The Blue Passport

Born in Ukraine, I emigrated to Portugal in 2014. Because of bureaucracy, I got stuck in this country for eight years without a chance to visit my homeland. I finally landed in Kyiv on February 6th, 2022, two and a half weeks before the Russian invasion. And I'm still here now, locked up again, thanks to my blue Ukrainian passport. If emigration is a survival test, war is a survival test at its worst. It destroys everything — life, families, homes, the psyche. I see how the war touches me and the people around me, lightens up our souls and reveals who is who. It disrupts our core values, and shakes us to the core, finally making things genuine. Until now, I've never seen a person die. Or how the war cripples people, wiping out entire cities. Until now, I've never known how it felt to survive a shelling or to be one step away from death. Until now, I've never seen people so united in doing good without expecting anything in return. Until now, I've never seen so much pain, courage, and joy of life at the same time. Here I am, stuck again, in a reality where you feel death and life walking hand in hand beside you. However, for me, my blue Ukrainian passport is not just an artifact of war, but a symbol of freedom and its cost.