Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz, and I'm the son of a divorced mother.
She is really 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 people of the world together.
And when we hear the voices of women, when we listen to real lives of women from other countries,
we connect our cultures without differences or stereotypes, and we get inspired by their stories
a better life. That's what this podcast is all about.
My guest today is Karina Zarichanska.
Karina is a Ukrainian girl studying international relations at the Institute of International
Relations, Taras Shevchenko University, Ukraine. Karina is a bibliophile and a girl interested
in poetry. Karina, how are you today?
First of all, thank you for the invitation and giving me an opportunity to speak about my
experience. And I'm doing great. Thank you, Karina. I'm honestly happy,
honored, and feeling very lucky to have you here. And let's begin with this.
People might be curious about you. So can you share a bit more about your life?
Like, where did you grow up? What do you do for fun? How did your life change?
We will discuss the invasion a bit later, but this is more about you.
I was born and raised up in a city, which is located near Kiev Oblast, but in another region.
It's called Vilnica. And actually, my story of life maybe started when I went to school.
It was our Lyceum, which was one of the best schools in the city, obviously.
And I believe that the main motivation of my parents to force me to go to that school
is that there was many possibilities to study in different majors, because
actually, that's an interesting part about our school. Since, not since, but in the 8th
grade, you can choose your little major, so to say, school major. And actually, we had
like, medicine, we had economic class, but I chose law class, because at the time being,
I was more, at the time I was more interested in studying law and history, because those were
two major courses within the studying in that class. So I always thought that I will be more
engaged in studying law and stuff, maybe history. But then I realized that I was always really
interested in studying, in exploring different cultures, different countries. And it was in
my 8th grade again, when I had this amazing experience about, when I had an experience
studying in Germany, it was for one month, and I took part in the language courses.
It was within the program of Jot Institute. So I had an amazing month of living in Germany
and experiencing different cultures, making friends from different parts of all over the world.
We have many representatives, not only from Europe, but also from America, from Latin
America, from Asia as well. So it was an amazing opportunity to learn more about different
cultures. And I guess that was the beginning of my journey of understanding, at least,
that my main goal is not only to help people, because actually one of my, it's another story,
but still I really want to help people. But then I realized that I can do that on
a more global level. And in order to do that, I should learn more about different cultures.
And yeah, I guess that's it. Then I was participating in various olympiads,
as we say it, like different competitions. I was more interested in history, so I took part in
many historical competitions, so to say. History was my favorite subject at school,
it's obvious, and languages as well. So I learned English as my first foreign language,
and then German as my second language, obvious because I was in Germany.
So that's it. And then having this interesting mix of being interested in cultures,
history, languages, I realized that international relations is something that
is within my interest. I understand. Thank you so much for sharing your story and giving
an explanation that lets people know more about who you are and why did you become who you are
today. At the same time, of course, there was the horrible invasion on February 24th,
and even before that, the war from 2014, some would argue that the war has been going
on for hundreds of years, it's not just new now. But to you, how was that day of February 24th?
Did you believe the invasion? Did you not believe it? Did you expect it, not expect it?
How were your emotions? And how did your life change for now from that day until today?
To begin with, I'd like to start about the part of expectations, because for me,
a very important, a very significant part of the story, because obviously,
at least from my experience, and at least from my environment, nobody could believe that
it happened. Of course, as a student majoring in international relations,
one could understand that the invasion like that may have happened, and there were many
information, many things, many reports of intelligence services, not only American,
but also European countries as well, which told us, they said to us that the invasion
is, at least they're preparing for the invasion. But still there was this, you know,
hope that it won't happen, because nobody can believe that in the 21st century,
even in, especially in Europe, it may occur. I mean, all these wars all over the world,
that's a huge disaster for the humanity, and nobody could believe that it can happen in
your own country, in your own house. To me, it's the same for all the people who experienced
war. It doesn't matter where are they from. That's the, it's all about being a human.
Nobody could believe that. I agree 100%, and all I can say is Slava Ukraini.
And since you are someone with like a background in international relations,
and there is always so much contradictory news about the war, that yes, it's going well,
it's going badly, it's going well, every day it's like a roller coaster. What's your opinion about
how the war is going? What's your expectation? What's more of your analysis of the whole
situation there? Even from before that, since you had some a little bit of expectation,
what do you feel caused the true cause of the war? And then how is it going now?
And what is your expectation of the when or how it will change and evolve over time?
To begin with, I'd like to tell about the cause, because actually as a person who was pretty
interested and is still interested in history, I should say that these controversies between
Russians and Ukrainians, it's not something that we experience just today, just this year,
or this century. It's something that had to the beginning 400s, even 500s years ago. And
I do believe that many people from both sides will debate what was the real cause, whether the
Russians just want to kill Ukrainians, that's the intention, or it's the Ukrainians who
don't like Russians and they like to claim. But still, I should say that even if we have
some controversies, nobody should put that to the military sphere. And to me,
everything which just happens is just a huge disaster. And I mean, actually, I do believe
that even in the, like we tend to say that it's 21st century, how it can happen. But I believe
that in 20th century, they were the same people who couldn't believe that there would be
two world wars. Yeah, if speaking about the news, I should say that it's, just as you said,
a rollercoaster. Nobody can understand what happens. Not all the people have the classified
information, because obviously it's a secret. Nobody knows what is happening. I mean,
whether the war will be soon over or not, it's to me, like, it's all depends on the
events, on the military. So that's what I should say. And to me, trying to analyze
and to make predictions about the war is somewhat not intelligent from some point of
view, because it can change so rapidly that nobody could believe that, for example,
tomorrow there would be no war because something huge happened. So yes, and it's a pretty hard
thing to say when the war will be over. But what I should say is that we obviously see that
Ukrainian army and actually Ukrainian side trying its best to return the territories back
to do all the possible things to finish this war as soon as possible, because for Ukraine is
a huge disaster, as already said. And I just hope, I can't say that we are 100 percent sure,
but I just hope that this war will be soon over. I agree. And I really, really wish victory
for Ukraine. And what do you think about the rebuilding process? It's very, very complex
and complicated. For example, there is a big diaspora of Ukrainian women and girls who are
now starting a new life, whether in London or Canada or Portugal or Germany or Switzerland.
And over time, they will develop new friendships and new jobs. Even as students,
they're studying somewhere and they can get diplomas. It becomes harder to return.
And some of them, when I talk, they say, look, Ukraine needs builders and it needs warriors.
It doesn't really need people who are artistic or who are more intellectual and all that. They
say we can build a new life here and support Ukraine with money. What do you think about
that? Because that's literally a huge brain drain of a generation, which is the youngest
generation that is able to support and rebuild the country. Do you believe that when the war
is over, they will return or that this will become a big issue that needs to find a solution?
So first of all, to me, it always depends on the person and everyone has the right to make
their own decision. So if speaking about those young people who are starting a port,
it's not always as if they want to return home. Because many of us, I believe,
are motivated to rebuild Ukraine because there is a huge amount of work here and we will have a lot
of work to do in order to rebuild Ukraine. And to me, we should say that those young people,
of course, they can make a decision, but at the same time, they have a great opportunity
to learn a port, to, you know, to study something new and to have a port experience,
which is pretty important if you want to make the difference and to build, as for example,
in the terms of international relations, if you want to build some policy lines in your country,
it is always better to learn from the mistakes of other countries. Not only mistakes, but actually
to take into consideration, that's my main idea, to take into consideration the experiences,
the different experiences, not to learn on your own mistakes.
Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that. That's a lot of wisdom. And to build upon that,
a lot of women and girls who are your age or even younger are abroad. And there is a situation that
maybe because of the pandemic and social isolation or social media, a lot of girls and women
are now feeling low confidence and lower self-esteem, where like you said,
Ukraine can benefit from the experiences and input of everyone, but she thinks,
oh, I'm just a simple girl. I don't think people will like my idea. This is too much
responsibility. I don't believe in myself enough. What if people think my ideas are stupid,
blah, blah, blah. How and what is your advice, even for yourself, so that women will have their
complete confidence, live up to their potential and not like be too shy to live to their own
possibilities and follow their big dreams and big contributions.
So I'll try to make my piece of advice based on the experiences of Ukraine,
because actually, from my point of view, I also had these problems with confidence.
I thought that I can't make any change because I always wanted to do something global.
But at the same time, I thought that I'm just a girl, just a student who can't
make the difference, who can't do anything beneficial for country because, I mean,
country is something huge, something very important, and you're just a student.
But you wouldn't believe it, but when the invasion started, I just realized how even
small steps are important. And it seems to me that this experience, it was a global disaster,
but at the same time, it was an opportunity for us, for all of the Ukrainians to
understand how important our steps, even small steps are.
And I should say that there are many opportunities right now to do these small steps and to
help not only your local community, but your country as well.
And from my personal experience, there are many different organizations,
even student organizations, and their work aims at, first of all, building,
not building, but actually strengthening the foundation for teaching young leaders
who can be the future of the country, who will have more experience in team working,
in project managing. And even through these small activities, actually, you can
make the difference. So for me, the main goal is not to be shy, not to
overthink it, but just to take a step. And after this small step, other steps will come.
Thank you so much, Karina. It was my privilege and my honor to include you in this project,
to interview you today, to share more about your thoughts and your experience.
And again, all I can say is Slava Ukraini.
Hello, I'm Slava. Thank you for this opportunity to participate today.
It was a pleasure to talk to you.
