Dmytro Kyyan grew up in Ukraine. In 1981, his father decided to leave Kazakhstan to go home to Ukraine. There, after school, he went to the army, it was still the Soviet Union. Then he studied at Kharkov State University and left for Moscow a year later.
It was 1996, the state of post-Soviet reality, nothing is happening. And there immediately everything began to spin, a photographic magazine was created, which Dmitro was engaged in. This is the moment when Moscow had four years of absolutely free life. Moscow was an amazing city, clubs of absolutely different directions appeared there, there was freedom.
“When we made a magazine, photographers immediately appeared around it, you become a part of this world, some exhibitions, expositions, galleries. For me, these four years in Moscow - 1996-2000 - were absolutely free, ”admits Dmitro.
Then a typical Russian story happened - there was a criminal seizure of the magazine and the publishing house.
“I was in New York at that time, this is the fall of 2004. I had a big interview with Irving Penn, the great American photographer, after the interview I walked the streets in the Soho area. My cell phone rings - I was told that it makes no sense to return. I just arrived in Moscow in November 2004, packed my things and moved to America, ”recalls Dmitro.
When he moved to the US in 2004, he discovered that there was a huge Ukrainian diaspora in New Jersey, not New York itself. There is a cemetery of fighters of the Ukrainian UNR, UPA. People of Ukrainian origin are usually thought to live in Canada. But a huge number of Ukrainian surnames are also found in the United States.
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On 2nd Avenue, after the “revolution of dignity”, the organization “Razom” (“Together”) appeared, it holds regular meetings of some kind. They regularly hold gatherings - information slips that Ukrainians are somewhere in New York, you go there and see a huge number of people.
“When the wave had just begun in New York in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, it suddenly popped up somewhere that on Friday there was a meeting in Times Square. I go there, and there the whole Times Square is in Ukrainian flags. Ukraine is present here all the time,” says the photographer.
Especially clearly Ukrainians in America rallied after the Russian attack. Dmitro said that he and his parents came to Kharkov in 1981. He was a child. In those Soviet times, schools helped builders.
“I carried it with my own hands, helped the builders on Severnaya Saltovka erect these buildings, which are now destroyed. Northern Saltovka is just a disaster. These are absolutely living moments for me, ”said Dmitry.
His mother still lives there. During the first shelling, she was thrown back by a blast wave. A window was knocked out at home. And one of the rockets fell near the neighboring entrance.
“Every time it’s hard for me to talk about it, because this is my city. I can talk about Kharkov just non-stop, but now I understand that I have a lump in my throat, ”the man admitted.
Since 2014, the man has been volunteering with the Kharkov guys. Participation in all this is typically Ukrainian. Every second Ukrainian is absolutely connected with these things: volunteering, communicating with people weekly, daily, different people have different ways.
But with the massive invasion that took place on February 24, this communication became more dense. Now Dmitro is engaged only in volunteer activities. For example, he buys drones, Maviks.
“If I live in New York, I don’t buy drones myself, personally. Here a man from Poland, my friend, comes to me and says: let's get together, who can send money via PayPal. They are bought in Europe. Poland is the main transit point from which everything comes. You contact someone or you yourself press the “send money” button, it connects you with some other person whom you didn’t know at all before, you were given his name, and these drones are already being bought there,” he explained .
Through Dmitry, someone became a sponsor of families when people moved to America, someone simply moved one, another person.
“Here you live for yourself, help, do something, translate, contact someone. And then - boom, and it turns out on a particular day that there are a lot of you. When they ask me: how are Russians like them, I say that I don’t see them at all,” said the volunteer.
Dmytro says that New York is very good about everything that is connected with Ukraine now. Some iconic things, the presence of colors of blue and yellow, it has become something constant since the start of the full-scale invasion on the 24th.
“When your American student can tell you: listen, say hello to your mother in Kharkov. Or another student might say something about the people he sponsored to move here,” the photographer said.
