Hi!
Perhaps it is the letter I will write longer.
- Why?
- I am still thinking about the pictures I should use. I have many from yesterday's trip, but they (pictures) asked me to write a standalone letter. And this headache. I can write under any conditions and hesitations. Of course, I can.
It was a week of black and bright news. You know, some of those when you cry and dance, sometimes simultaneously.
- I have a feeling that somebody is crashing glass in my head now. But I decided on the pictures.
- Is it important?
- Breaks? Yes. I'm not totally sure who needs them more: you in your reading process or me in my writing one.
- What did you decide?
- You will see the paintings of the artists from the Paris Commune. Nonono, it is not a French revolutionary government of 1871; this Commune became a legend of Ukrainian art. I will tell you about it in the second part of the letter.
- Good. 
Valeria Troubina, Morning in the Field, 2020
Traditionally, we will start with the news part (oh my, I love traditions, but I love breaking them even more.)
The bright side of this week is that the US House of Representatives approved a critical $61bn Ukraine aid package. I watched the live broadcast and realised that the history of Ukraine was being written in that room.
Another good news is that the Ukrainian anti-aircraft units shot down a russian Tu-22M3 bomber for the first time. russian forces regularly use Tu-22M3 long-range strategic and maritime strike bombers in airstrikes against Ukraine. Some of these planes carried out the heavy bombardment of Mariupol in 2022 using unguided bombs.
So. minus one now. I have read that russians have 30-60 of them (it is hard to get the right amount). 
Oleksandr Klymenko, Prayer before Dawn, 2007
The dark side of the week is attacks. I will mention the largest ones.
- Why are you doing this?
- Mentioning attacks? It is my reality. It is our reality. In my diary (I call it a war book-diary), I have talks with a person from the future. In my letters (these ones you read), I talk to you, the person who lives at the same time as I do. Talks with the future and talks with the present.
April 17, Chernihiv
Three russian missiles hit the area near the city's downtown. Eighteen people were killed, and 77 were injured. An eight-storey building was destroyed in the attack, while four high-rise buildings, a hospital, a higher education institution, and dozens of cars were damaged.
April 18-19, night, Dnipro and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
A russian missile attack hit a residential building in the city of Dnipro. The five-storey building was partially destroyed. The infrastructure facilities of Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukraine's state-owned railway company) were also attacked. Three people were killed, and 24 were injured.
In Synelnykove district in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, over ten houses were damaged. Five civilians were killed, including an 8-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, and seven other people were injured.
April 20, Odesa
russian forces hit a residential area in Odesa with a missile attack, injuring eight people, including two small children aged 3 and 4.
At least 20 private residential houses were damaged. 
Oleksandr Hnylyzkyj, Sakura (the year is unknown)
Among other news I find important is the mobilization law Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed on April 16. It is quite an unpopular but necessary step in our fight. I will mention just a few key points from it.
The conscription age was reduced from 27 to 25 years, and the limited fitness for military service classification was eliminated.
Civilian men aged 25 to 55 who have become disabled (groups II and III) since the beginning of russia's full-scale invasion (excluding the servicemen) must undertake another medical and social test to validate their status.
There will be no forced mobilization of women.
The demobilization issue was removed from the mobilization bill and will be considered separately. Soldiers serving more than 36 months were initially slated to be allowed to demobilize, but the provision was removed from a draft law following an intervention by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Dmytro Kavsan, Water, 2009
I have finished with the news, and now I'm ready to tell you about the Paris Commune. From 1926 until 1990, it was the name of one of the central streets in Kyiv. Now it is known as Mykhailivska Street which is its historical name, as it was called Mykhailivska from 1799 to 1926.
So, in 1990, a squat was organized on the Paris Commune Street. Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent, or otherwise have lawful permission to use.
The Paris Commune squat emerged thanks to Oleksandr Klymenko's activity. After the artists were forced out from the squat on Lenin Street (now Bohdana Khmelnytskoho Street), he organised the move of the entire group to another abandoned building on Paris Commune Street, a building with old multi-room communal flats with high ceilings.
Artists from all over Ukraine and the CIS countries came here.
Maksym Mamsikov, Without title, 2009
Not only artists gathered here, but also musicians, poets, the first programmers, fashion designers, the first collectors, gallery owners, Western curators interested in the latest trends in post-Soviet art, Western critics who drew attention to the new Ukrainian wave and the Paris Commune as a squat.
This community promoted freedom of creativity, self-education, psychedelic experiences, and the sexual revolution - those achievements of Western culture that had long been 'behind the Iron Curtain' and closed to Soviet citizens.
This squat lasted till 1994 and became the most famous in Ukraine.
I included works by artists from the Paris Commune but from their later period. In the 1990s, they created more Avant-garde things; I prefer their more mature works.
Dmytro Kavsan, Still Life, Water, 2009
- My head is better, thank you. Writing has a healing power for me.
The rain has stopped (yeah, it was raining heavily). Victory (still a cat) is sleeping nearby. I will have a cup of black warcoffee and edit some pictures from yesterday.
I don't want to make any commitments about when I can send the letter with these photos and impressions from my trip. Next week? Maybe. I am thinking of uniting the letters where I write about the places you can visit in Ukraine after our victory in some series. I have a title: Save Ukraine. It might become a good project to start. I don't know.
Okay, let's go and live life. It can be different: black and bright. Let yours be bright.
Yaroslava