"It's as if we are supposed to be unbreakable and powerful by default," Yevhenia Henova

How journalism has changed since the early 2000s, Odesa without Trukhanov, and the peculiarities of elections are the topics we discussed in this interview with Yevhenia Genova, a journalist, editor, and author. Watch the interview on YouTube and read the shortened version about "unbreakability and power", expectations and reality, and the future on Intent.

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Share with us how you live now during blackouts and lockdowns. These are the emotions that most people in Odesa understand, but we want to preserve them...

Let's record them for history. Indeed, it can be interesting, by the way.

I live like everyone else, to be honest. It would be right to say that you spend the year as you start the next one. Because in December we already had a very difficult situation with the energy sector, a lot of powerful shelling of substations in the area where I live. In December, we were left without electricity, heating, and water supply for a long time, the longest time being 6 days. True, the temperature was a bit warmer than it is now in January, but it was not very good either, it was a bit difficult. Now the situation is a little better in terms of water supply and almost always heating, although not every day. Unfortunately, we still do not have stabilization schedules. I mean emergency schedules. Emergency means that you never know when the electricity will be on and when it will be off. It's out for 12 to 16 hours a day, and it varies from day to day. But the worst thing about it is that you can't plan. As one of my friends says, if you are a plan person, it is very difficult for you to live without schedules in anything, without planning. I am also a plan person, but I have no stabilization schedules. So it's a little difficult to adapt. But of course, this is not the most difficult situation. I understand that there are people, many people, even in Odesa, even in my neighborhood, who have a much more difficult situation. These are the so-called electric houses, where everything depends on electricity. I don't live in such a house. I live in an old Soviet house with gas. And this means that no matter how difficult it is, you can at least heat your tea. Of course, we have stocked up on everything we need - batteries and everything else. So, in principle, I can work. And this is probably the most important thing, because even when you don't really want to work and get out from under the covers and do anything at all, you still start the day somehow and then get involved. Then you get distracted and forget about these difficulties.

In fact, I won't say that we are indestructible or powerful, that nothing can affect us at all. And we will survive everything, because I don't think it's very right. We devalue ourselves, we devalue our experience, our feelings, because it's all very difficult. Not only from a domestic point of view. I live on the eighth floor, and when there is no water for a long time, for example, you have to bring it physically to the eighth floor. This is not very pleasant either. My dog, who has to walk from the first to the eighth floor, is also not very comfortable, falling over, leading me to the elevator every time. She is not happy about it. But this is the everyday side. There is another side, the moral and psychological side, which is really exhausting. That's why we can record it for the history books. And this whole indestructibility, power, seems to have become a habitual part of our lives, and we are supposed to be like this by default. I don't think this is very right. Because all people get tired from time to time and need a break, and we don't have a break. We have shelling almost every day, we constantly hear explosions. Unfortunately, we often see the consequences of these explosions, and we realize that what is really happening is the destruction, an attempt to at least destroy our resistance through strikes on the rear.

But it seems to me that somehow even our partners in Europe have also gotten used to our indestructibility and stopped paying attention to it. When you talk even to cultural figures, artists, and other journalists from other countries who have known us for years. I see that they also don't pay much attention to it. They react to candles as if it were romantic. It's not romantic, it's actually very difficult. We are definitely holding on, but we understand why this is done. This is done, among other things, to destroy our culture and everything else that we often talk about, because if this is not here, if people leave, if people are forced to... This is done, of course, to make sure that people leave as much as possible. Or to be as unproductive as possible, by the way. Writing an article or, I don't know, some kind of material... Writing a picture or music while sitting under five blankets, when you're at a temperature of plus five, is not very comfortable...

While we were talking, I received a message that Trukhanov had been released on bail. Why is this not a question? When I entered the university, Trukhanov was already the mayor. And it turns out that I'm living in Odesa without him for the first time now. And I want to ask you what it's like to live without Trukhanov in Odesa?

I entered the university under the second... under Hurvik, I think. I think it's something like that. In general, we live in such interesting times. Not that I've lived for a long time, but I remember how it was after the first Maidan. And that was not so long ago. The times when everyone thought that the government that existed before the first Maidan was forever. That head of the regional administration, that MP, that they would be there forever. Everyone thought so. The conditional Pressman, he will always be a deputy. Kivalov. Well, this is an axiom. No one, apparently, even thought that people are also, in principle, mortal. But it seemed so. And when the Orange Revolution won, new people began to appear. The heads of district administrations were also replaced, and they resigned, not wanting to, but leaving because new ones were appointed. I don't know, for 3-4 years, if not more, they went around saying that it wouldn't last long, they would be back soon. They also thought that they would come back, just wait a year and everything would be back to normal.

Then, there was a boom of this youthful, perhaps, choice of the current president. I also remember all these people's deputies: some I have already mentioned, some I have forgotten to name... Those who had been people's deputies all their lives, they also walked around and thought: "no". They said they would continue to meet with the teams, trade unions, and pensioners there anyway, and said they would return. Well, it will take another year or so, it will all blow over and everything will come back. Now it doesn't look like anyone thinks that this will not last long, and soon he will be mayor again. Judging by my experience, it won't be like that. That's it. It's time to do something pleasant for the soul, something useful. There will be no going back, there will be no going back.

Whether this is good or bad, I'm not even ready to say. Because I don't know who is a better MP: the conditional Pressman or the conditional Servant of the People who came in his place. But the change of generations is happening. And we just have to accept it. I am far from thinking that there will be some second Trukhanovs or third Trukhanovs. I think that's enough. I know that many politicians also think that they will come back, that they still have great chances. Well, it's over. We, by the way, as journalists, also sometimes need to say: "That's it." There is a new generation...

Марія Литянська