The presentation was held with the support of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation and the Ukrainian Institute in Prague. For the author, choosing Prague was symbolic: the Prague-Řeporyje district and Hostomel have had partnership ties since 2023. In addition, a large Ukrainian community now lives in the Czech Republic, including people who were forced to leave their homes because of Russian aggression.
At the start of the presentation, Second Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Czech Republic Nadiia Malovana addressed those present. She stressed the importance of documenting the testimonies of people who survived the Russian occupation.
“These testimonies from the people who were there at that time, during the occupation — it is important that this is spoken about… This needs to be talked about, it cannot be forgotten, and the world must hear it,” said Nadiia Malovana.
During the meeting, Kseniia Dvornikova also presented a copy of the book to the Embassy of Ukraine in the Czech Republic, so that the testimonies of Hostomel residents remain accessible to the Ukrainian diplomatic community in the Czech Republic.
22 Conversations About Hostomel
Although the book is called “21 Stories from a Hero City,” it actually contains 22 interviews. The twenty-second is a conversation with Khrystyna Konova, who at the time of the interview headed the department for investigating crimes committed in the context of armed conflict at the investigative department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kyiv Region.
Her account became a kind of afterword to the book and shows how war crimes are documented and investigated. Kseniia Dvornikova specifically emphasized that war crimes have no statute of limitations, so people who witnessed or suffered from such crimes can turn to law enforcement even years later.
From the First Downed Helicopter to the Stories of People Who Simply Tried to Survive
Among the book’s protagonists is Serhii Falatiuk, a serviceman of the National Guard of Ukraine, who on February 24, 2022, shot down a Russian helicopter approaching Hostomel. During the presentation, the author read an excerpt from his interview, in which he recalls the first hours of the full-scale invasion and the moment he first used weapons against a Russian target.
“I was doing all of this for the first time. I had no experience like that, because we only trained on mock-ups and with training equipment, since we didn’t have much weaponry back then,” his memoir reads, which the author read aloud during the meeting.
The book brings together the accounts of civilians who survived the occupation, losses, and evacuation. Among its protagonists are teachers, doctors, rescuers, volunteers, former military personnel, people who helped the Defense Forces, and those who were forced to leave Ukraine.
“War consists not only of big numbers, territories, and loud names, but of the stories of hundreds, thousands, millions of people. And each of these stories is somewhere similar to the others, and somewhere completely individual — the experience of living through war,” noted Kseniia Dvornikova.
Natalia Omelchuk, coordinator of educational projects at the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation, spoke about her own work at a shelter near Hostomel Airport and her decision on February 24 to go to the shelter to evacuate the women who were there. She recalled that the decision was spontaneous, but the feeling that she could have helped and hadn’t would not have let her live in peace afterward.
“Being a Refugee Is Very Hard”
Separately, during the presentation, the author spoke about the experience of forced displacement abroad. She read excerpts from the stories of Volodymyr Symonenko and Vira Arieshyna, who ended up in Italy after the occupation of Hostomel.
Symonenko and his family returned to Hostomel as early as the beginning of May 2022, despite the lack of electricity and water. Among the reasons for returning were also the pets that had stayed behind at home.
“But our dog is here. We found the cat,” he recalled.
Vira Arieshyna described her forced stay abroad differently: “I didn’t know what to do with myself, what to think about. The language was foreign. Everything was only about Ukraine for me.”
“Not to Give Up”
One of the central themes of the presentation was the need to preserve the memory of what had been experienced. Concluding the presentation, Kseniia Dvornikova turned to the story of Borys Kharchuk, who had lived in Crimea and, after the occupation of the peninsula, chose to live in Hostomel.
“I would really like people to never give up. Everything can be survived, but with joint efforts, uniting with neighbors, like-minded people, fellow townspeople, it can be survived even better,” the author quoted his words.
This idea was echoed by the director of the Ukrainian Institute in Prague, Rostyslav Prokopiuk.
“I want to use Kseniia’s phrase — ‘Not to give up.’ Indeed, that’s what Ukraine is doing, that’s what we’re doing here abroad. And each of you, Kseniia, didn’t give up — you wrote this story,” he said, thanking the author and participants of the presentation.
PHOTO by the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation.
The book “Surviving Hostomel: 21 Stories from a Hero City” was published by Folio Publishing House. The first presentation took place in Hostomel, the book was later presented at the 33rd Lviv International BookForum, and it was given as a gift to former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson.
