Nika, her gaze on Rome and the dream of a clear sky
Children on the move
When she talks about her past, Nika's smile is covered with a veil of melancholy. As with so many girls and boys of the same age, her life in Kharkiv unfolded between classes at school, afternoons with friends, and winter skiing. She loved to draw, a passion she continues to cherish, and traveling with her parents, as they always did.
The night the conflict started, Nika thought it was fireworks that made her jump on the bed. Instead, a short time later her parents arrived in the room to tell her that the bombing had begun. And from home the outside noises were loud; in fact, she lived near the airport, one of the hardest hit areas.
At 15, on a morning like any other when she was supposed to get up for school, Nika's life changed dramatically, as did those of so many girls and boys who like her fled Ukraine after the war began. Her mother worries about getting her to safety. Initially, they move to Dnipro, Nika remembers well the road they traveled, which they had crossed many times before on family trips, and which was different this time. They had to slalom their car to avoid the potholes in the ground, a road that is generally traveled in 3 hours, but that day had required 7 hours.
A few months later family friends convinced Nika's mother to leave, to go to Italy. Mom and daughter leave, vowing to return as soon as possible.
Nika joins her friends in Rome, and her first memory of Rome is immediately positive. For her it was getting away from something, "but at the same time," she says, "getting back to life, getting back to happiness”.
Nika always has photos that remind her of home, her loved ones, and her carefree life of parties, friends, colours, and travel. The war unfortunately showed her a different world, a world that no child or teenager should ever know. It has made her more aware, more though. As much as she likes the city, in Rome her shots depict ordinary scenes, the Rome of the homeless, the invisible, of different people crowding into the same space, each of them as if to remind her that she is there, that she is present. "Who knows, maybe they too had a good life and, because of the war or other reasons, they had to start from scratch."
So Nika explores the city, looking for the glances of other people who probably like her have fled from something, are away from their home country. "My biggest wish is to go back to my old life, maybe that's why I feel close to those people who have gone through a similar change and are hoping to get back to some kind of normalcy and to be well again." Nika shows one last photo of a cathedral against the backdrop of a blue sky. "For me," she says, "it is the hope of finding that same clear sky again when I am able to return home.
Nika is among 16 teenagers and young people who participated in the photography workshop organized by UNICEF in collaboration with photographer Giacomo Pirozzi. Through the shots, which became part of the "Lives on the move" photo exhibition, she described her past in Ukraine, a present made up of rapid changes and a future tied to the hope of soon returning to her normalcy.
