Свобода

“Свобода” means: Freedom.

The Ukrainian soul and the Russian people are very different — they are not the same. And yet the letters of the word “freedom” are the same: свобода. In both languages, the word is written the same way. But does it really mean the same thing? Does it carry the same content? How can we describe something that has no letters? And how can one live without the word “freedom”?

 

Existence without freedom is a burden carried across generations. That is why it is so important that the present and future generations always know: You have a choice, there is always a choice.
 

On a beautiful weekend morning, I took apart one of the Cyrillic typewriters — not without considerable effort, because it was a well-designed, solid, old machine. I did not simply dismantle it; I also broke the mechanism that held the letters together into tiny pieces, and removed the letters that spell the word “freedom.”

 

Afterwards, I reassembled the parts.

The object is heavy.

It has weight.

 

When you wear it, you feel its mass on your neck — as if bearing the possibility of existence without freedom.