E156 Natalia Gula

Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women, to share their uniqueness, their personalities, perspectives, and emotions about this world. In these difficult times in human history, we need to bring the cultures of the world together. And when we listen to real people, to real lives of women from other countries, we connect our humanity without our differences or stereotypes, and we get inspired by their stories to live a better life. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Natalia Gula. Natasha is from Kotelva, Poltava region, Ukraine. She studies broadcast announcing for television programs at the Kiev Theatre, Cinema, and Television University. Natasha has changed five cities and three countries in her 19 years, and after the war, she moved to study theater acting and drama as an exchange student at the Latvian Academy of Culture in Riga. Natasha enjoys making candles, dancing, and posing, and has a lot of experience in theater acting throughout her life. Nowadays, Natasha does voice acting for marketing ads used in Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms. Natasha, how are you today? Hey, I'm so happy that I'm here, and thank you to invite me here. I'm good. I'm honored, I'm lucky, and I'm very curious about you as a person. So I'll begin with this question. If your friends, because they know you best, could describe your personality, what would they say about you? I suppose they would say that I'm honest. Sometimes I can be a bit rude because of I'm honest in all my words and thoughts, and they would say that I'm not very show my feelings. I prefer to keep it in me, in my deepness. And I suppose they would say that I'm, I don't know, maybe funny sometimes. Thank you. And to understand your honesty, which sometimes can be rude. Is this also that Ukrainian friends think you can be rude sometimes, or are you speaking more about when you go to Riga or have been in other countries with a different culture, people are not as honest and as direct as Ukrainian people. And therefore it was those people who felt you were too rude when you speak honestly. I suppose it shows every time, even when I was in Ukraine and my friends from Ukraine and my friends from Riga and people in general. Sometimes I think I'm straightforward in my words, not like rude. I can say something bad or make hurt to person. No, I'm just telling what I think and I don't care what form of my speech is it. So more about straightforwardness, less about rude. Thank you. And does this mean that you prefer to have maybe when you meet new people, new friends, you want them also to be straightforward, to say directly how they think and feel? Or do you look for people who are a bit opposite to you so that your personalities can learn from each other and develop in opposite ways? Actually, I prefer a person who also speaks directly to me, also straightforward and no masks, no pink glasses. Just tell me what you want or what is bad or what's good. Maybe I do something wrong. Just tell me, I can supervise your thoughts and your words. Just tell me and it will be solved. I prefer people who also speak to me directly and clear. Thank you. And I'm very curious then, how did you decide to go into the broadcast announcing for TV, especially as someone who is studying theater acting and has a lot of theater experience? Why not choose an acting as well in Kiev? Why the television and why broadcast announcing specifically? What inspired you there? It's really a huge question for me because firstly, when I entered the university, we have art contest. We have to show the program, how we read poems, how we read monologues and how we dance, sing. And I had this art contest for acting and I passed it, but I passed it for not budget form of education, so I should to pay for it, but on broadcasting, I got a budget form. So for me, my government pays for me and I decided that is better to be on the budget form of education because for that time, it wasn't like small money. It was a bit expensive education, like in Karpenko Kara, it's always expensive education. But yeah, I decided to go on the budget form, so I did it and I'm still on broadcasting, but I really, really love acting and trying to develop myself in this way, more to acting, less to be a journalist because journalism is also interesting, but it's less interesting to me. Thank you. And so I will ask you, what fascinates you about acting? What is your favorite part? How do you use it to develop as a person? Do you love the audience? Is that your favorite or the team or the energy or the ability to be different people? And when in your life did you discover that you loved acting? Well, about acting, I love absolutely everything. I love that I have the opportunity to be the person who I'm not. I can be the ancient mademoiselle or I can be a strict bitch or just a cute girl with the ribbons in their hair. I also love that I can work with people. We can discuss some great thoughts about how we can create it more and more and more, how we can connect everything, my individuality with individuality of my character. That makes me really, I can't explain, you just can feel it and know what you need for it. Just love it. And that's all probably. And I decided that I want to be an actress. Like I remember when I was six, I always did a weather forecast. And I played like I am that TV host. But then I also decided that I prefer acting more when you can be free in your actions, in your thoughts, in your emotions. So that's why acting. Thank you. Thank you for the question, being free in your actions and in your thoughts. Is freedom one of the important values and principles for you? Are you a girl who wants to be independent, who wants to be free to be any person she wants to be, she wants to be free to be direct in her words? And is this part of the Ukrainian culture or are you someone who's born to desire freedom so much? I suppose that freedom is in our Ukrainian souls. That's why we are fighting against the enemies right now. And I prefer that thought that we adore freedom. We adore our thoughts and I suppose that living in Ukraine, it means that you can share whatever you want and that will be rated like, yeah, we agree with it or no, we can discuss it. So we prefer discussing. We don't have like yes or just no. We can find something common and something different. That's cool that we can discuss it, but in a freedom way. I love that and it makes me, since you're speaking about the culture of Ukraine, wonder how was that day when the invasion started February 24th for you? How did you hear about the news of the war? How did you feel? Did you believe it? And tell me the story of what happened in your life in that time until you went to Riga. Well, I will start from the Wednesday evening when I went to my dormitory and I just discussed with my friend like, maybe will something happen? And we just was like, no, no, that will be okay, no troubles. It's impossible. The war started and when it was night, it was probably 1pm on Thursday, Thursday 24th. I just lie in the bed and I make my video for university. It was stand up about, I don't remember about something, news probably for TV journalistics. One in other group of my group mates from my program, we just discussed the news. And my question was, at what time we have to go on other classes, at 9 or at 10? That everything I was carrying about. And I just fell asleep at probably 2am on Thursday. And when it was 5, my mates from my room in dormitory, they just told me like, wake up, the war has started. And I can say that I feel something strange. It wasn't so bad for me. I just woke up, I gathered my backpack, I took water, I took sweater, money, like cash money. I had cash money, thanks God, because there are no banks which give money for that time. And also I took with myself cookies and yeah, that's all. The last thing I found, it was the perfume. Then we just gathered together in our dorm. I saw like everyone called to their family and told like the war started and please be safe. I don't know, be together, stay calm or keep your money. Keep your food, water, your things with yourself. And I just was thinking about, should I call my mom or not, because she was in Voltava. And I just watched on my clock and decided like, but she is sleeping. I know that she sleeps, her alarm will be in 20 minutes. But girls told me like, no, you need to call to your mom. And I did it. And she was really, really wondering about why I'm calling so early. And I just told her that like, mom, don't worry, the war started. And she was like, what? I have no messages, I have no news about it. Then she called me in five minutes and told me like, yeah, I found this news and stay safe. And that's everything she told me. Then we went on the shelter under our dorm. We spent there probably an hour, a lot of sirens were there. It was 6 a.m. I wrote my sister that I love her and in 10 minutes her husband called me like and asked me what's going on, where are you, how are you? I told him that I'm in the shelter and that's okay, don't worry. After it, we came back in our dorm, in our rooms and I found a person who could take me to the Lviv, western Ukraine, but he was very far, far to me. And I couldn't find him, like there were a lot of traffic and I couldn't really find his car. And he wrote me just like, stay safe and care about you. And I just like, thank you, you too. And I go back and I went back to my dorm. I spent night in shelter. It was probably 30 beds in it. It was very cold and we slept in a sitting position. It was 3 or 4 persons on the bed and we were sitting and we slept like this. It was awful, it was very cold and probably at 7 a.m. on Friday we came back in other rooms to drink tea, to eat something and yeah, like this. And then I found a girl who decided to go to the west of Ukraine and I said her like, I want with you and we just, okay, let's go. When we were on the station, on railway station in the center of Kyiv, there was sheltering when some explosions were there. And it was awful when we just fell down and I covered my head with the hands. My backpack was covered my back and I just sit, I sit on the floor during explosions probably for two minutes. A lot of people were running everywhere. I saw like, I saw when luggages just flying in the air. Some boots were on the ground and everyone is screaming and it was awful, really awful. Then we found the train which went to the Rivne, its city in Ukraine and we decided with my mate like we need it. During this trip it was 9 hours, 4 hours of this trip we just stand, stand in this train. We spent night in France, in Rivne with friends, with Rivne. When we came in Rivne there were friends of mine who took us and we spent a night there. We ate food, we took a shower and we lied on the beds. It was so cool, it was real happiness when I couldn't realize that happiness it is. Next day, it was 26th of February, I went to my sister in Lviv, then we spent some days there, and my friend she went to the Poland, I went to my sister in Lviv, we spent some days there, then we moved to Italy. Me, my 26 years old sister and her one year old kid, we were 6 hours on the border to cross the border to Slovakia. Six hours, a lot of people, very cold, winter, rain probably, I don't remember rain or snow. Because of she had the baby there was another queue for women with kids and we stand there and because of it, it was faster. And my sister she kept the baby and I kept two backpacks and one big luggage and a lot of documents to cross the border. After we crossed the border in Slovakia, there were friends who took us and we spent two nights in Slovakia, then we moved to the Italy where my granny is living and working. And there it was a hard life because you check every time news, you check everything and a lot of stories and a lot of relatives who stayed in Ukraine. And we really we asked, we prayed other mothers, like mother of my sister and mother of mine to come to us and took the brother with them. And because of my brother is seven years old, he could cross the border. Yeah, I need to notice this. And probably in a week they were in Italy too and we lived there for two months. And I realized that is just living, it's just probably it's not even the living, it's surviving because no developing, no work, no job, no languages, which I know, especially English. And I found an opportunity to go to the Academy. My university gave this opportunity to students and I decided, well, maybe this the chance to study acting as I wanted and in two weeks I already were in Riga. I already was in Riga and from May till now till the 3rd of December I'm here and I'm living here and I spend a lot of time here already more than half a year. I think Riga is like Ukraine sometimes because a lot of Ukrainians, a lot of people who speak Russian, it's small, it's cozy, it's very, very comfortable for just a calm living and studying of course is also cool, everything I wanted, we have a lot of cool teachers and a lot of opportunities. So really I'm happy that I'm here and checking news from here sometimes it's a bit hard because I think maybe I betrayed my motherland, I betrayed my family, my relatives, but everything I cared is safety. Thank you for sharing about your life and your story and all I can say is Slava Ukrainyi. And thank you so much Natasha for sharing about your life, I wish you safety and to every Ukrainian I wish victory and thank you for participating in this project, it was my honor and privilege to interview you. Thank you so much for having me, thank you so much that I have an opportunity to share my story and maybe give motivation to people not to give up and stay strong and keep smiling on their faces. Thank you.