Alla Koshlyak is a host on Radio NV. In her ‘pre-war life’, as she calls it now, Alla produced a podcast about her beloved Nordic countries. On Radio Aristocrats she hosted a program about business, and worked on the same topic on Hromadske.ua. She has also worked for UA:Culture, written about science for Kunsht magazine and travels for 34travel.
But since February 24, like her other colleagues in Ukraine, Alla has become a war journalist. Today, Alla Koshlyak speaks about her decision to stay in Kyiv, the things that help her to hold on, and the changes in her radio work.
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First days of the war - thoughts, experiences, actions
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“You’re hearing an air raid alert behind my windows,” Alla starts the conversation. “It’s extremely loud because I live in the center of Kyiv.”
She has already lost track of how many days of war there have been, but the siren sound still frightens her, as it did on the first day when Alla’s friend woke her with a telephone call.
On the evening of February 23, Alla had watched a Scandinavian arthouse comedy and gone strolling around the city to calm herself down. Because of the news, she had had a sleepless week before. Radio NV had already been covering only war and politics. So, after coming home from the walk, Alla fell asleep long before midnight.
At 5 am, her friend called her and said: “Alla, I think the shit’s going down.” Alla checked the information on the media and journalistic chats and did everything as planned. She felt no fear then. In five minutes, she gathered her essentials, put on some warm and comfortable clothes, called her parents, and woke her flatmate. While the latter was getting ready, Alla managed to do a live appearance on Australian TV. “Even with my lipstick on,” she now recalls with laughter.
Even before February 24, Alla had decided to stay in Kyiv if the Russians launched a full-scale invasion. She knew that she would continue working as a journalist because that is what she could do best.
“As long as it is possible for us to broadcast, I can’t do anything but go to work”, Alla explains. “I think that my job saved my nerves. I can’t imagine how I could have gotten through it any other way.”
In the office, Alla went live immediately. The next 36 hours merged into one continuous day on the radio. The journalists took turns with each other. Between official statements and telephone calls to the different regions of Ukraine, Alla got in touch with her colleagues from abroad and informed them about the situation in Kyiv. There were many such enquiries because in 2014, Alla had worked as a fixer. Now she was apologizing for her poor English and speaking to Australian, New Zealand, Indian, North American, British, and Arabic audiences.
After 36 hours of permanent work the team decided to stop broadcasting 24/7. On the second day, Alla went home to get some warm clothes, a blanket and a frying pan. She spent the next few weeks in the office.
An air raid alert sounded during that journey, so Alla spent the night in the Kyiv metro. Next time she stayed there for the whole 36 hours of a long curfew. She even managed to go live from her smartphone, sitting in a passage between the Khreschatyk and Maidan Nezalezhnosti stations. It was a time of great fear: what if Kyiv was totally ruined by the time everybody gets out? Alla thought.
“I’ve read dystopian books and watched many disaster films, but I never imagined that something like this would become reality for me,” she goes on. “I thought it was better to stay in the office for a while because I gotten myself so wound up.”
Ten members of her had stayed in Kyiv. The rest went to Lviv to establish a reserve studio, which soon became the main one. The correspondents mastered the mixing desk; everyone on the staff planned the broadcasts and searched for contacts together. In the Kyiv office there were a basement, a kitchen, and a shower. The journalists who chose to live there slept on the floor. It was of crucial importance for them to have each other on standby: sometimes, when the connection broke, Alla ran into the studio, apologized to the audience for the malfunction, and announced that she was the host from then on.
Alla tried to avoid calling the Russians special names like ‘orcs’, ‘ruscists’ or ‘pig-dogs’. It was just Russia, Russian citizens, Russian soldiers: the evil must not be disguised as something else. Alla can only swear in Russian, so no offensive words were heard on her programs, not even the famous message to the Russian warship. Still, a sign with this phrase stood in the studio, which could be seen on their YouTube streams. Alla observed the quotation and found support in it.
After having spent three weeks in the office, Alla returned home. She was missing her own space badly. Besides, the broadcasting work got better. These days, Alla only comes to the office for a few focused hours. Sometimes she helps her colleagues from abroad with some contacts. Sometimes she volunteers, despite not having the energy to do so more systematically.
“I was considering options, in case our broadcast was suspended,” Alla says. “In that event, I would rather go to the volunteering hubs I know and be useful there. Furthermore, I’ve often thought about enlisting in the territorial defense. Or maybe some foreign journalists would need a local producer (not a fixer, though). Generally, I long for more work in the field. I feel like I’m not doing enough.”
At times, when all her work seems meaningless, Alla recalls a few stories.
Like, for example, the story of her acquaintances from the besieged Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, who had no mobile or internet connection in their basements, but could occasionally receive FM broadcasts – and it was Alla’s voice which helped them to hold on.
Or the story of another acquaintance of hers, who made a radio out of a children’s construction set and listened to her broadcasts.
Or the story of her friend in a village near Makariv, who got in touch for the first time after a silence of several days. “We’re listening to you on the radio together with my parents,” he texted her. “Mom has promised to knit you one more pair of woolen socks after the victory.” , Alla had once said on the air that she was wearing some socks made by this very woman.
Alla has cried only once while live on air. In the first days of March, a presidential decree giving posthumous Heroes of Ukraine awards was issued. The description of their feats went next to their names and ranks: somebody had covered the withdrawal of their battalion; someone had blown a bridge up to prevent the enemy passing, and so on. Having read the first several names, Alla was still controlling herself, but then she burst into tears. “I’m sorry,” she addressed the audience; “I know that these names definitely have to be read out and published, but I can’t stop crying.” In tears, she read the entire list.
“This is something I will always remember,” Alla says. “Such moments help me to stay patient. Our fellow Ukrainians are so courageous! Every day I am thrilled to speak to them on the air and listen about how they have stayed to defend their cities, help others, save elderly people and pets, deliver humanitarian aid. No single one of them is the coolest because they are all super cool. At times, when I am afraid that the end of our story may not be that good, I recall these people and tell myself that we are bound to prevail.”
Meanwhile, Alla gradually notices that her emotions are getting blunter. She feels like she’s living in two parallel dimensions at once. Here is she talking to people in Vorzel, where the maternity hospital has become a military one. The people tell her that they are fine and have everything they need, and Alla cries in the interval between her shows. Right away she starts making coffee, gets together with friends, and walks around Kyiv.
“We are living two parallel lives at the same time,” Alla explains. “I’m still able to listen to all these terrible things but I guess I can’t keep up with comprehending them. This is the biggest problem for me. And I am hardly coping; if somebody says that they can easily withstand the war, they are probably lying. My job saved me at first because there was no room for reflection. I just did what I had to do.”
Alla was worrying about her parents in Vyshgorod, who finally succeeded in evacuating. She was thinking about her friends and constantly asking them, “How are you?” She was sharing information and contacts, but in the meantime recognizing the old feeling from the times of the Revolution of Dignity: it’s not that frightening to stay in the midst of events where you can come to terms with what you see. On the contrary, the farther away you are, the more anxious you get.
Alla was ready to experience mood swings and apathy during these two months. For a while, she had been coping well, but then the news came from Mariupol, her friends’ native city which Alla had often visited. One morning, she opened her eyes and realized that she could not get up from her bed. Her endurance had broken down, and her body just said no. So Alla informed her colleagues and spent two days at home, just lying down and staring at the ceiling.
“I’m ‘lucky’ enough to have survived clinical depression,” Alla says. “So I know how to deal with such conditions. Maybe that’s why I feel a bit better during the war than others do. I know for sure that disturbances will happen, but I believe in taking a pragmatic approach. After the victory ― or even earlier, if my condition puts my efficiency at risk ― I will go and ask my psychiatrist for the medicine. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It works. I’ll live on after I’ve recovered. And I have no illusions that I could have handled all this by myself. Each of us has gotten too much for a human being to think so.”
Alla’s therapist has taught her how to come to agreement with herself and dispense with the illusion of omnipotence. Nevertheless, she still wants to go to the frontline for a story. But Alla has now sincerely told herself that she is not doing that now just to retell these stories later. The war is not going to end tomorrow, and the tragedies will continue to accumulate. For now, Alla keeps waiting because she will still need her mental powers to document Russia’s crimes.
Alla, who until February 24 had not fallen asleep without reading at bedtime, now can’t read anything except the news. She also can’t watch arthouse movies which require thoughtfulness. By the end of March, Alla had begun to watch “silly comedies” on Netflix. The more basic the film is, the better. And all of a sudden, she found she had once again begun to listen to music: it happened when Alla sang a few lines by The National in a newly opened café. Now she listens to Ukrainian music, walks a lot around the city, and gets together with her friends for at least one hour every day. After having spent three days in bustling and noisy Lviv, Alla has returned to Kyiv, where life seems to be proceeding in a totally different way. Sometimes it’s hard for her to answer to somebody’s ‘how are you?’ because she knows that her feelings are impossible to explain.
Alla does not have the slightest intention to quit journalism. This is the only job that she loves and knows how to do well, she admits honestly, even despite the demand to cover horrible topics.
“The process of coming to terms with myself is still ahead,” Alla says. “I often think about our work nowadays, about the line between journalism and propaganda. Today, I’m facing many moral dilemmas in my profession.”
In an alternative life without February 24, Alla would have now been travelling in a campervan and admiring the landscapes of Iceland. She is determined to fulfil this plan after the victory: it would save her.
“And afterwards, I’ill go back to work. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Meanwhile, Alla is staying in her apartment in Kyiv, in a block with thick walls which once withstood WWII. She hugs a stuffed toy shark from IKEA, which her colleagues gave her as a present. Alla holds on to it at work, in her sleep, and in her grief. This helps a lot.
The same as conversations with her dear people do, when she asks them, ‘how are you?’, and answers this question herself in all honesty.