The documentary project “Diaries of Civilians: Voices of Those Who Survived and Those Who Did Not” is an offline exhibition by the “Voices of Civilians” Museum of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.

At the heart of the exhibition are two diaries, two personal stories united by time — spring 2022 — and place — Mariupol. A city that the enemy turned into hell within days, where tens of thousands of people remained trapped. One story ended tragically, the other with rescue.

Kateryna Savenko began keeping a diary with the first explosions on February, 24. She wrote daily — until the death of her husband Vitalii and her own injury, which would prove fatal. After her death, her mother managed to rescue two invaluable notebooks from the destroyed city of Mariupol.

Volodymyr Velychko recorded his memories later, while staying in a hostel in Kyiv. He, his wife, and their four children survived bombings, filtration, life under occupation in Donetsk, and their return home. These were “Four Months of Life” that will never be erased from memory.

These stories do not merely recreate the past; they form a living dialogue with the present and the future, shaping our collective memory and highlighting the continuity of human strength and resilience.

The “Voices of Civilians” Museum of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation collects the stories of Ukrainian civilians who have been victims of or witnesses to the war. These stories span from 2014 to the present.

In 2024, the Museum expanded its activities offline, presenting the multimedia space of the “Voices of Civilians” Museum as part of the exhibition “VOICES,” also held at the Museum of Kyiv History.

The Museum holds the world’s largest collection of living stories about the war in Ukraine directly from eyewitnesses. Its archive contains over 130,000 stories. Anyone can share their story on the Museum’s portal https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/ or via the free hotline 0 (800) 509 001.