“It is already a symbol of Ukraine”

His girlfriend, also an artist Arina Nikolenkoposted one of the most emotional messages that could be read on social media shortly after the attack: “She was an artist, a poet, she admired Ukrainian culture and many other things… and, among other things, She was my girlfriend. And about an hour ago I saw her dead in the hospital. She died during the bombing. She was killed by the Russians.”

Arina spoke to EL ESPAÑOL, broken with pain, to remember Nika in her own words: “She studied at the National University of Radioelectronics in Kharkiv, specializing in multimedia. At the same time, I wrote poems and drew. He also filmed the residents of the Kharkiv Literary Museum to make his own film about life in this city.”

“Actually, being involved in the development of Ukrainian culture was what made her happy. Well, that and little things like drinking her coffee at ‘Nafta’ or photographing the State Industrial Building… I was constantly taking pictures of her, and the day before she died, we were joking that she should have made a separate folder just for these photos,” she recalls.

Despite her youth, Nika was a prolific creator. She made pencil portraits with a beautiful technical workmanship, and one of her recurring themes was immortalize Ukrainian writers and poets –whose books he devoured–. It is surprising to see how the war has awakened in the younger generations of Ukraine an overwhelming passion for the culture of their country.

“Nika loved the poems of Mykhailo Semenkoespecially Wagon Driver and a few weeks before his death he finished reading the book of Geo Shkurupia Zhanna Battalionerkawhich he then discussed enthusiastically with me,” his girlfriend adds.

“I also loved classic rock: Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Pink Floyd… He was so cheerful, he had so many hobbies and if he started to get interested in something, he learned absolutely everything. He dreamed of developing culture in Kharkiv, “I couldn’t imagine my life outside this city”.

Before saying goodbye, she sends a photo of the two of them together. “This is our last photo togetherfrom the exhibition we had just done. The first exhibition for me and the last for her,” he says.

Artists on the warpath

Instagram and TikTok platforms were flooded with Nika’s photo shortly after her death under the Kremlin bombs. Messages of condolence and the reminder that she had her whole life ahead of her – and too much talent to give it up so soon – filled the pages. reels and stories.

“We must write and capture what is happening now, because the dead will no longer be able to speak in ten or twenty years. Now we have to put everything in writing. In Ukrainian“, they recalled at the end of July from the stage of the Border Cultural Festival, which was organised in the town of Lutsk – near Poland – and where Ukrainian culture and its creators were vindicated.

Another well-known Ukrainian artist participated in that festival, Irena Karpawho also knew Nika. “I met her at the backstage “From our concert in Kharkiv last autumn, when we presented the Skovorodance project together with writer and singer Serhiy Zhadan and musician Yura Gurzhy,” says Karpa, who now lives between France and the war.

“Nika was with her friend, timidly trying to get Serhiy’s attention… it turned out that she was his great admirer,” she recalls fondly. “It was I who noticed those girls and listened to them, and it turned out that he was bringing us gifts: his works!” Veronika had made an illustration with the hands of Irena, Serhiy and Yura intertwined. And she gave it to him.

It was precisely the writer whom he so admired, Serhiy Zhadanto whom he sent a Photo of his last work just an hour before he diedIt was a pencil drawing of a girl sitting on a tree branch, staring into space.

Daily bombings

Together with Nika, in the bombing on Friday, Six other people died. And more than 70 were injured – among them twenty children. The guided bombs that claimed their lives were dropped from a Russian plane flying over Belgorod, about 25 kilometers from the border with Kharkiv.

The witness of the attack who described how the house shook, Liudmila, still remembers in shock that “when we looked out the window we saw that, literally, the entrance of the house was on fire“It was a very terrifying sight. People started calling us, friends and acquaintances, asking if we were alive,” he explains.

This was not the only massive Russian attack against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure in recent days: on Monday there was the worst bombing ever remembered since the full-scale Russian invasion began – two and a half years ago – a total of 239 Iranian-made Shahed-type missiles and suicide drones hit kyiv and other cities in a two-hour period.

And as these lines are being written, another bombing raid on Kharkov has claimed more victims. Half a dozen hits have been reported in different parts of the city, where emergency services are currently working to rescue people trapped in the rubble.

“When I heard about Nika’s death, I was devastated. Another person I knew, another person who could have done so much more if she had been able to live,” says Irena Karpa on the other end of the phone.War is much closer than we can imagine. Every time I think that I cannot hate Russian terrorists any more, who kill my peaceful fellow citizens, Russia strikes again. Children’s hospitals, cafes, residential buildings…”

What Russian bombs will not be able to destroy, no matter how much they hit Ukrainian cities, is the memory of Nika. “Many people only got to know her after her death, but her image has already become a symbol for the cultural community,” says Mykyta Moskaliuk, one of the organizers of the Border Festival.