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On 24th of Feb 2022 my wife woke me up at 5 AM and said 'it began'

I walked towards explosions at Hostomel airport, while thousands after thousands of people were fleeing by feet or by cars in the opposite direction.

On 3rd of March my flat got hit by two mortar shells russians fired at our hood from captured Bucha. My family, cats and two parrots hid in the bathroom so they survived. One of the parrots died later because of the shell shock. I was a machine gunner in the trenches for a week already so I could not help them in any way. May none of you know that feeling.

All of the suffering in these two years could have been avoided if West stepped up in force for us. It did not happen. 18 tanks in 2027, thats what we are promised again. More of our blood is going to be spilt by that time, again.

I started therapy in summer 2021 for the first time in my life. I started smoking weed for the first time in my life in autumn 2021. I got a big raise at work before New Year 2022. We got a new awesome PC in a month before invasion. I enjoyed my new big salary just once before the invasion. My life was just starting to get objectively good, actually, even by my depressed PTSD schizoid self deprecating idiot of a personality standards.

Our lives were torn apart two years ago, along with the lives of so many other Ukrainians, and we haven't been able to get it back together ever since. No telling when we would be able to do so in future.

On 24th of Feb 2022 my wife woke me up at 5 AM and said 'it began'

I walked towards explosions at Hostomel airport, while thousands after thousands of people were fleeing by feet or by cars in the opposite direction.

On 3rd of March my flat got hit by two mortar shells russians fired at our hood from captured Bucha. My family, cats and two parrots hid in the bathroom so they survived. One of the parrots died later because of the shell shock. I was a machine gunner in the trenches for a week already so I could not help them in any way. May none of you know that feeling.

All of the suffering in these two years could have been avoided if West stepped up in force for us. It did not happen. 18 tanks in 2027, thats what we are promised again. More of our blood is going to be spilt by that time, again.

I started therapy in summer 2021 for the first time in my life. I started smoking weed for the first time in my life in autumn 2021. I got a big raise at work before New Year 2022. We got a new awesome PC in a month before invasion. I enjoyed my new big salary just once before the invasion. My life was just starting to get objectively good, actually, even by my depressed PTSD schizoid self deprecating idiot of a personality standards.

Our lives were torn apart two years ago, along with the lives of so many other Ukrainians, and we haven't been able to get it back together ever since. No telling when we would be able to do so in future.

january - січень (síchen'), related to "сікти" ("to cut"), referring to cutting down trees in preparation of agricultural land

february - лютий (lyútyy), "cruel", "fierce", referring to the fierce, harsh winter weather and cold

march - березень (bérezen'), related to "береза" ("birch tree")

april - квітень (kvíten'), related to "квітка" ("flower")

may - травень (tráven'), related to "трава" ("grass")

june - червень (chérven'), related to "червоний" ("red"), referring to the manufacturing of red dye from insect larvae

july - липень (lýpen'), related to "липа" ("linden tree")

august - серпень (sérpen'), related to "серп" ("sickle"), referring to harvest

september - вересень (véresen'), related to "верес" ("heather flower")

october - жовтень (zhóvten'), related to "жовтий" ("yellow"), referring to yellow autumn foliage

november - листопад (lystopád), "leaf fall"

Two years ago I was in Ukraine with my family. We will never gather at the same table as before. I have no opportunity to come home, my grandmother died, several acquaintances are missing, my cat also died without veterinary care. The city is empty, my younger sister goes to school under occupation, where she is forced to draw thank you cards for russian soldiers and the teachers mock her for her Ukrainian accent. She constantly cries and asks me to pick her up, but I don’t know what to say. My mother had a stroke, but she was not admitted to the hospital during the occupation because she did not have a Russian passport, and they did not manage to help her in time. Parts of her brain are permanently disabled, and she barely recognizes me or moves. I'm glad she's alive, but I no longer have support in my mother, this happened too soon.

Abroad, I was once attacked by russian emigrants in Lithuania. They saw my passport when I was buying tickets, and then they followed me and started pushing me and calling me a Nazi. A taxi driver helped me and took me away from there. The last time I was in Ukraine, a rocket fell near the house where I was visiting. Neither I nor anyone in the house was surprised or frightened, it was just the deep despair of millions of people from hopelessness.

I don’t remember well half a year during the occupation, but I remember how we made a fire to cook food, that there was no water, buses with loudspeakers drove through the streets, calling for surrender. How they came and took our medicines from our houses. How we went to rallies and had grenades thrown at us. I saw two huge piles rising above the ground - with the remains of cars and, apparently, with the remains of bodies and everything else. This picture is very unclear, I almost threw up, and after a couple of minutes a russian military man came up to me and asked if I loved russia. I answered "yes". What else could I say?

Now I am undergoing treatment from a psychiatrist and am trying to work to donate to those in need. Every day there are only more and more and more of them... those who have lost their home, limbs or loved ones. It pains me to see requests for help with funerals.

medieval parchment repairs

in a psalter, south-western germany, late 12th/early 13th c.

some context from an article on medieval manuscript repair by anika burgess (which includes many other beautiful examples of this phenomenon!)

Everyone liked the color charts I test printed for Basilisk so much, I felt compelled made a nice version! Great for anyone that has an interest in Risograph printing, historical pigments, or weird medieval marginalia.

It's a sensitive topic especially for us Ukrainians because russian language is a weapon. It's a colonial language, it's presented like one and only true slavic language, it erases and replaces other languages. Belarusian is literally on the verge of extinction because of russian. Ukrainian has been banned 134 times throughout history, it is still called a "village language", a dialect of russian. Russian colonialism is literally the reason why there are so many russian speaking people in Ukraine (I was one of them btw). Ukrainian is banned on russian occupied territories and people are getting in trouble or even killed for using it there, Ukrainian POWs in russian captivity are getting brutally beaten for speaking Ukrainian.

Like okay, I can get why there's this confusion, so here's a clue to understand that the language you're looking at definitely is not russian — the letter і. If you see ї (like i but with two dots) it's 100% Ukrainian. If you see j it's Serbian. Russian alphabet also doesn't have such letters as Ђ, Љ, Њ, Ў, Џ (dont confuse with Ц ). Yes, it's not always gonna be easy to detect that the language in front of you is not russian, but when you have trouble with it just ask or run it through any translation app and it'll probably tell you the language.