Stas Turina, Kyiv

Chapter 5 and 6

Yesterday (the day before yesterday) Monica wrote the post and tagged me in. It’s nice. It’s nice when you get referred to with some kind words. There’s some time to read it all in the morning and evening. Didn’t get a chance to talk (have a slow and calm conversation) with Sasha Steshenko. He, the one who considered himself a Russian scriptwriter, now greets me with “Gamarjoba Genatsvale”, he hasn’t learned Ukrainian yet, but he doesn’t want to hear anything about Russia and from time to time cries on phone. On the one hand, Sasha cries pretty often, because he has such a temper, but he never cried because of war before…

(My) sleep becomes calmer. Tomorrow I’ll try to arrange a day off for myself (didn’t work out)

There were so many stars in the sky yesterday ( the day befr yesrday) It’s getting harder to read anything else but news. (But it’s the poetry and so many imags of saints circulating in my mind) Inside Pavlivka corridor time goes differently. So humane and crowded here. But humane foremost. In a few hours of thre dayswe shaved almost 70 (?) 80 (?) people. It’s become easier to breathe.

S. 49 years old, shepherd and janitor, got a back injury after falling from the bicycle on the way to his date in the village in winter. He looks way better with a beard, but sometimes there’s some food left in it, when freedom comes he will grow it out, he says so.

Want to describe someone (else). Volodya, with Down syndrome. His neighbours say he doesn’t speak. But he speaks, it’s just way too quiet, it’s not whispering, it’s - husking.  He’s husking and pronouncing the words. Often he’s guarding the nursery’s door from hys neighbors. He sits on the chair near the door and doesn’t let anybody rummage through drawers and bags in the nursery room. Vova is in a good mood.

Nature owns the yard. The tram runs through Podil. Here - I won't write anything about a checkpoint or checkpoints. Whether they are here or not. And have I ever seen them? Now I don’t know anymore. It’snotallowed to write anything and anywhere and anyhow. There’s one acquaintance. Well what an acquaintance in the mornings and evenings we recognise each other.

I staggered. No sounds of explosions and it’s frustrating. I don’t want Katya to quarrel over the absence of water. (And now I'm in charge of always having the water at home, especially in the evening and in the morning -  in fact, we are at home only in the evening and in the morning) I’m floating between my new acquaintances, the frosty sky with clouds and news. Everything gets a different weight, like a messed up keyboard, like faulty scales that show one thing or another.

Yesterday I decided - if the news turns off, in this acase (case) (aviacase?) I need to remember why I stay in the country and Kyiv. Yes, once in 2013, during clinical psychosis, I was repeating my name and last name so as not to forget not to lose myself. I am Stas Turina, Stanislav Vladimirovich Turina. Now something needs to be remembered (something else). I am from Kyiv. Curator and artist of ateliernormalno. Together we work on texts, projects, exhibitions and publications. We speak responsibly and without censorship. (this is my-ours old statement) Now I need to mentally create a text about my homeland, about Ukraine, which I will remember. I will do it. But it needs some time for itself. It needs to turn to a stone and become a dust that scratches the glass.

I wanted to say this for a long time: now I am still in 2013 in many ways. Then in the summer, I thought that the third world war had begyn. It's hard to explain why I thought so. You could say - I thought so seriously, it was not a reflection, it was an understanding that the war had begun. In one garden, I considered myself a negotiator between the two parties. And one night in the village then - I counted the wagons carrying the dead while listening to the sound of wheels that always reach Pavshin, the village that sheltered me. Then there were many other things that now seem repeating inside me. That's where I came to church to be honest with the community. I knew that "something was chasing me" and I decided not to hide and tell the village community that here I am, and if something “is troubling the village”, it could be something that came along with me from Lviv. That is why I received my first communion in a Catholic church - among my community, being with them. There were other stories in the village and not only there. So I became a Christian. Now I am a Christian mystic. It’s like I’m introducing myself. I have already done it a bunch of times. Well, talling the truth is not a sin. And mysticism in Christianity is special, it is not related to the secrets of people and not. with secret teachings, but to the Sacraments and serving God. I'm not afraid to talk about it because sometimes the environment speaks strangely, starting a conversation with me. Sometimes my body does it and then I talk to my body. I believe in God. I am a Christian. When I believe in God, there is no fear. God, knock out from under the feet of our enemies their anti-human brick, cutting off with the explosion as in a fire in an oilwell.

Bless them with the fire and the sword of Yours.

I returned to the psychiatric hospital as a "nurse", I am at home

I bend my knee, I am Stas Turina.

Pray, brothers and sisters, a prayer is like a humanitarian aid, if you do not need its help, God will distribute it to the needy, we pray with inspiration, reflect on God. Help will come from where we did not expect.

When I talk about God, something in me switches. I come closer to the reactor of my psychosis - and warm my hands. I warm my hands with Faith and my psychosis. I'm back in 2013 and I'm going through a new big circle, now, thanks to Faith, you, my friends, thanks to you, my informal teachers, thanks to constant training since 2016 with a psychologist, working in the ateliernormalno and my colleagues and dear Katya, this big circle is completely different from the circle of 2013.

My fear - is not an animal one, and I do not have the courage. It is impossible to talk about it. I'm too careful. In general, I lost just some minor things and lately I have broken almost nothing. Only shoes, as always, blow out pretty quickly. I like to walk on puddles.

I look at myself a lot and study myself. Recently, I looked at myself in the mirror as a stranger. what else can I discover in myself? In my face there are traces of the facces of Samuel and Marina Shtelter (my grandfather and my mother), great-grandmother Otilia Shtelter (Stachschneider), great-grandfather Ilya Nyorba, grandfather Vasily Turina, who was from the circle of Ivan Turina (Koren’), the face looks like dad’s. My brother and I look alike. My face is not mine in some sense. It’s the one I can't choose. It belongs to God, because it was created by Him.

Yesterday in the hospital I saw people who look alike Zhenya Golubentsev, Ivan Melnichuk, Valentin Gaft, Nikita Kadan

Strange world.

I greet the citizens. I have long been interested in words of courtesy. Yes, "good afternoon" in the village is a short check about whether everything is ok. If a person is silent in response, or answers in a different way than usual - from these words the intonation can be understood. The city is both empty and not empty. Thoughts on concrete (bad ending for this text)

I'm thinking about who I'm talking to right now. I need these thoughts so much, I need to think, I need to think, I need to think. I will make myself think. Complex words disappear, let's keep them, or we don’t need to, maybe we should be as simple as a ston axe in hand

11-12 March 2022

and i haven’t found any reason to prevent the publication of these thoughts

my name is Stas Turina