Posted at 5:00 a.m.
On the app map Zenly, who geolocates her closest friends, Maryna Khrennikova sees little black dots everywhere. In France. In Finland. Poland. In Bulgaria. In Norway. Even in Turkey.
The war scattered them to the four corners of the world.
A few even stayed in Ukraine, despite the conflict. The 18-year-old student landed in Quebec in April, thanks to an emergency program organized by the University of Montreal.
PHOTO GENYA SAVILOV, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Heavily damaged Kharkiv building on May 29
They are nine students from Vassili-Karazine University in Kharkiv, the second city in Ukraine, to have fled the bombs to take refuge in Montreal this spring.
These days, they are finishing their exams from the Faculty of Sociology in Kharkiv remotely and taking French lessons while waiting to start their university course in Montreal in September.
They are safe. But 100 days after the dismal morning when Maryna heard a friend crying on the phone and realized that her distress had nothing to do with a recent breakup, the war is still there. Omnipresent, in his head and in his heart.
“When I was in Ukraine, I never cried, I was too busy surviving,” says Maryna, who spent three and a half weeks under the Russian offensive before leaving her town with a backpack and a small suitcase for any luggage.
Three weeks of being woken up to three times a night to run for cover. To learn to distinguish the type of bombardments by sound in order to assess the danger accordingly. To ask the same nagging question: to leave or to stay?
PHOTO RICARDO MORAES, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Factory on fire following a Russian bombardment in Kharkiv on April 30
One day the family gathered in the apartment on 16e floor of his building in Kharkiv.
“We’re all adults,” her father said to Maryna and her 21-year-old brother.
Everyone now had to make their own decisions, no choice being without risk. It was everyone faced with their own fear and judgement.
Maryna chose to leave, alone, in one of those crowded trains that left Kharkiv station daily.
A heartbreaking decision. “It’s really hard to leave your family when you might never see them again. »
cry of helplessness
In Kharkiv, Maryna was immersed in the heart of the war.
Today, she follows her from afar. She no longer lives in fear of dying. But psychologically it is somehow more difficult. She sees all these cities being bombed. And she is dying of worry for her relatives who have remained in Ukraine.
One day, while she was waiting for her Canadian visa in France, her grandmother abruptly interrupted their telephone conversation, saying, “I can’t talk, they’re bombing. »
In the cafe where she got used to, Maryna shows the photo of the crater that a shell dug that day next to her grandmother’s house. “It’s a miracle she’s still alive. »
Consumed by a feeling of helplessness, Maryna then cried all the tears in her body. But she remains convinced that she made the right choice. She wants to study and go back to rebuild Ukraine, when this madness is over. Not before.
Because she sees with consternation people returning to Kharkiv, since the Ukrainian army pushed back the Russians, in mid-May. When they saw that the metro, whose stations had given shelter to thousands of people, had started to roll again, thousands of the city’s inhabitants returned to their homes.
PHOTO BERNAT ARMANGUE, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Residents take the metro in Kharkiv at the end of May.
“However, there are always attacks,” says Maryna astonished.
But she understands them, too. “People can’t always live with someone, they need to be at home. »
Aftermath of war
On the road to exile that took her from Ukraine to Slovakia, Poland and France before landing in Montreal, Maryna had to make dozens of difficult decisions.
This journey propelled her into adulthood. And it has profoundly transformed it.
My priorities have changed. I see today what is really important. Life is too short to do things we don’t like.
Maryna Khrennikova, who fled Ukraine to take refuge in Quebec
The uncertainty of life no longer affects him. “If I had to go back, I know I can always manage. »
Maryna bears the scars of the war. The image of a plane flying over Montreal makes her jump with fear.
The idea of a fireworks festival terrifies her. She fears that the sounds and flashes of light will plunge her back into the nightmare of war.
Looking ahead, Maryna thinks the war will drag on for years. She wants to get her baccalaureate in Montreal, then return to rebuild her country.
In the meantime, she helps as she can… Hyperactive on Instagram, she helps raise funds for an active support network in Kharkiv.
She still cries, regularly. But she wants to act. “Because crying, she says, is useless. »