‘Love and joy are still alive’

The story of one Kharkiv couple who got married amid their city’s ruins

Since the war in Ukraine began, more than 30 thousand Ukrainian couples have officially tied the knot. In mid-April, the Ukrainian Justice Ministry simplified the marriage registration process — soldiers can even get married over Zoom now. One wedding — that of dentist Anton Sokolov and nurse Anastasia Gracheva, both from Kharkiv — has become famous far beyond Ukraine’s borders. Photos of the couple in their wedding outfits in front of the wreckage that now makes up Kharkiv have been shared by media outlets around the world, including France24, Euronews, and Africanews. Meduza spoke with Anastasia Gracheva about she and her husband’s decision to get hitched in wartime — and how they used the wedding to help the war effort.

Anton and I lived together for two years before he proposed to me. Like any girl, I was impatient to get married, so I’d started openly nudging him: okay, Sokolov, when are we getting married? He would laugh it off and say that most marriages statistically end in divorce. To be honest, I was expecting him to propose on New Year’s, but he didn’t.

Then we got a call that morning [February 24] from our friend. We were fast asleep, and when Anton finally answered the phone, we heard, ‘It’s started. Go down to the basement.’ We were so groggy we didn’t even realize a war had begun; we just calmly packed our go bags, got in the car, and went to pick up my son from my first marriage from military school. The realization hit us while we drove. That was the beginning of our new wartime life.

Our building’s basement is equipped with a gym — there are toilets, running water, and a place to lie down, but there’s only one entrance, which is unsafe. As soon as it collapses or anything like that, we’ll be stuck in there. And it gets tiring going down to the basement every time you hear the air raid siren. We went all the way down from our seventh-floor apartment three times, but by the fourth time, we just took out all of our things and covered the hallway and settled in there.

By the second or third day, we were sick of just sitting at home. Anton and I started to try to think of ways to help. We put an announcement on Instagram: "Dentist and nurse can provide in-home medical assistance." Pretty soon, we got our first requests. Anton would come with me every time I needed to give someone an IV or change a catheter. I would go with Anton and assist him, although I’d never done any dentistry work before. In addition to helping our neighbors, we helped each other: if one of us couldn’t remember exactly how to do something, the other one would remind them. It brought us much closer together — we realized that even with the world around us collapsing, we had each other. That even when you were giving all your strength to your country, to Kharkivans, there was someone there to share a bit of their strength with you, to hug you at night, to caress you — and that puts your soul at peace.

Over time, the demand grew. Most of the people who asked us to come were elderly; most younger people had either left or had gone off to defend the country. Older people often have problems with blood pressure, and these problems get worse during wartime. We decided we needed to transition from providing individual care to something larger-scale.

We learned that a humanitarian aid warehouse in Kharkiv needed medical volunteers to sort and distribute medicine and medical equipment. Basically, we needed to make sure that each person who requested medicine for specific symptoms received the right kind. Volunteers with cars would drive the medication to the most dangerous parts of Kharkiv. Later on, we changed our priorities a little. We're still helping civilians, but our focus is now on treating people from the military and the Territorial Defense Forces. Our volunteer work at the humanitarian warehouse ultimately became not just a part of our lives but our entire lives, our entire routine.

For Anton, this experience confirmed that I really was the person for him. That he can trust me — that I share his values and his worldview. In his own words, he saw me anew during our volunteer work and became certain that I’m level-headed, calm, and brave, with an open heart. He would slyly call me a Decembrist — no, actually, it was “my Februarist.” I sent my son to the Czech Republic to live with relatives; he said he wouldn’t go anywhere without us, but we ended up convincing him to go. As for myself, I made it clear that I wouldn’t go anywhere — I wouldn’t leave him [Anton].

Anton didn’t tell me all that until he had already proposed. On March 28, on the two-year anniversary of our relationship, he got down on one knee and said he wanted to be with me as long as he possibly could.

We decided to get married on April 3, my birthday. Anton said he hadn’t been able to find me a birthday present, so we’d have a wedding instead. And we didn’t want to wait — who knows what will happen tomorrow. We knew if we waited too long, Kharkiv, our hometown, might not be around anymore. We knew, of course, that a traditionally, lavish wedding wouldn’t be possible, but we decided from the start that it wasn’t about the wedding — we wanted to use the celebration to help the people Kharkiv, too.

The world had already begun to forget about us [Kharkiv]: there was less news about us in other countries, and the humanitarian aid was waning a little — we saw it when we worked in the warehouse. So we decided that since we couldn’t have a normal wedding, we could have a “wartime” wedding and use it to remind the world that meanwhile, Kharkiv was over here being shelled.

In Ukraine right now, you can get married on the same day you apply. You don’t have to go to a marriage office — you can go to a police station, an enlistment office, or an Emergency Service Ministry office. We managed to find the only wedding officiant still in Kharkiv and convinced her to join our adventure — to help us get married right in the middle of Kharkiv, in the ruins. Anton went running all around the city to get the documents. We had three days to do it all. And by some miracle, we did it.

I was given two wedding dresses. One was from a friend of my godfather — she said I could alter it however I wanted because she didn’t need it anymore. The other one was given to me by a photo studio in Kharkiv where some of our friends work; they also said I could do whatever I wanted with it. Another friend of mine managed to combine the two dresses into one that fit me in just a couple days. I didn’t want anything too fancy — absolutely no frills or lace, just a precise silhouette. I thought the skirt could be a little more lush, but I’m generally a fan of minimalism. The veil was made from a piece of tulle cut off from the dress’s petticoat.

The flowers are a crazy story: a girl named Eva agreed to prepare my bouquet and crown. She’s a florist who volunteers with us. We spend the day discussing all of the details, and then, late that night, her apartment building gets hit [by a shell]. Naturally, it freaked her out. I thought, “Fine, I won’t have flowers. It doesn’t matter as long as my friend is safe.” She told me, “It’s the first time since the war began that I’ve done something I actually like.” I was one of her first clients; obviously, florists don’t get too many clients during wartime.

We began our wedding day with the photoshoot. We called all of the photographers and journalists we could think of. We asked our friends to tell all of the journalists who were still in Kharkiv that we were having a wedding. We stopped anyone we saw in the street who was wearing body armor and had a “press” badge and invited them to the wedding. We called some Danes who had taken pictures at our humanitarian aid warehouse and they were so inspired that they made a film about us.

We held the photoshoot in places that used to be the most beautiful in the city but have since been destroyed by shelling. I adore my city — I’ve been through every alleyway, and it’s painful, of course, to see ruins where homes used to be. The Palace of Labor, with its big arch, is an especially important place for us — if you go through the arch from the street, you’ll see [in the courtyard] all kinds of magazines and cafes. Anton and I would often go there and drink coffee. We went to the music store, where they sold records, probably about once a week. We love collecting antique things for our home. The photo from our wedding that was shown by media all over the world was taken right in front of the Palace of Labor.

After that, we went down into the metro — that was another part of our plan [Note: since the war began, the Kharkiv metro station has served as a bomb shelter; some Ukrainian couples have even had their weddings down there]. Lots of people wanted to congratulate us, so we decided the metro would be the safest place for such a large group to gather. We convinced our wedding officiant to come down there with us. Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, came down to congratulate us, too.

We poured a little bit of champagne after getting officially married. We exchanged rings right there on the platform. We were surrounded mostly by friends, loved ones, and photographers. People are living on the metro cars, but in the station, where we got married, it wasn’t too crowded. But people were curious — they came up to us and congratulated us. We could feel that they were happy for us. It seemed like the whole city shared our feelings in these dark times.

To be honest, when we were exchanging rings and saying our vows, I didn’t think much of the fact that we were in a metro station. I was only looking at Anton: this was the man I’d been looking for for 32 years. I could see the love and trust in his eyes. I could feel that this was my person, the person I love beyond measure. And that this was our day. Whether we were in a marriage office, a metro station, or a basement didn’t matter — it was our wedding. We have no intention of “re-doing” anything after the war; we had the best wedding in the world. We just hope to be able to have a honeymoon after the victory.

Once our marriage was registered, we got out of the metro and went to the humanitarian aid warehouse. Our volunteer friends had set up a feast. As far as I understand, the Kharkiv restaurant where one of our friends works helped. We celebrated the wedding at the warehouse. The Kharkiv singer Serhiy Zhadan even played a free concert. There, surrounded by boxes of medicine and food, we had our first dance. We hadn’t practiced — we just danced the way we felt.

We wanted to show that despite the war and the destruction — and it wasn’t buildings they destroyed, it was our lives — love and joy are still alive; human life continues on. The sky above the city hasn’t changed — it’s just as clear and blue as ever. And our love hasn’t changed — it’s only gotten stronger. Love will save our city, our country, and the whole world.

Interview by Nadezhda Svetlova

Translation by Sam Breazeale