LIVES ON THE FRONTLINE

With the help of Kyiv Pride executive director Lenny Emson, photographer and reporter Ilvy Njiokiktjien travelled to the city of Lviv in Ukraine to meet the LGBTQ+ community in a country fighting for its survival against an unrelenting Russian invasion. In these testimonies they reveal how they are fighting for hope and freedom

Denys Kratt (he/him), (pictured, right), 48, works as a marketing director of a Czech microbrewery/restaurant and is a drag queen. He and Dima, 34, a confectioner, have been together for 11 years. They are currently living and volunteering in the Lviv brewery/restaurant where Denys works, which has now been repurposed as a shelter for LGBTQI refugees. Denys’ house in Kharkiv and his parents’ apartment were decimated during the first days of the war.

Denys: I have never had a normal life. In this country I have lived through a revolution, an occupation, and a crisis in the 90s and, as an LGBTQI, we receive a lot of discrimination. I am so tired. I want to stay alive. Russian bombs and airplanes with rockets destroyed my flat, and my parents’ apartment. Everything I own, my car — even my two cats — is gone. In the first days of the war, I did not know if my mother was still alive — she was in Kharkiv and I was in Lviv for work.

Eleven years ago, Dima and I met in Kharkiv, where we both grew up. For the first part of our relationship, we couldn’t see each other at home because we were still living with our parents. We would meet in parks or in clubs.

After four years, we were able to live together in an apartment in Kharkiv that I inherited from my grandparents. The building is home to a lot of old people. Even though we never talk to them about us being gay, I have the feeling they somehow know. I never came out to my mother, even though she knows and understands it. Dima’s parents don’t know he is gay. He doesn’t want to publish pictures of us on Instagram, in case his family see them.