Where Are My Flowers?

I have half a terabyte of Ukraine’s sorrow wedged into my phone. Photos, videos—far too much for a single lifetime, and certainly too much for a device that was nearly brand new when I landed. Ironically, it’s not the lack of storage that haunts me most; it’s the countless bedrooms, kitchens, and living rooms I’ve captured on film—echoing shells of what used to be private homes. No one granted me permission to be there; how could they? Either they fled or they’re lying under the debris. Now I’m wrestling with guilt, because in the name of truth, I’m trespassing on their final memories. Still, I believe some images deserve to be seen—if only to force us to confront how brutally fragile life can be.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/051d69_b17aaa7fa86947caa5d804651777d04c/720p/mp4/file.mp4

It happened in Borodianka—one of the hardest-hit areas near Kyiv. If you’ve gone through my photo essay, you might recall pictures of bombed apartment blocks with gaping holes. But those stills are a poor stand-in for the moment you actually push aside splintered doors and walk into someone’s bedroom. I remember seeing bright crayons rolling around on a dusty floor, a stuffed teddy wedged under a toppled dresser, a tiny shoe lying on the threshold as if its owner vanished mid-step. It’s not right to see these intimate details of a stranger’s life scattered like trash—but what else can I do? Documenting this devastation feels like the only way to honor them, to say, “You lived here; your life mattered.”

Мені шкода, що я поділився цим без вашого дозволу, що перетворив ваш дім—ваше останнє святилище—на те, що світ тепер бачить у руїнах. Я довго вагався перед цим вибором, але мовчання здавалося ще однією формою знищення, ще одним способом дозволити тим, хто це зробив, удавати, що нічого не сталося. Я ділюся цим не для того, щоб порушити ваш спокій, а щоб бути свідком—щоб світ не відвертався, щоб ваше життя, ваші спогади не були забуті.

In these echoing hallways, you can sense the terror that followed Russian soldiers when they forced their way in. The soldiers expected to be greeted by cheering Ukrainians with flowers—because that’s what their propaganda-soaked commanders told them. Imagine the heartbreak when children once safe in these rooms realized they weren’t dealing with liberators bringing bread and water, but men wielding rifles and rummaging through their closets. The bizarre cruelty is that the Russians were apparently told not to say “shot” or “killed,” but to gloss it all over with “the problem was solved.” As if a dead body is merely a solved puzzle. As if no one’s child, no one’s parent, lay bleeding on those floors.

I think about my phone, heavy with videos I’m barely able to watch myself. Some of them catch glimpses of me stepping over personal belongings—wedding photos, diaries, school notebooks with doodles on the margins. The owners of these keepsakes might still be out there, scattered as refugees, or they might be parted from this life in the most unceremonious way. How do I reconcile the idea that I, a complete stranger, am now the keeper of their last snapshots? There’s no guidebook for this kind of grief, no easy way to draw the line between “documentary evidence” and “invasion of privacy.” All I can do is whisper an apology under my breath and hope that, by showing the world these horrors, I can help prevent them from happening again.

What’s more tragic is how thoroughly the Russians prepared to spin their side of the story. Pre-packaged lines for soldiers: “We’re here on a humanitarian mission,” or “We’re your temporary police, protecting you from looters.” They even hammered home the idea that Ukrainians and Russians are “all Orthodox Christians, so there’s nothing to fear,” as though centuries of oppression could be whitewashed by a few hollow platitudes. In other cities under occupation, they jammed Ukrainian signals and cranked up their own propaganda—children in kindergartens forced to draw the “Z” symbol, teachers in Crimea compelled to feed kids a twisted fable about this so-called special operation. All the while, real bombs fell, tearing apart real families. Standing in a child’s bedroom in Borodianka, you can’t help but feel every lost lullaby, every bedtime story cut brutally short.

And yet, the propaganda only worked on some of the foot soldiers—those too young or too afraid to question orders. For the rest of them, they had to know their mission was more than a “friendly visit.” You don’t break down doors and rummage through pantries for sugar if you believe you’re truly welcomed. So yes, these Russian troops discovered that many Ukrainians greeted them, not with flowers, but with bullets, grenades, and cunning booby traps. I’d be lying if I said there’s no dark satisfaction in that. In a child’s bedroom or a grandmother’s living room, an invader has no right to expect kisses on the cheek. Did they really think they’d get a hero’s welcome after centuries of suffocating Ukrainian identity?

Even so, there’s nothing satisfying about the damage. This is someone’s home, after all, now uninhabitable, left to gather dust and heartbreak. The people who once lived here might be in a refugee camp halfway across Europe, or pinned to a hospital bed with scars deeper than any doctor can stitch. Some might be in unmarked graves. I film the collapsed ceilings and scorch marks on the walls, swallowing back tears because every shot is a glimpse into the final moments of someone’s normal life. A child’s math homework left on the table, pages open to half-completed equations—equations that will never be finished.

And so here I am, posting just one of these videos—knowing there’s no one alive to ask for permission—because if I don’t show it, the world might gloss over the horror with neat statistics about “damaged infrastructure” and “displaced persons.” I need you to feel the sense of trespass when I step through a door that once symbolized safety and family. I need you to sense the weight of all those quiet rooms, waiting for voices that will never return.

The Russians speak of “solving problems,” but they’ve created wounds no amount of propaganda can hide. Wounds that seep through the floorboards, cling to the bullet-riddled walls, and stare out from abandoned photo frames. Standing in that wreckage, I felt like I was witnessing a funeral procession that never got to happen—a burial of memories in a place too broken for tears. And so I share the images, praying that it will spark the outrage these people deserve, and maybe a moment of reflection in every comfortable living room around the world.

Because if we don’t acknowledge the individual stories—if we don’t see the pain in these half-destroyed rooms—then propaganda wins. The invaders get to spin their fairy tales of kindly soldiers and grateful residents, while the real owners of these homes rot in anonymity. This is why I share. Not to shock, but to prevent the silent rewriting of history. Because for every wallpaper peeling off a shell-scarred wall, there’s a piece of someone’s life that was violently torn away, and we owe them at least this: the truth.