TRAVERSE 134
Poland and after a night in Krakow we back tracked slightly to Kerowitz for an assignment Kiran had been sent , it became my first taste of the war .
On February 24 , Olena Kurilo was at home when a Russian missile destroyed the building leaving her severely injured . Within hours , an image of her bandaged and bloodied face was being beamed through cyber space , the world drawing a collective breath at the shock of the Russian invasion . Ending up on newspaper covers all around the world , Olena was evacuated to Poland where she would undergo multiple surgeries to try and recover the sight in the damaged right eye .
Olena arrived with her daughter Kate as translator , and we had tea at a small , modern café . Both beautifully dressed , you must look closely to see Olena ’ s damaged eye , but it ’ s impossible for her to hide the fact she is struggling to put on a brave face . I saw the connection she has with Kiran , and he seemed in no hurry to take the photographs the newspaper was asking for as we talked . It ’ s sobering to listen to the uncertainty of their lives , and as Kate talked about the missiles and bombs exploding around her flat in Ukraine my gut was twisting and turning with a weird anxiety I wasn ’ t used to .
With the day beginning to get away from us , Kiran made some images with Olena and then some more in her flat . A short walk from the coffee shop it was almost possible to think we were on a fashion shoot , but for the darkness that surrounded the reason for the photographs . The afternoon with Olena stayed with me for the ride out of Poland , the headaches , the
nightmares , the surgeries to try and regain her sight and her life as a refugee . And then the traffic disappeared on the smooth , manicured Polish highway and we rode alone , the reality we were riding into a country at war came over the golden late afternoon landscape as a frigid wind foreshadowing an impending storm .
As we settled into our hotel in Lviv , way after curfew into the small hours , the complicated border crossing , the quiet country roads smelling of night blooming jasmine and the beautiful , cobbled stone streets of this historic city were all swirling in my pre-sleep head when Kiran ’ s text came in .
“ I ’ d stay in bed Mate if there ’ s a warning , might as well be sleeping if we get hit .”
Minutes later the quiet evening air was filled with the sound of my first air-strike warning . Welcome to
TRAVERSE 134