stakhanovets
would enter dictionaries of the whole world?
Stalins favourite, Stakhanov, will move to Moscow,
and ultimately believe in his feat.
The symbol of Donbas miners' will lose his head of drunkenness
and rampage and will cause Khrushchev's rage
who will order him out of Moscow.
He will return home. To Donbas.
After his death his hometown "Kadiivka" will be renamed "Stakhanov. "
Never again will Stakhanov go down into the mine.
Even his relatives will despise him as a degraded drunkard.
However, Soviet propaganda will keep using his name
as a symbol of shock work.
He will die in a psychiatric hospital
taking the truth about his record to grave.
Happy and carefree life of miners as viewed by Soviet propaganda.
Waltz in the House of Culture for Miners.
In Chistyakovo in the Palace of Culture of the mine No 27
the graduates of the 10th form met old miners.
Flower beds in mines,
coal combines, daylight in mine faces, sanatoriums,
Palaces of Culture, like ours. You think that it cannot be otherwise!
We can see the canteen of the mine "Stokehole".
The canteen which looks more like a Greek temple.
Stuffed fish, various salads, pates and grilles chickens
appear like from the cornucopia.
Its not Chanel but smells no worse!
Accordion for the atmosphere.
Clothes to any taste.
And enough money for a beautiful life!
Today miners receive their salary.
"Coal is like gold: it shines and is valuable",
they say in Donbas.
The first salary of Ivan Kucherenko makes 1,500 rubles.
The salaries of old experienced miners like Shevelev,
Butenko, Kartuzov get up to 4-6 and even 7,000 rubles a month.
In the 50s the average salary of a worker in the country is 700 rubles.
A loaf of bread costs 1 ruble 20 kopeks
and a bottle of milk 2 rubles 40 kopeks.
Miners are interested in tweed for suits
and their wives prefer crepe de Chine, crepe - gorge and satin.
Dressmaking and tailoring establishment of "Stokehole".
Like ancient athletes they train in a gym with columns.
The new houses of "Stokehole", are being tenanted.
Soviet propaganda built the world where everything was available.
Mikhailo Ivanovich Morgunov, a coal mine worker of "Stokehole",
is having a busy day today.
Vova Morgunov is moving into a new house.
Lilya Fisun has already settled in a new place.
Her father, a coal mine worker of "Stokehole",
Vasyl Stepanovych Fisun and his wife
Mariya Kostyantynivna finish furnishing the flat.
Miners, their wives and children
watch the same program which continuously broadcasts "Swan Lake".
A magnificent industrial landscape.
Metallurgical plants and blast furnaces. This is Donbas.
Burning hell is at the bottom, happy life on the top.
Life is easy and fun. People fall in love, get married.
Dear friends, you enter a garden,
this garden is your love.
There are no flowers, fruits, berries in it yet.
It is eagerly waiting.
And whether this garden will blossom, depends on you,
on your generosity and work.
In the name of beautiful and high.
This is Family Day.
Even in the Soviet paradise everything begins with Adam and Eve.
However, here Adam turns down an apple and prefers a bottle of beer.
The Family Day is wonderful.
Look at peoples faces, there are so many smiles,
their eyes and smiles are full of kindness.
Since childhood girls get ready for the role of mother.
These newborn babies will see the innocent, pure, perfect world.
In this world miners come to work in white shirts
and ties. They drive "Volga", the most expensive car of that time.
These are cossacks of the mine "Novopavlovsk" in Donbas.
The speaker presents miners as heroes, as demigods.
They are known to the whole world.
It seems that they have no faults, except perhaps one.
Alcohol.
I started drinking at about 12.
Then I finished school and started to work.
First began to drink when paid an advance, then wages.
Then, the further, the more I began to drink.
And recently Ive started to drink daily.
Could not live without vodka.
Woke up with the only thought - to drink.
Used everything I could find at home to get a drink.
Fortunately, Soviet medicine has
the most modern and effective means.
To treat alcoholism
doctors try to combine rational psychotherapy,
hypnosis with medical therapy.
You are actively using the treatment methods
prescribed to you by the doctors.
You accept this therapy with delight.
You are positively determined
to create disgust towards alcohol.
It will give a good result, the reaction
will be stable and long-lasting.
You wont be able to drink alcohol
and will feel disgust towards it.
Without smelling it drink quickly in two gulps.
Do not put it off, everybody, raise the glasses
and quickly drink in two gulps.
Take some in your mouth. Gargle.
Hold it in your mouth, gargle!
Unpleasant, disgusting!
Please, take another sip.
It seems to be working!
Steel melters and miners are back to normal life.
Due to propaganda this lifestyle became a showcase of Donbas.
A happy, sunny and shiny window.
People went blind.
They believed it was real life.
Blind members of the party welcomed blind
young people to the ranks of the working class.
Life seemed a musical. Builders, miners
and steel melters sang and danced in that paradise.
So you couldnt help believing and loving
this charming artificial world of cardboard decorations?
One day the decoration collapsed
and real miners went into the streets to speak out about their true life,
real problems that had nothing to do
with the life polished by propaganda.
The strike of the miners of Donbas began on 15 July, 1989.
By July 22, 109 mines out of 121 had stopped working.
90 thousand miners went on strike.
The strike was supported by 12 mines of Lviv region,
all 11 mines of "Coil of Pavlograd" stopped their work.
Comrades, Makiivka has stopped and will keep doing it
until they fulfill all our requirements.
You and we are being fooled.
They offer to go to work for a shorter term,
however, nobody will return to work
until all the demands are met.
Dont believe anybody. We are being told that
Donetsk is working, Donetsk has stopped.
We assure you that Makiivka will not return to work
until complete fulfillment, we will give you full support.
We are in sympathy with you.
It became uncertain and intimidating.
It doesnt reach the Supreme Soviet,
our real truth doesnt reach them.
They dont get it and they are afraid.
They catch us with the help of any tricks
to make us go back to the mines.
Now they are like a mouse in a cage
which has been caught and is waiting for its time.
So it is necessary to help Mikhail Gorbachev
find out about it somehow.
I do not know, of course, how.
I'm not a very smart person.
I am a miner. I'm not educated.
Wait. Can I have a minute of your
attention, please, one minute?
I have a huge responsibility to my motherland.
We must start today to work.
No!
Quiet, comrades.
Do not stop the strike until the Supreme Soviet
has approved all our requirements here!
All without exception!
I am a representative of the strike
committee of the mine "Sotsdonbas".
You can see these correspondents.
After all, the whole world is watching us.
Is our government going down to such nastiness
as not to sign this agreement?
This is a political scandal.
I know that the fascist party is probably
associated with the communist one.
Sad, so sad!
Although I was brought up with its ideals.
I tell you there are no Soviet correspondents.
Wait.
And why dont they let television in?
When there was a strike in England,
everybody supported the miners.
They even collected money.
Why are they silent that we are supported?
Why are they silent about the fact that
miners all over the world support us?
They send telegrams, even financial
support is sent to us.
Why dont they talk about it?
Sooner or later the cup of endurance had to run over.
If it hadn`t happened a week ago, it would happen in a year.
It would be more terrifying I suppose.
"2 years in a mine face, "Mine October".
For 400 rubles in a mine face.
When we get out, you can see only our teeth.
Once my mother came and did not recognize me.
I said, "Mum, come to see me".
She did not recognize me, started crying.
Thats right. Son, what did they do with you?
When we leave the mine, we look like stokers.
And we are given one bar of soap a month.
Moreover, some get it, others dont.
I can say the same, one bar.
For the record, when we started demanding,
they gave us two. Only after we kicked up a fuss.
In "Lidiivka" they give only one bar of soap.
One bar of soap.
In "Abakumova" they get only one bar as well.
In "Gorki" they give half a bar.
Is one bar a month enough to wash yourself?
Its not enough for me.
I paw this mining combine like a woman.
Covered in fuel oil.
And there is no soap in shops.
For 70 years of Soviet power
weve reached such a level that,
to be blunt, we have nothing to wash our ass with.
My name is Nakashidze. I am a fixer.
Comrade miners, personally I got tired, tired.
But that does not mean that someone can separate us.
We need to unite in a big powerful team, in a fist!
And to prove that we are workers and
that we can stand for ourselves!
And dont go away from here until
they meet our requirements.
Theyre discrediting us! Behave yourself!
Just look at what is going on. Heres a batch,
there is a batch, there is another one.
They want to separate us!
They will discredit us now and our strike
will be over! Let's stick together.
What on earth have we been sitting for 4 days here for?
Not to be discredited, guys!
Im a miner just like you. You see we are creating chaos.
The mine has decided to strike until all the
requirements are signed by the Supreme Soviet!
Who supports us, lets stand up, guys!
After a week of talks,
Mikhail Gorbachev signed all the demands
of the miners who struggled for their salaries
and improvement of working conditions.
Yes, it's a revolution!
Yes, guys, it's a revolution.
Nobody thought that a miner would
suddenly turn into a personality!
Guys, lets forget the old, but remember the new.
Its victory, friends!
Thank you so much, guys, thank you! Thank you.
There was a proposal to call our square
"The Square of Fraternal Solidarity of Miners"
and to consider July 24th the Miners Day.
Comrades, 24th is signed, 24th, comrades.
What do you think about this? Bravo!
Signed M. Gorbachev
And then it turned out that miners were not demigods,
but were mere mortals.
And they died in mines from methane explosions.
Soviet propaganda never spoke about this.
There was a gas release.
What did the workers get this for?
A disease? A slight fright?
What is this slight fright for?
Because they swallowed some dust?
Why? Thats what we need to know.
Let those who sit there very high see this
and think that people also want to live.
"To Sasha from mother"
"To my beloved son"
In the early 1990s, a resident of Donetsk, Vladimir Borumensky,
decided to do away with the Communism forever.
He collected sculptures of the Soviet leaders,
took them to the Crimea
and lowered them to the bottom of the Black Sea.
At the depth of 12 meters
he installed a bust of Lenin
hoping that the spectre of Communism
will never rise from the bottom of the sea.
In this underwater museum he created an alley of leaders.
There he buried a bust of Karl Marx,
who pressed his shoulder to Lenin,
Stalin and Dzerzhinsky.
A boy holding Lenins hand
went for walk along the bottom of the sea.
Local people liked this idea so much
that they decided to bury everything that got into their hands.
At first they buried a sidecar motorcycle.
Then a statue of Maxim Gorky in tragic loneliness.
Tchaikovsky and Pushkin.
Vysotsky and Yesenin.
Lev Tolstoy surrounded by brothers of the quill.
Lermontov and for some reason another bust of Esenin.
Over time, the storm mixed the classic authors with the Bolsheviks.
However, for fish passing by it doesnt matter
who is who on this alley of leaders.
They do not care about their new neighbours.
They do not care about communist ideas
and they will never tell anyone about them.
Nowhere I feel like a stranger
And no one is a stranger to me,
The world around me is familiar
Please, come in my heart
and feel free.
We are such a big family and I hope
That my heart will be always that large
Stay, my heart, as big as the country!
In July 1989 more than
a hundred thousand miners were on strike in Dobas.
It was already a victory in itself.
But nobody could foresee that the main turmoil was ahead,
no one could predict that the miners' strikes
would be the beginning of the end
of the seemingly indestructible communist empire.
In 1990 miners returned to the streets again.
This time it was a political strike.
Their demand was the resignation of the communist leadership
and the transfer of the power to people's deputies.
Our suggestion is to abolish the regional party committee,
the city party committee,
and to delegate all the power
to the regional government here and now.
And we begin to work out our further actions together.
How do you see the way out of this situation?
If only resignation, and there is nothing behind it,
I do not agree with you.
Alexander Vasilievich, comrades,
dont forget that microphones are working here.
Resignation! Resignation!
There were rumors among people that armed soldiers of special forces
were in the building of the regional committee of the party,
ready to shoot at the miners on the first order.
The thing is that we dont call for chaos.
Keep in mind that your steps, or rather,
the consequences of your steps will be significant.
These arent ours, theyre your steps!
These are your steps!
And you have nothing besides the party discipline now,
as you put it yourselves, on your hands.
So what is this for?
You blame us for our ambitions but as we see,
you have nothing but your ambitions.
Resignation! Resignation! Resignation!
Tell us what the solution is?
On our part, we offered everything we could.
Were ready to meet half-way, ready for anything.
The answer was: "No. No, the regional committee will not resign."
Our solution is that here and now
we declare that we go on a political hunger strike
until our mines come here.
Until the question is solved
whether the regional committee resigns or not.
Until then we stay on the square. The reinforcement is now on the way.
Political strike, March 1990
Mine "Lydievka".
Regional committee to resignation!
Resignation! Resignation!
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Mafia. KGB. Propaganda.
Theres no other land full of beauty and bliss
Where everythings done by the people
Nobody could put Donbas on its knees
And nobody will ever manage to it!
I am a miner, yes. I'm already retired.
I worked in a mine for 25 years.
And there it is, you live in such conditions.
What can I do? Who to turn to?
Maybe somewhere in other enterprises people
live better than we do.
Despite numerous miners strikes
their lives didnt become any better.
They promise to give a flat to the neighbours.
And nothing.
And how do children study in such conditions?
They do, go and have a look.
There is a table, that's where they do homework.
When one does homework, another sits and waits
Then the second sits down to lessons,
another goes for a walk.
Thats how they study. The light is
also on here all day long.
Its daylight in the street but
its dark in the house anyway.
And the roof, here, have a look, please.
Here, I can lift it for you.
The roof is leaking, just go to the roof right now.
Im afraid of going up there because I might
end up in the house together with the roof.
How can I retile the roof if its shaking?
Thats how we live. When winter comes, thats it.
Its unbearable in the house.
You cant get furniture, anything. Whats going on?
Where are washing machines? There are none.
Where are sewing machines? You cant get anything anywhere.
Our chief accountant earns 1,800 rubles.
It doesnt matter to her where to count!
Whether in the kitchen she is a hief accountant
or in the trade she is a chief accountant,
on the collective farm she is a chief accountant.
It doesnt matter to her, she counts
her debit and credit back and forth.
She doesnt care. She gets 1,800 rubles
and I rot away in the mine face,
risk my life for 500 rubles.
Nowadays Ukraine must only be independent.
As every independent republic, we can survive,
we have everything for this.
When there is one master, it is easier
to put the house to rights. Yes.
What will happen next? What will the payment be?
How will life change?
What are the plans for the future?
Just let ntrepreneurship live.
However, entrepreneurship does not mean
that the working class has produced something,
they just sell it three times as expensive.
Here is your business.
For some reason, the working class
cant become millionaires,
and some businessman becomes
a millionaire in three months.
That also beats everything!
At that moment money won.
It was necessary to survive.
You could buy anything for it.
Money has become the main criterion in life.
I come from a small town
Im neither stupid nor proud
I lived in a dormitory that was like a train
So I know everything, dont fuck my brain.
Im fed up with penniless boys,
Their guitar songs and very cheap toys
I want beautiful life and changed my plan
I need to meet a man like Petya businessman.
Ill look into his eyes and beg on my knees
To find the right man who will be my bliss
I came to the Earth to drive a Mercedes
And need Petyas advice to live like goddess.
Ill look into his dimmed glasses deep
And see myself fucked up indeed
I came to this world to suck someone dick
So Petyas sex offers do not make me sick.
I saw an advertisement, I heard in the newspaper,
well, I read that there was a college.
I came there. Here I am, studying and working.
The dormitory is great.
We have a dormitory of the old type.
And girls live on 13.5 meters - three girls.
And on 19 meters - four girls.
On an ocean liner or on board of a cruiser
Im ready to turn up my tail to a freezer
And if he lets me buy a dress
Ill let him fuck me in the ass.
When you look at a miner smeared with coal,
he looks one way,
and when he rinses coal, he's 23 years old,
otherwise he's 63.
Those guys who worked with us died long ago, I think.
We raised their profession to
the level of the former glory.
Because this profession was at a lower level
in those years. It was 1997.
And that was one of the reasons why there was
such flexibility in communicating with miners.
I went out of there with gray hair, that's right.
That's what art is about.
This is a performance, it's not taking a photo.
This is a connection of one cultural group
with another working group.
And pictures were already like a condition
of the game of the artistic part.
But first you had to fascinate, persuade, show something
and only then get some effect in the form of photos.
This is not just history, it is already a part
of my creative work, of what I was doing then.
I did the impossible to cultivate the
lagons of Soviet mythology,
such as miners, such as the opera house and ballet.
It is almost as strategic as vodka and nuclear weapons.
These clashes of such myths, they lead to such ...and these are
the key forms of Dadaism, that is, the understanding of it,
of course, that all this together is possible,
if it exists. Do you understand?
And that's why such a story with miners.
And it is not the change of clothes that is important
but the change of one myth into another.
And due to this some third myth arose,
which is still debatable for example for you.
We were some gods who began to praise them. Do you understand?
And they, on this drive, on some kind of love.
Because no power, no money ...
Yes, and I didnt have such money then, didnt
have such money then that I could there ...
It was, as if, some appreciation on some food, on vodka.
And then Russia came to Donbas.
Russian media declared there was
no Russian military contingent in Donbas.
Guys, who is from Russia?
I am.
Everybody, everybody here is from Russia.
Hi, Chita.
Hello, Ulan-Ude, Chita, Yasnogorsk, Noginsk.
Kaliningrad.
Salam aleikum.
Ufa, hello.
Russia, Russia, hello.
These are simple workers who are really
fighting here. There is no one here.
And not Russians, by the way, but locals.
All locals.
Hi, Chelyabinsk.
Salam Aleikum, Dagestan. Allah Akbar.
Everybody is from Donbas. Everybody is.
Minvody, Belgorod, Belarus, Nizhny Novgorod.
Russia! Russia!
The myth of the greatness of the Russian Empire came back together
with patriotic Soviet songs and flags.
This time to separate everyone.
We were filming in the north of the region,
which was and remains under the control of Ukraine.
Were already returning to Lugansk. And in the city of
"Schastia", at one of two separatists posts we were stopped.
Actually, I took it absolutely calmly.
I had all the documents, a press card
We got out of the car. They began to inspect some things.
And at that moment an automatic gun butt
struck my head, I fainted immediately.
We were taken to a cellar and for two and a half days
there were interrogations, interrogations, interrogations.
Tortures, interrogation.
Then they took us again to the cellar
and we stayed there for some time.
They took us up again, everything repeated again.
Pro-Ukrainian activists and journalists who present
the situation in negative for militia light are persecuted.
Many of them go through captivity and cruel torture.
Not all of them could survive unfortunately.
I went through that myself.
I can say that, indeed, people there are absolutely twisted.
And they are pleased with what they are doing.
Besides I was beaten with hands, various
objects, sticks, it was torture.
Starting with the militia classics. The so-called "elephant",
when they put on a gas mask on you and close the trunk.
Or "swallow", when the arms are fastened,
in my case, with zip ties
behind the back and are sharply raised up.
They stabbed my heels with stationery knives,
or, I do not know what it was.
There were such very thin cuts.
They broke my ribs with pliers.
They burned my hands, I dont know what with,
whether those were cigarettes, or a soldering iron,
but something round, deep enough.
They beat me on the back with various objects,
continuously for several hours.
I lost consciousness, then they brought me
to life stabbing the heels again.
I was back to senses and it started all over again.
Then they sat me at the table, questioned.
And at that time they started to beat my partner
so that I could hear him shouting.
And then they had us change places.
Beasts!
Killers!
In 2014, on Independence Day of Ukraine, Ukrainian captives were led along the streets
of Donetsk as German prisoners in 1944 in Moscow.
Ghouls!
Where do they take them? To the crematorium?
At best.
And as in 1944 irrigation cars drove
after them to wash off their tracks.
On 1 January 2016 there were many wounded people
because there was a raiding group, and 6 people
were injured with wounds of different stages.
Unfortunately, one soldier died but five stayed alive.
There were injuries of the stomach, the chest, the limbs.
Sometimes there were comic situations, when, for example,
among this number of patients
there was a patient with appendicitis
who also needed an operation.
And we operated on a wounded soldier,
on the next table there was a soldier
with appendicitis who also had to be saved.
And when there is no opportunity
to take your eye off the ball,
you ask the patient with appendicitis
to hold the hooks to help him.
Because there arent enough hands
to physically hold this wound.
It must have looked funny.
Peoples understanding of the fact that
there was shooting was so atrophied,
although they were firing quite a lot,
they did not realize that
that was a real war that shells are falling down there.
They went out into the street calmly.
One of my friends, Kolya, went out for a walk with his baby.
The baby was in the carriage.
And at some point a few shells came.
Kolya wasnt lucky because one of the shells hit him,
and he basically covered the baby with his body.
The child was not more than six months old.
Of course I am lucky if I could say so.
They hit here twice, and both times I was lucky!
It hit the car by which my father,
a doctor, was going to give help,
it killed everybody who was in the car, except him.
He had a very serious leg injury and
he spent a lot of time in hospital.
My mother took offence at Ukraine
because of my fathers wound
and my father, of course, has changed
a lot over these three years,
and having been a person with a neutral attitude,
he did not turn into a proponent of the separatists of Lugansk,
but rather he became a hater of Ukraine.
Now we have general conversations about weather,
trips somewhere, some ideas, etc.
We dont talk about the war,
there is no sense to try to prove to each other
what none of us will understand.
That's how we try to communicate, and at least
we have somehow saved our family unlike my friends
who just lost contact with their parents.
In fact, you know, war isnt an obstacle
isnt a barrier to feelings, isnt a barrier to love.
So we decided to do it now, why not? The dress is suitable.
They are shelling, so what?
Id like a dress in the military style,
probably its better to say, on a military subject.
Happiness isnt about a dress. Not at all about it.
And that's why something new is necessary, not usual.
I like it when its not like everyone else has.
Now a kiss, now a kiss.
What encouraged me to help after all
was that horror that I saw
when I went to, not even a checkpoint
but a position taken by the Ukrainian military.
I stopped at the side of the road, got out
of the car and went towards those tanks.
I was scared, but I became even more afraid
when they made a warning shot there.
I stopped. Then I showed that I had nothing with me,
that my hands were empty.
A man with an automatic gun went
to meet me from the Ukrainian side.
We stopped and I told him that I was from "Yasinuvata"
and that there were many of us who wanted to help them
at least somehow, we really wanted to help.
My voice was trembling and we hugged each other.
He said, "Just thank you for the fact that you are".
And he said, "If you bring something,
there you can see a shrub along the road,
like a tree. Just unload everything over there."
Because it was really frightening that
we had to return through the checkpoint of the separatists again.
And that when you stop in front of
the Ukrainian army and unload something,
cars going by could record your number.
And we realized that it was dangerous.
The tab where the information was stored,
I sent to Mariupil with my husbands colleague.
And he was stopped at the checkpoint of the separatists and beaten.
He said, "No, I'm on your side, I can tell you that
I'm transporting the Ukrainians` bag,
I know she was going with the flag of Ukraine
I'll tell you her address. " He said
the addresses of both my house and my salon.
Of course, they came to check.
They arrested me, they searched the house.
Found a Ukrainian flag - that was the most terrible crime,
they found this wreath.
They trod it, broke Ukrainian flowers,
you see, these ones with ribbons.
It happened very quickly: they beat you, attach you in a crowd.
You can no longer resist and you say whatever they want you to.
Then they took me out to this crowd, they pushed me,
grabbed at everything they could, shouted into my face.
I was taken to a room on the 3rd floor,
handcuffed to the radiator
and then they took me to the interrogation relentlessly.
At first, they didnt beat me, they just scared to me a lot,
they were putting pressure on me, as they say
And then they lost patience, but they
did not want to get their hands dirty.
First, they showed me an ampoule and a syringe
and said they would give me an injection
of "truth serum", they called it that way.
One of them had his nerves frayed and said,
"We will now arrange a tough interrogation for you.
It is enough to beat about the bush here."
They left. Five minutes later five men
in a camouflage came in, strong men.
They grabbed me by the hair, the back
of the neck, by my legs and pulled me.
First, they dragged along the floor,
then by the back of the neck down the stairs.
They pushed me, beat me.
They took me to the room where there were about 15 of those men.
They began to unfasten the belts and zippers
on their pants, do you understand?
I was crying, screaming, tears and saliva
were streaming down my face,
I was screaming, yelling and crawling on the floor.
I didnt see anything because of fear,
I didnt hear because of fear,
because all that was jumping around me.
And one of them, Zaur, did something to his gun.
I didnt see the details, I was lying on the floor.
And he began to shoot in the floor next to my ear.
I was deafened because it was a terrible sound.
He shouted at me, "Now I'll shoot in your head"
and pressed that gun to my forehead.
From behind someone was pulling down my pants.
They were discussing with each other,
"Tie a flag to her, put a plate on her and well take her
to the checkpoint which the ukrainians have zeroed in.
Now we will be raping you there publicly"
well, he didnt say "rape", he said in his "correct" slang.
"How do you like it? In the mouth or in the ass, or ... ".
I was brought to that square, that checkpoint,
there were bags and reinforcements everywhere,
they put me in the middle near that pillar,
they locked at me, they jumped around me.
Then Babai came, such a character with a beard and golden teeth.
He started to pull my T-shirt up, mauling my breasts
saying, "This is second-hand, what are we supposed to do with her?
Come up, she is a killer, she is a fascist,
she collaborated with ukrainians,
she attached radio beacons here to the houses
where your children are, she kills your children."
And people went by, some just lowering their heads to the ground,
some stopped and showed that hatred,
they believed them, he believed what they said.
And that plate was on me, people read and said,
"Oh, you are a fascist! Oh, you are a beast!
You are killing us.
You came here to kill us".
They beat me, beat me for 4-5 hours.
Mostly, local women beat.
A Jeep car came, all painted with "Allah Akbar",
as I understand with spray paint.
And a man wearing a bandanna came out,
I realized that he was a Chechen.
They turned to him and called him,
"Chechen, you are Chechen".
He came up and said,
"Hey, stay away, everybody, I'll shoot into her knee cup."
I begged, screamed something like "Dont do that,
dont do that". And he shot past me. Do you see?
I realize that such things must be told.
I've lived for 53 years, it has never crossed my mind
that men can treat women that way,
that people can just do this to other people.
That is, until you find yourself in a military conflict,
you can read about it in books
and never associate it with yourself.
At some point it happens,
and you think whether you are alive or you are already in hell?
This is Donetsk.
Artema Street.
Krupskaya Library is on the left.
This is the waterfront area near Ilyich Avenue.
This is the Central Park of Culture named after Shcherbakov.
This is hotel "Ukraine".
This is a working district on the outskirts of Donetsk.
This is our planet.
The Earth.
There are only 7 billion of us in the boundless space.
However, how much hatred there is here.
Written and directed by - Igor Minaev
Director of photography - Volodimir Palilik
Music by - Vadim Sher
Produced by - Iurii Leuta
Editor - Olexander Podopryhora
Mixage - Oleg Kultchitski
Voice-over - Olexander Ignatusha
Voice-over written by - Igor Minaev, Anne de Pouvourville
Interviews - Arsen Savadov
Vyacheslav Bondarenko
Vadim Elizarov
Yevhen Spirin
Irina Dovhan