Nocą ostrzał rano praca. Czego nauczył mnie Kijów o wojnie i życiu | Klaudia Brzezińska | TEDxGdansk

The speaker recounts a harrowing experience in a Kiev shopping mall elevator, stuck on the fifth floor at 10 PM. A message from a friend warned of shelling, triggering memories of a previous explosion. This incident highlighted the destructive power of disinformation, as friends had discussed invasion plans that never materialized that night. The speaker, Claudia, a data engineer and aerial acrobat, lived in Kiev during the war as a civilian. Upon returning to Poland, she found it difficult to convey her experiences, realizing that despite sharing a language, people lived in vastly different realities. The war's outbreak initially found her in Vienna, observing friends in Kiev return to aerial acrobatics, which inspired her to do the same. Moving to Kiev, she experienced the stark contrast between intense drone attacks and the seemingly normal daily life. Waking to anti-aircraft fire, then falling asleep from exhaustion, only to find a beautiful, bustling city the next day, was disorienting. She realized the constant noise and the public's quiet demeanor reflected a city living under immense stress, where even fireworks were mistaken for gunfire. Claudia developed what felt like a "split personality," struggling to explain her "normal" life amidst curfews, alarms, and shelling. She adopted a friend's phrase: "the illusion of everyday life, which collapses with every building hit." Coffee, she joked, tasted best after a drone was shot down, "because it tastes of life that hasn't been lost." After a month of silence from alarms, she became so stressed she dreamt of explosions, feeling relief when the alarms finally resumed—a sentiment shared by many Kiev residents, as evidenced by a meme she encountered. This experience, along with mastering Ukrainian, revealed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, affecting about half of Ukrainians, compared to less than 10% in non-military zones. Life in Kiev meant a complete paradigm shift from predictable Vienna. The future tense disappeared from her language. Alarms could ruin a day, with bridges closing and the city effectively cut off. Planning became impossible; a simple task like laundry could be thwarted by power outages from shelling. Training sessions were interrupted by ballistic missiles, leaving shattered windows instead of practice. Claudia observed that while outsiders saw open shops and people walking, the reality was profoundly different. She documented this through conversations with her aerial friends in Kiev, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. One friend in Dnipro described her young students finding safety and routine in their training, despite the war. Claudia argued that stopping life to mourn wouldn't change the war; instead, it made people live harder. This perspective led her to realize she had become desensitized, taking the war's conditions for granted. A girl from Kherson, seeking company during an alarm in Kiev, highlighted this. While the girl was terrified, Claudia was annoyed by the interruption, realizing her own skewed perception. She had translated her experiences onto someone with a different reality, demonstrating how two people could speak the same language but experience the same event—an alarm—with vastly different emotions. Though no longer in Kiev, Claudia reflects on the humility the city taught her. She urges others not to judge or label those who have endured unimaginable hardship, like living without water for days or celebrating birthdays under martial law. She often recalls being trapped in the elevator, receiving a message no one else saw, and how it changed her. She advises considering the untold stories behind people's experiences before making assumptions. She eventually got home before curfew, offering solace to the girl from Kherson, emphasizing curiosity about what remains unknown.