"This someone should be me"

The Berlin violinist Marina Bondas travels to the east of Ukraine - to take humanitarian aid and speak to local residents and Ukrainian soldiers - and upon returning to Germany, according to a well -made habit, he went around a heap of fallen leaves and cannot attend concerts of Russian musicians who supported the annexation of Crimea.

In an interview with Radio Liberty, she talks about her trips, calls the "industrial zone" in the Avdeevka area-the place of fierce battles-in place, "prom", and compares the slowness of Ukrainian transformations with the denazification of Germany.

Bondas was born in Kyiv in a violin family. In 1992, when she was 12, the family moved to Germany, where Marina grew up, graduated from the conservatory and then began to work in the symphony orchestra of Berlin radio, combining it with other musical projects.

When asked why the Berlin violinist was so close to the war in the east of Ukraine, Bondas replies that the events in his homeland began to be interested in during the Maidan:

- I live nearby, the connection does not completely break off, a part of the soul still remains there. Very ill for people. I got involved, during the Maidan, we met people in Kyiv, volunteers, here we got acquainted with the Ukrainian community. They began to help because they saw that help was needed. At first, they turned to large charitable organizations, everything happened there with difficulty, and we realized that we had to take business in our own hands. Heart for Ukraine ( the fund in which Bondas participates. - approx. ) - this is a charity project in a free flight, unregistered. The idea belongs to my friend, she put him on her feet. I joined him from the very beginning. And to do good and do what I like - so I got involved in all this.

The conservatory on the Maidan is worth

“But you left at 12, you should have a completely German circle.”

- I am a musician, my circle is quite international, among friends - people from different countries, I have a very mixed circle. And where he was born, something still remains. Probably, with the Maidan, this is what played the role: when you watch photos, videos, you find out the place. I am a Kiev woman, and even though I didn’t remember all Kyiv very well, but the places where the barricades stood-Khreshchatyk, the Maidan of Nebulia, the Conservatory on the Maidan is standing, on the Ukrainian square a European house, where I played a lot of concerts in childhood-this is something dear.

- When Russia annexed Crimea, then the war in the east began, were you definitely on the side of Ukraine?

-In general, yes. There was no question. Crimea was an annexation, I know who started the war in the Donbass, how it began.

Come to Slavyansk, we are waiting for you tomorrow

- You not only helped to collect money for Ukraine, you went to the east of the country. Violinists, in general, the musicians seem to be refined creatures, and here you go to where the war is. Mom and dad should not let you go.

- And my mother and dad did not say. Even now, when I go, I don’t say to my friends, only then, when I arrived that, they say, alive, everything is in order. And as for the performance - a gentle creature from a peaceful life suddenly gets there - so there are many of them there. I have friends, tender Glamorous girls, boys-some designers, photographers, directors-who threw everything and rode to help. These are probably the features of this war. I like that in society many people realized that something needs to be done, and someone should do it, and this someone should be me. The first time I got there a little by accident: we were engaged in charity work, and it was wonderful, but this was somewhat not what I was taught, I had to understand medicines, medicine and so on. This is all not very mine, and I was drilled, can I help exactly by profession. I played charitable concerts here in Berlin, and noticed that this is not only a way to raise money for charity, but also a little balm for the soul. For us all these three years is a very difficult time. I had an idea to come there and play in hospitals, in rehabilitation centers, in centers for immigrants, and so on. I suggested that the volunteer friends, asked if it made sense. And the girl from Kramatorsk, who lives in Germany, contacted her friends in Kramatorsk, and said: be sure to come. I took the tickets to Kyiv for two weeks, took the violin, and already in Kyiv contacted people by phone. I was handed over to the chain, and one fine evening they call: come to Slavyansk, we are waiting for you tomorrow. It began with this. I was driving for two days, as a result, she spent a whole week, played several concerts a day. If there were no return ticket, they would not let me go.

From Slavyansk, Kramatorsk fighting was not heard

- When was it?

- In the summer of 2015.

“Did you have the feeling that you were going to the front -line area?”

- Yes, and no. When I went for the first time, they had not yet let me go straight to the front line, they said that it was better not to go civilians. In Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, the feeling was a little wild: on the one hand, you are in the zone where there was just a war, these are cities that were occupied. On the other hand, the world has already returned to these cities, from Slavyansk, Kramatorsk was not heard, in Severodonetsk a little at night, if you listen, but these are tens of kilometers. When you get there, you understand that these are long distances. The traces of the war remained, but there were not so many of them, besides, they managed to repair a lot, people returned to a peaceful life, trying to establish it. There was a strange sensation.

Then you think: it's too late to be afraid

“Have you heard shooting, Canon?”

- After that, I went to Avdeevka and regularly heard her, I am now trying to go to where many are afraid to get. It is there, let it sound strange, we need music and art, something peaceful, people react more responsive to this. In Avdeevka, fragments flew past me, so I was already used to it. The city is usually not fired, but the old Avdeevka, the private sector, the vineyards adjoin the industrial zone, and when the mines fly on the other side, the fragments fly 200-300 meters, they flew past us.

- How is this addiction? Sensation when you went for the first time where, probably, have never been?

- No, I was not, I hoped that I would never hit and I would not see it. So happened. It was a little scary, I did not know what and how. Then, when you get there, there is a turning point, everything changes, you suddenly begin to look at life differently. This remains later - what is called ATO syndrome. I had situations when we are going near the front, and I think: am I already afraid or not? Then you think: it's too late to be afraid. If it’s scary, it is better not to get on the train and not go. And if I got there, you need to enjoy life while it is, and try to morally help people. I come there for a week, I will see enough of this and go back - and people live there. In Avdeevka there are streets closer to Promke, where, when strong battles are going there, they try not to let civilian "from the outside". But people live there.

I'm afraid to go skiing

-You do not have a syndrome when people are sitting on adrenaline because of danger, looking for the severity of life?

- The severity of life? I don’t know, I didn’t think. Maybe there is. Many people have this, some are engaged in extreme sports, someone is skiing, but for example, I’m afraid to go skiing. Everyone is engaged in their own.

- You perform there with concerts. Before whom and where?

- Now we are more engaged in children, and so, in principle, to everyone, in front of the civilian, in front of the military.

- And where? There are probably no halls of the conservatory.

- And the hall is not needed. What I like is not a concert atmosphere, direct contact with people. The meaning of everything is not that I come to the classical concert and everything is solemn there, but rather, contact with people, communication with them is one of the components of the rehabilitation that I am doing. I have not clean concerts, I communicate with people, I am preparing the program to tell something, listen, to give them speak out-this is also very important.

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Berlin violinist in eastern Ukraine

People are very tired

- There are people of different beliefs. Have you met people who say that Ukraine is wrong in this conflict?

- In principle, yes. But this is like everywhere, when many people gather, many different opinions. But you can not divide everything into those and these, many different shades. The closer to the front, the more people who are confused, and they don’t care, the main thing is to be quiet. And by the way, one of my goals is to unite these people outside or above politics.

-For a year and a half of your trips, since the summer of 2015, you have not noticed that moods are somehow changing? To the pro -Ukrainian or pro -Russian side?

“What I encounter,” people are slowly in thinking, more in the pro-Ukrainian side. It is one thing that TV broadcasts, and another thing is when they see everything with their own eyes, and see the difference with what they say. In the front -line zone, unfortunately, almost only Russian is caught, the “Deneyer” television, the towers from the other side, they are jamming everything Ukrainian and let their channels. And still, slowly, people see what is really happening. And so people are very tired, there is depression. Therefore, I am pulling me there - I want to morally help people. On the other hand, in the same Avdeevka, people have a second, third, tenth breath - to war, to the shots, and they try to establish peaceful life, engage in cultural projects. It seems to me that there are prospects.

Girl, what are you doing here?

- You describe how you speak to the civilian population. And with the Ukrainian military? Do you act in front of them like Claudia Shulzhenko? How do they relate to you, do not offer you to take you to the front line?

- The commander may not let the commander into the front line. A couple of times I hit the front line when it was quieter. In principle, they react very warmly. Moreover, if you show a German passport on checkpoints, they just bastard: "Girl, what are you doing here?" When I play at concerts, I see how something changes in the eyes of people. From afar, a soldier is perceived as a thoughtless murder machine, but in fact these are people like us. Everything is so mixed up, there are lads from the village, there are professional soldiers, and there are those who were “in a civilian” engaged in nuclear physics, biology or design - ordinary people who would never want to get into this situation in their lives, but had to. For them, a sip of peaceful life is something special. Moreover, when someone comes to support not from a neighboring village, but from Germany-this is very important for them. It is also important in the sense that people do not forget something human, peaceful. What they have to survive is to see-God forbid someone. They live with all this, return to peaceful life. So you ask how I come there, is it difficult to go there, - in fact, coming there, a person will quickly adapt - you get used to, certain reflexes appear. The most difficult and terrible thing is to return back to a peaceful life. I go for a while, then I return and come to my senses for a week or two. It is very difficult. And imagine the guys who have been sitting there for a year and a half, and there are those from the beginning of the war, the biggest trauma is for them-not when they are there, but when they return to peaceful life.

You need to carefully look under your feet, do not walk on the grass

- What happens to you in two weeks after returning?

- When I walk along Berlin, and the slides of foliage are lying, I automatically go around them: you get used to that you need to carefully look under your feet, do not walk on the grass, do not come anywhere, because there can be stretching, a landmine. Suddenly you wake up, you can’t sleep, these memories come, the wounded, which I saw, the smell of blood with an antiseptic - everything remains. I have a close friend, civilian, he spent three weeks in the basement in 2014. For a while, he slowly began to tell what they did with him-what you sometimes read in the reports of the "International Amnesty", a close person tells you-and you see the consequences, he has severe pains, his hand hung, headaches cannot sleep. When you hear this personally from people, it acts. Or from the acquaintances of his son sixteen years they were captured, beaten, then shot. My parents told me in detail, - according to medical examination - what they did to him.

- When you came to the east of Ukraine from Germany, there was no reverse reaction: anger, that you will not stay for long and leave, but they can stay there?

- I have never encountered this.

The classics are especially reacted by lads from the village

- How did people perceive music there? You yourself say that among the soldiers there are village, and indeed people are clearly not very sophisticated, and this is not an easy thing - violin music.

- It depends. I choose a program taking into account different tastes.

- What did you play?

- I usually start with classics, then different folk melodies, “seven forty” were asked in all battalions. Ukrainian music, Balkan, gypsy, Jewish, pop music, a little swing, a little jazz. By the way, especially those lads from the village that have never heard her react to the classics. They laugh that if it were not for the war, they would never have known that classical music is so cool.

- Let's talk about your attitude. You were born in Kyiv, you have Jewish roots, you are a German citizen. Who do you feel?

- Probably a little by little. In Germany, I assimilated more or less, so I feel myself a citizen of Germany. The native of Ukraine, too: from the beginning of the Maidan - this is an interesting moment - began to feel like a Ukrainian, not only because I was born there and love my homeland, but because, as it were, the Motherland began to reciprocate. I have the right to vote, I can solve something. And Jewish roots - yes, I feel like a Jewish too. Little by little.

- This is true, many talk about the new sense of Ukrainian patriotism. But now many have a disappointment of Ukraine.

- As for many, this is not entirely true.

All this evil spirits were cleaned for a very long time

- Many among those with whom I spoke. Disappointment of what is happening, more precisely, which does not happen. The expectations were very high, that Ukraine would change. Are you not disappointed?

- I am not completely disappointed. From the very beginning I realized that quickly only cats would be born. There is no need to wait for quick changes, you need to change so much, you need to change the entire system. If fast, it would turn out 1917 - this is also not good. To change effectively and without blood, so that there is as little blood as possible, time and patience are needed. In addition, I know all this kitchen a little from the inside, for example, with regard to medicine and the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, I see changes that many still do not see. Therefore, I have reasons for optimism, it will just last still years, while the changes will really feel on themselves. I live in a country that similar survived: after 1945, Germany passed denacing, a lot changed, but the frames of the former Nazi party were sitting in leading places until the end of the 50s. All this evil spirits were cleaned for a very long time. Unfortunately, we also need time to completely clean, restart power. It is also important that the purpose of the Maidan was not just to change the power of one to the power of the other, but to be able to decide something. This is what caught me: not that everything will change at once and there will be a flowering country, but that I, an ordinary person, have the right to vote, something depends on me, I can contribute to some changes.

It is not important whether there are anti -Semites or not, but how they are perceived in society

- Didn't it take this feeling? I know the people who threw work in the West, went to Ukraine, and then their hands dropped because they lost the feeling that they could influence something, and went back.

- I don't have that. I know people who are disappointed and do not respond very well [about Ukraine], but usually these are people who do not have some kind of rod, or they really hoped that everything would change without them.

- A question related to Jewish roots. Nationalists played a significant role in the Maidan, some of them are believed to profess anti -Semitic views. Didn't you have any problems with this?

- No, I did not have absolutely. Firstly, there are idiots everywhere, in any country you can find anti-Semites, look under a magnifying glass and say: what a horror. There are not many of them in Ukraine as they say about it. Not that the problem does not exist at all, but, firstly, it is not so much, and secondly, society itself does not perceive people with such views, they do not have sufficient support. People more right are supported until they start screaming something like that. The most important thing is not whether there are anti -Semites or not, but how they are perceived in society. Ukrainian society in this sense at the time of the Maidan woke up and is very intolerant of them.

I would wish the Russians to free themselves from Putin and the company - and the war will end, and maybe life will improve

- Let's talk about the attitude to Russia. Did your attitude to her change, do you distinguish between half -tones within Russia - who is for Ukraine, who is against it?

- I spent half a day in Russia, this is not a stranger country. Both friends and relatives are there, so I know a little from the inside. If we talk about politics, everything is simple, I had the attitude to the Maidan - we in Berlin came to the demonstration [protest against fraud] in 2011, when there were elections to the Duma when there were presidential elections. I distinguish people. I have no such attitude that Russia was written off on a landfill that all these are enemies. Очень бы пожелала россиянам освободиться от диктатуры, Путина и компании – тогда и война закончится, и в России, может, жизнь наладится, хотя бы перестанут страдать и сидеть по тюрьмам достойные люди.

– Но повлияла на ваше отношение к России аннексия Крыма и война на востоке Украины?

– В принципе, повлияла болезненно. Политика политикой, но падающие снаряды – это уже не политика, а бытовуха. На самом деле больно, потому что Россия что-то свое, что-то родное, для меня, во всяком случае, частично родиной тоже была. И как-то это...

– Ушло?

– Не то чтобы ушло. Это как близкий человек, который вас предает.

Когда их так переклинивает

– А были у вас близкие знакомые в России, которые сказали "Крымнаш"?

- Yes.

– И как дальше?

– Болезненно очень. Я сначала пыталась как-то все это на пальцах по-дружески объяснить. До сих пор шок немножко, не могу понять, как это могло произойти. Если брать людей, которые там живут, зависят от российского телевидения и так далее, – это одно, их можно оправдать. Но люди, которые, как и я, живут в Германии, как и я, музыканты, ездят по миру, очень много видели, – когда их так переклинивает, я, честно говоря, не могу понять, как это происходит. Общение сходит на нет. Ругаться, хлопать дверью, истерить я не люблю, не хочу, не собираюсь, особенно с многолетними друзьями, которые уже почти как родственники. С другой стороны, продолжать с ними общаться, несмотря ни на что, как-то очень тяжело. Поэтому я свои нервы стараюсь беречь, общаюсь с теми, с кем можно.

Это вопрос не политики – это вопрос порядочности и человечности

– Во времена Советского Союза музыкальные школы в Киеве, в Москве были связаны, воспринимались единым пространством. Сейчас многие известные российские музыканты поддержали Путина, подписали известное письмо по Крыму. Гергиев, Мацуев, Спиваков и еще немало других музыкантов. Вы разделяете эти вещи: музыка, искусство – отдельно, а политические взгляды – отдельно? Или ваше отношение к музыканту меняется после того, как он говорит "Крымнаш"?

– Музыку и политику можно и иногда даже нужно разделять, мухи от котлет. Не всегда хорошо ее политизировать, иногда надо стоять даже не вне политики, а над нею. Но искусство, порядочность и человечность – их разделять нельзя. А то, что произошло – вопрос не какой-то эфемерной политики, а вопрос человечности и порядочности. Поэтому к людям, которые поддержали эту войну и аннексию Крыма, у меня отношение очень болезненное. Некоторые из этих музыкантов были моими кумирами, я их обожала раньше, – и произошло что-то ужасное, мне их трудно воспринимать, трудно слушать. Я не всегда могу активно поддержать их бойкот, как и не критикую эти бойкоты, стараюсь в эти дискуссии не влезать. Но что касается лично меня, я на концерт к такому человеку просто не смогу пойти, потому что, когда ты слушаешь музыку, у тебя возникают какие-то ассоциации, какие-то мысли бродят в голове, – и у меня будут бродить в голове во время концерта соответствующие мысли.

– То есть на концерт Спивакова вы не пойдете?

– Я не смогу, просто не смогу. Мне, в принципе, лучше о таких людях меньше вспоминать, чтобы не расстраиваться в очередной раз. Я не понимаю, как они могли это сделать, не понимаю, что происходило в голове. Это вопрос не политики – это вопрос порядочности и человечности. Что происходит, люди не могли не знать.