Daria Infanger wants to sleep, but can’t. She lives in a villa in the Turkish resort of Fethiye. From the pool she overlooks mountains and coniferous forests. The American she just married tries to reassure her, but Daria doesn’t sleep a wink. She thinks about her family in Odessa.
The holiday started in Istanbul a few weeks earlier, in February. The Russians were about to invade Ukraine, but Daria wanted a break. She planned to scour Turkish antique markets and stock up on wine. The day before her return flight to Odessa, her husband woke her abruptly. “Honey, it’s war.”
Daria explodes and flails around. She kicks in the door of her Airbnb. Her husband takes her to the villa in the seaside resort, but that was unbearable. “I was in a denial phase,” says Daria. “Now I know I have to do something. These are important times. We are making history.”
That is new for Daria (23). She never cared about politics. She preferred to travel around the world, to Istanbul, Berlin, Málaga or Amsterdam. She learned languages, crashed festivals and dated a Turkish DJ. She earned money with translation jobs and modeling. She met her American husband on Instagram last year. Three months later he proposed to her. “In Lisbon, in a wildlife park with peacocks. He had arranged photographers, it was perfect.”
For convenience, Daria sometimes told friends abroad that she was Russian. Many people had “not heard of Ukraine then.” In December last year, she posted a selfie on Instagram that read: “We are Russians† She now says she is “a little bit Russophobic”. “When I look at those Russians who are now coming to Istanbul, I think: yes, now you are sorry, but this war has been going on for years. Where have you been all this time?”
Meanwhile, Daria has begun her own political catching up. At the beginning of March, she is sitting in a coffee shop in the Istanbul hipster district of Cihangir with a sign of ‘Putler’, Putin with a Hitler mustache. Day after day she demonstrates near the Russian consulate. She addresses the Turkish press and put videos of the protests on Instagram†
But it’s not enough. The thought of home eats away at Daria. She thinks of her father and her grandmother in Odessa. To her dog Ilay. To a friend from Mariupol whom she hasn’t heard from for two weeks. In the villa in Fethiye she tells her American husband that she wants to leave. He thinks she’s crazy, but Daria knows for sure. She wants to go back to Ukraine to pick up family.
“I have to sleep,” says Daria on the plane from Istanbul to Bucharest. She wears a top and only carries a handbag with a scarf and sweater. „I haven’t slept in three days and I go to a fucking war zone† But I don’t think it will work until I’m with my family.”
In any case, Daria wants to take her grandmother with her. Her mother is already in Romania, her father is not allowed to leave Ukraine. “Maybe I can do something too” random pick up people,” she says. “I have a car so I’ve posted on Telegram and Facebook that I can drive. Seven people have already signed up.”
She is not the only returnee. Sitting next to her on the plane is Serhiy, a Ukrainian in his thirties who was on a business trip in the Dominican Republic when the war broke out and is now just going home. Ahead is Elena, a singer from Odessa who was in Moscow for medical treatment and wants to return because she misses her cat Theo.
After a layover in Bucharest, Daria lands in the Romanian border town of Iasi. Her mother is already there and drives her in the middle of the night to the Moldovan capital Chisinau. There she takes the bus to Odessa on her own.
landmines
The Ukrainian port city is bracing for a Russian attack. Two hours to the east, the Russians besiege the city of Mykolaiv. Russian warships lie offshore near Odessa. Every now and then they fire a rocket, but the feared amphibious landing has yet to materialize. It seems that the Russians are meeting so much resistance elsewhere that they don’t want to venture to Fort Odessa just yet.
Daria has to go to her apartment in the historic center, she tells on the phone. She wants to take her piano and make room for refugees. The streets in the center have been cordoned off by the Ukrainian army. The famous statue of the Duke of Richelieu, governor of the city between 1803 and 1804, is packed up to the top in sandbags. The beach where Daria used to enjoy walking is now full of landmines.
“But the vibe on the street is chill,” says Daria. Most shops are open. Hardly anyone pays attention to the air-raid siren that goes off every now and then. Morale is high. “The Russians have no idea what they are fighting for, but we are fighting for our home and for our ideals.”
And precisely in wartime, according to Daria, the Odessites excel at what they are known for throughout Ukraine: telling jokes. Daria’s Favorite: “Why didn’t President Zelensky flee to America? Because the plane couldn’t lift its iron balls!”
Daria spends the night in the town of Chernimorsk just south of Odessa, where her father and grandmother live. The 74-year-old woman prays a little more often than usual, says Daria, but still makes as many jokes as before. But Grandma doesn’t want to hear about her granddaughter’s plan to leave. “Running is not for old people like me,” she says. The aunt of Daria’s sister, Oksana, wants to come. Together with her two-year-old daughter Aljona.
Goodbye
On the day of departure, Daria walks her dog Ilay one last time. She puts a video of it on Instagram. The white husky sniffs through the grass and gets entangled in his dog leash. The air raid siren is blaring in the background. †war”, calls Daria her Instagram story†
Then comes the goodbye. Daria kisses her father and grandmother, hugs her husky Ilay and gets into her red sports car with Oksana and Aljona. Just before sunset they cross the Ukrainian-Moldavian border. “I want to go back to Ukraine,” she says as soon as she gets out, but she races on to Chisinau. From behind the wheel of her red sports car, she films a refugee camp in the distance.
Also read: Make no mistake, our resilience is great
The trio stays in a hotel in Chisinau. The next day they have to leave early for Romania, where Daria’s mother, aunt and two sisters are waiting for them in a house that Daria has arranged for them earlier. “They’re a bit of a refugee there,” says Daria. “Everyone hopes to be able to go home soon.”
Oksana and her daughter go to sleep, but Daria still wants to smoke weed. She gets into her sports car, puts on Ukrainian hip-hop and finds a random lake outside the city on Google Maps.
She lights her joint by the water. “I slept so well in Odessa,” she says. “If I sleep a little normally, I can handle anything. Even a war.” She laughs. “A few weeks ago I could not have imagined that I would ever say such a thing.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad of 26 March 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 26, 2022
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