t other pen centers in other countries, it is obvious that this is connected with the war, and these changes, these disagreements, they have been there since the 14th year, because pen worked with the cases of ukrainian authors, political prisoners, and not in every the country has such challenges with which the pencenter should work, but in fact today i am talking very little about what we did before the 22nd year, because obviously our work with political prisoners, with ukrainian hostages of the kremlin. continues, but our larger, most of our initiatives, primarily cultural, are suspended, and then we begin the process of finding those areas, those roles, priorities, where we can be the most useful as a community. our community today is 163 ukrainian authors, writers, journalists, rights activists, cultural managers, and today we planned to talk with you about volunteer trips, and i think that this... this is

precisely the experience that largely determined what what we are doing today, if we try to sum it up somehow, to highlight some directions, i would first of all talk about the support of this community, what we can to live together such a difficult, difficult experience in our country, in the life of every family and every person, this support is also very practical, palpable, because we introduce... there were scholarships, yes, public, closed scholarships to help individual families, individual to authors, artists in ukraine, and on the other hand, even this year we continued our festival for young authors of the script with the goal of continuing the literary process in the country, so that this continuity between generations is preserved. on the other hand, if you pass more to volunteer trips, then i would say that we are also engaged in recording the experience of war. we work and collect new

poetry, we collect diaries, documentary literature, and our books in the library of ukrainian pens series are based on this , at the same time it is not just a fixation, it is a documentation, this is what surprises other pen centers that our organization works with documentation of war crimes, against culture and against the media, we have such an important area of ​​work, and it primarily takes place in volunteer camps? yes when we go to the front-line territories, not liberated, and on the basis of these materials that we collect, we are already preparing our reports, we are preparing materials in other languages ​​that we can distribute to our entire international community, yes, hundreds of other pen centers, and for sure i will highlight separately also the continuation of cultural life in ukraine, even in such a difficult time, i see it as a big priority, culture cannot stop, cannot stop... the development

of culture and endurance, and in addition to the fact that we constantly travel to other regions, we organize events , we support libraries, in addition, just in february of the 22nd year, the space of ukrainian pens in kyiv begins to work, and for us it is already such an autonomous project, and part of our work, i believe that it is one of the most active cultural centers in kyiv today , even this week there are six public events that... take place every evening with a different format for different audiences and with a mandatory gathering in support of the ukrainian army. these are probably the most important things, documenting and supporting our community and culture. now let's go back to volunteer trips, where in fact, on the one hand, we support libraries, we take books to the most destroyed areas, that 's what it's called... unbreakable libraries, and this

initiative, and on the other hand, we take many western intellectuals, western writers, and it started in june 22 , yes, actually these trips are voluntary, and we have a video, this is a trip to kherson, it is already december 22, it is december 22, but simply that, i understand that this was peno’s first trip to kherson, so i want to start with it, especially... more in this video, which you and i selected before this conversation , before this conversation, is victoria amelina, who was still alive then and whom you meet at the railway station in kherson, let's see, please, it is december 22, pen's trip to kherson.

for the reading rooms, so constantly active , here they tried to have such a life here, it was boiling here

, mass events were held here all the time, the library had the largest collection of gramophone records, vinyl records, so people came here to listen to this music, it was very... various poetic meetings were held here community, here was such a small center of such a literary and artistic life, there were unique editions, well, as far as i understand, rare editions survived, so i was told, as in reality. what do you remember from this trip, were you a participant? and now i was watching these shots and realized that besides the fact that victoria is no longer with us, and victoria is such a big motivator for me that these trips began, she supported me in the idea

of ​​going to kharkiv, this is our first direction, the beginning june 22, and then victoria, since she starts to do... documenting crimes, work with trushauns, start writing her book in english, she always tried to travel with us, and it was an interesting story, because she found out about kherson at the last moment, she was abroad, on an advocacy trip, and she just writes to us there a few days before that, friends, i still have to get to ukraine, but i want to come to you at least for one day, to be with you in kherson, and that is why she is coming to us ... by train right on that day, just two days on the road, but for to be with us, she is going to kherson. victoria is not there, and there are also shots of the library of oles gonchar, here in these shots it is damaged, but after that we remember that already last fall this

library, in fact, we say that it is destroyed, yes, it is not just damaged, and it was destroyed by the occupiers, and what i remember about that trip, i remember, of course... a certain inner anxiety, those were very difficult days, and we know that the situation in kherson has not changed, even on that day there was constant shelling in the city, especially closer to the dnipro, and honchar's library is literally on the shore, and literally from the windows of the library we saw another, different bank of the dnieper, on which the occupiers were standing, i remember this feeling that was just in the air, because a few days before that there had been shelling, maybe you remember the supermarket in the center of kherson, and there was just such tension in the air, but at the same time i remember an amazing meeting in the shelter of the theater named after mykola kolish, and representatives of the cultural community gathered in this shelter, librarians came , people who

work in museums, mostly people who stayed in the city in order to preserve funds, to stay, as if responsible for what was important to them, of course i remember these'. history, remembers these voices, remembers librarians who, in order not to cooperate with the occupiers, did not go to work, but did not want to lose contact with readers and published books from their own home libraries, and i remember that that the theater experienced, i remember the story of alexander the book, and probably the biggest shock for me was, of course, the story of the art museum, the history of the museum, with which the occupiers stole most of the exhibits, funds. this is such a physical feeling of a huge loss of your culture, and the local history museum is also next to the local history museum. i remember this long conversation, i remember that we went down to

the funds where these works were stored, but it was simply a feeling, as if there is a physical body of your culture, and as soon as you see how a part of the organ was taken from this body. as if it was like that great physical pain, but on the other hand, these people, we then went to the volunteers, and these volunteers are also, a professor of history, a scientist, people... who created their volunteer community, and they continue to work, to distribute humanitarian aid , to help the military, actually these trips, you know , on the one hand, they always have this kind of pain in them, because you listen to people, you see wounded cities, you see damaged or stolen cultural heritage, but on the other hand, it always gives strength, and strength is given by example these people, their history, the way they hold. how they continue despite everything to protect their cities, protect their land and

develop their cities and their villages in this way, this is such a level of strength, such resistance that you come back every time and it is as if you have been there for several days without sleep and on the road, you have strength , in order to move on, you know, i have the same feeling that you have, these people to whom we come, and actually the cultural communities of these front-line territories, they think that this is... we come to support them , and we we always tell them that it is they who support us, and i always, no matter how physically exhausting these trips are, because we always have a lot of very communities that we visit, but you arrive physically tired, but just terribly, terribly somehow inspired by what you see , actually, well, by the example of these people, yes, resilience, courage, we have now looked, kherson in december 2022, yes, we have another video, and this

video is already completely fresh, this video has been in for two weeks , we went to kherson with the pen group to open such bookshelves in shelters, just imagine that kherson, which is now under continuous shelling all the time, the local community there wants to have in shelters in... their houses, at least bookshelves with ukrainian literature and ukrainian-language literature. there is such a kherson youth initiative called books in shelter, and together with these people we went not only to the right bank of the dnieper, but also to the korabel district, where there is, where it is quite dangerous, and because of shelling, we went to the district , which is called the island, and here... this area is just a few kilometers from the position of the russians, there are 3-4 km,

maybe 2 km, and people live there, and they want to open their bookshelves in the basements of their houses in order to, in order to read books and have a community of their own. these people are going to come on today, and we're going to listen to them separately, but here's a video that this book community made. cover, let's see how they record this, this particular action, the transfer of pen books. hello, today i will tell you our story. to be honest, we don't even think about it we never knew that this story would reach such a scale, but we are pleasantly surprised by how people can help each other. the history of the creation of this mini project is quite interesting, but more on that later. yesterday was a very emotional day for our team. together... together with penklub ukraine and the kherson state regional administration, we visited the underground shelters

located in the city of kherson and officially opened three new book shelters. this small project was a start for our team in order to in the future to create much bigger and grander projects. i hope that the books in the shelter will help the residents of the city, who are still under fire, to stabilize their mental state. state and distract from real events. i believe that it will be the beginning of more grandiose projects in the future. even such small guests were at our opening. and we sincerely hope that the book will become your safe haven. with this very project, we want to preserve the book fund of kherson, because the city's libraries are constantly being destroyed against the background of shelling from the russian army. unfortunately. despite everything, we were able to do it. a safe library, we hope people will like to read books in us, exchange and bring their own, thank you very much ponclubrains, for

the fact that you were able to visit us, also for the fact that you brought many of your books and participated in the opening of new bookshelves, thank you, so you saw that volodymyr yermolenko, the president of ukrainian peno, a literary critic, and tetyana ogarkova, a beautiful poet, kateryna kalytko, were on this trip. so, it was very, very important for kherson and for us, and we want to include it now kherson, we hope that we will succeed, volodymyr klyutsevskyi, deputy head of the kherson odaz. we have questions to contact us, mr. volodymyr, i congratulate you, can you hear me, yes, i congratulate you, you can hear me very well, miroslav, mr. volodymyr, first of all, we remember you and remember with admiration your initiatives, of kherson, please tell us about the initiatives and actions that are currently

being held in kherson regarding books, regarding the collection of books. and these beautiful ideas of yours about vilna are read in ukrainian and russian books to the occupier, thank you so much for the given opportunity to reveal this information, in fact, on the occasion of the birthday of our great kobzar, we took the initiative to conduct a series of book promotions throughout ukraine, which... uh, these, this initiative was supported by the ministry of education and science , was supported by taras kremin, the commissioner for the protection of the state marine language, and it actually all started with the initiative project of our youth, books in ukrytta, who developed this project and took the initiative

to open books in our... storages in in the city of kherson so that people can read ukrainian-language books, so for us, this initiative was supported by the authorities, and now we are collecting books from all over ukraine as part of the actions one student, one book for kherson, the ministry of education and science asked all institutions of higher education of ukraine, so that... students brought books and they were sent to kherson, so that we could thus fill our shelters by creating such book shelters in the corners, because when there were orcs, more than 150 thousand ukrainian books were destroyed, and we want to replenish these funds, in

primarily in shelters, we also have an action supported by the exercise. and promotes the authorization of the protection of the state language, it is freely read in ukrainian, which provides for the collection of books for the library funds of those regions that have suffered destruction due to armed and military russian aggression, sumy , kharkiv, zaporizhzhia, kherson, mykolaiv regions, and also in our... . within the framework of these two actions, there is another one, if people bring russian-language books, we also take them, but we hand them over for processing and within the framework of the russian book action to the russian occupier, we will donate to the appropriate bank, we will donate to help

the armed forces of ukraine, that is, russian-language books help our... boys to win this war, so, you see, from the usual youth initiative, i thank them for being caring and creative, non-standard in our decisions, we made such a large-scale action, mr. volodymyr, thank you very much, we will now try to include these beautiful young activists from kherson, who are just... now delivering books, we, we will try to add them just in the process delivery of ukrainian books in kherson. volodymyr klyutsevskyi, the deputy head of the kherson chamber for humanitarian issues, was in touch with us today. tanya, this is what mr. volodymyr is saying, these are hundreds of libraries that have been destroyed in ukraine, these are

hundreds of cultural monuments, these are hundreds of some museums. and the irony is that pen, the main idea of ​​pen, it was based on the fact that cultural heritage and culture is a field of understanding, and it is inviolable, especially during armed conflicts, whether warriors, as people from the west react, so , western intellectuals, writers, whom we bring here, how they react to what they see in these regions destroyed, you know, i now thought about my... first such advocacy trip abroad, it was may 22, america , new york, and i remember, simply, how i was picked up at the airport by a taxi driver, who just recently found out. about probuch, about kyiv region, and he told me then that you know, i understood why what is happening in ukraine is so worrying, why

it is so close to us, because when i see footage from buch or zerpenya, i recognize these houses and these streets, they are completely for me, well, even if they are american, they are mine, i understand what i see in these frames, and that is why what i see there is so painful for me, and i can draw a parallel here because... i have a feeling that when we talk about destroyed cultural heritage, these footage, these photos, these videos, they are just as disturbing and touching to those people who see them, because we are all shaped culture, we are all shaped by the space of cultural objects around us, and therefore, let's say, when those first terrible eyes appear photos, for example, of a destroyed library in chernihiv, or when a photo of a damaged church in kharkiv appears. i remember that our entire international community published various congresses and international events on their websites, starting with these photos, because

a destroyed library or a damaged temple is something that resonates with everyone, it is something that is close to you, but here there is a country in europe where it is being destroyed now. it is obvious that later, when the full-scale war has been going on for more than two years, and when it is already a european, international the audience saw these photographers. a lot , when there are more than a thousand damaged monuments, it is not hundreds, it is already more than a thousand damaged objects, and today photos or our videos, they may not work, so that people feel and understand what is happening here, therefore, we realized quite early that it is much more important to really bring intellectuals here, and when we bring them , we always go to the kyiv region, we go to chernihiv, there are those delegations that go to kharkiv, and they are really shocked by this the most, what they see around them, destroyed houses, destroyed architectural heritage,

temples, libraries, museums, and just as they are touched by people's stories, but destroyed or stolen cultural heritage is something that cannot but touch a person, because it everyone has it inside, yes, that is, it is part of upbringing, some kind of foundation on which each person stands, well... we have already seen what a destroyed culture is for centuries, we understand what a destroyed culture leads to both physically and in a spiritual sense, and i promised that young activists from kherson, actually activists who implement this book initiative in ukritta, will join us, or we, or we can hear maryna chyzhova, alita gurbanova and anton novikov. good day. anton. anton. congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, friends, we are very, very happy to see you on the air today. tell me.

tell me, please, we have already told you a little about this initiative of yours. tell me, what are you doing right now at this very moment, and why is this book of shelter for you, what does it mean to you? we are currently delivering books already on shelters which we installed shelves, for us the project itself means saving human lives with the help of books that people can read in a shelter, that is, a book is a kind of shelter for people, and in this way we also want to popularize ukrainization in the southern region, because, well, as you know, unfortunately, our region is more russian-speaking, but after povnomash. after the invasion, of course, most people switched to the ukrainian language, but not all, and there are people who are very russian, if, and we want to change it,

we want to help people to communicate more freely in ukrainian, to move, not to be afraid, to learn, because in some shelters there are books that help you learn ukrainian, that is, you don't just come here and look at your phone, but you can take a book and... to learn something interesting and relevant. friends, please tell me, how, what kind of support do you need now, how can those people who now see you and admire you support you, and how can you be supported? currently, it is very important for us to collect books for these ukrats, because with these it is difficult now, as far as possible, who knows, honchar's library. which is located in kherson, it was destroyed, some of the books that were saved, we took them away, the kherson administration gave them to us

so that we could place them in a shelter, eh... this will later save the library fund, but for now now we need books, so if there is an opportunity, everyone who sees this broadcast now, i would like to urge you to send only ukrainian books, how is it possible, how can it be done, where can it be found information, how to do it, how to get the books sent to you, information can be found on our social pages, we have a social page on facebook. and instagram, there is a post in which all the information is indicated, in detail about sending to the new post office, we pay together with the humanitarian new post office. thank you, these were kherson activists, book initiatives in the shelter, and they, they are collecting books for bookshelves for shelters in kherson and need our inclusion of our help. thank you.

what do you think about this, tanya? think that this absolutely amazing, wonderful initiative, in some ways it is such a very strong metaphor, like book shelters, book shelters. i thought that i saw a similar thing for the first time in nikopol - this is another absolutely unbreakable, beautiful ukrainian city. we've also been there twice as part of volunteer trips, and that's where their central main distribution library is, in addition to supporting everyone. its branches, tries to keep the work there, besides, they also had a basement, as in many buildings, this is the absolute center of the city, we know that nikopol, unfortunately, is shelled by the occupiers every day, and in this basement they also equipped a shelter that they take care of, that is , the library takes care of the central shelter of the city, and when we came there for the first time, it seems to be the spring of 23, and we saw

that in this shelter there were shelves with... books, and it just shocked me so much at the time, how the role and meaning of libraries also changes in the conditions of war, and the fact that this book in the shelter continues to work, a book that is not just shelter, we can talk about it like that, but this is the book for me there is always an opportunity for conversation, that is, we talk about the book, we talk about the questions and topics that sound in the book, and that is probably why , literally from our second trip to chernihiv, we realized that in the future, when planning our volunteer trips, we will always be in each cities and towns to visit the local library, because the library has long been, even before the full-scale invasion in ukraine , not only a place to store books, it has long been a social center in ukraine, that is , centers that unite their community, provide very different services, and when we now come to these libraries with books,

bring... writers from ukraine and other countries, we see that it is through the libraries that we find out the fastest what is happening in this city, in this region, we always we get to know all the active people, with whom we then continue the following initiatives, and thanks to the libraries, we understand where our help is needed, and it is not only about books , because we also bring help for the military, and the library really became in the conditions of war by this center that unites communities, you know, here... in addition to what i mentioned about nikopol, the amazing initiative in kherson that we just saw, i remember the libraries in donetsk region, sloviansk, kramatorsk, libraries that are the first example, i saw in ukraine , which were forced to evacuate books, that is, the libraries are physically without books at all, but they will continue to work, work as humanitarian centers, they weave nets, they receive people, provide them with help, they conduct some consultations, trainings for people in these

communities, and ... some libraries had to from the front line to move to the west, and even there they continue to look for their readers, gather the community and provide the necessary support, and we have literally been back from chernihiv for a week, and this incredible library, where we had joint events of the kotsiubynskyi and dovzhenko libraries, and this library was damaged several times during the shelling of the occupiers, we remember, especially the second floor, the roof leaked there, there were no windows, it was a very difficult village. situation, and literally a year passes, and we saw a completely modern beautiful a library that gathers full audiences , film screenings, discussions, debates, for me this is a kind of miracle, for me it is about some kind of great resilience, the resistance of each of our communities, which is really fascinating, and since you have already started talking about chernihiv oblast, i will remember one moment, because tatyana and i were together on this particular trip,