ELLE Ukraine: Call for solidarity

ELLE Ukraine team is currently preparing a special Ukrainian-English bilingual collection issue dedicated to current events in Ukraine, which will also include digital issues created by the editorial staff of "ELLE Ukraine" since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. It will be called "Ukraine 2022" and will be dedicated to what year 2022 has become for Ukraine. In addition to the materials that have already been published, the issue will also include a series of new iconic interviews and materials dedicated to the new Ukrainian reality. Since the beginning of the Russian military aggression in Ukraine, the publication of printed versions of ELLE Ukraine magazine has become impossible due to military operations. However, the editorial office continued its work despite the circumstances and decided to do issues in digital format. Work on the publication in a new format began already in the first days of the war, and in just three weeks the first digital issue was already available for free download on the elle.ua website. It was named HOPE and, unlike the previous ones, was dedicated to topics not typical for the publication. As well as the second issue, which came out a little later. Both issues became a kind of military journal, which records Ukrainian modernity. We have received many questions from readers, will the world see printed versions of the magazines? That is why it was decided that these issues must also appear in the print version. Moreover, the ELLE Ukraine team has ambitious plans to renew the print edition of ELLE in 2023. We announce preparation in the usual format with traditional sections of 4 ELLE issues - spring, summer, autumn, and winter. As before, we want to continue inspiring our readers and do it with our long-standing partners. We invite you to join the campaign of solidarity which will help us to maintain our activity by financing UKRAINE 2022 SPECIAL ISSUE and other upcoming releases. ELLE Ukraine was launched on the market in 2001. The team consists of 41 people. Since the beginning of the invasion, almost all of the team left Kyiv for security reasons and were working remotely. ELLE Ukraine literary editor Iryna Koval escorted her grandson and daughter-in-law to the border with Poland, overcoming the queue 22 km long in three days. Returning immediately to Lviv (the city in the West part of Ukraine), she joined volunteer work where she cooked food, washed the floors in the House of the Warrior, and weaved camouflage nets for the Ukrainian army. “Like the whole country, we constantly help the military - we donate money (for off-road vehicles, thermal imagers, drones, power generators, etc)”. ELLE Ukraine sales manager Anastasia Klymenko left for Portugal with her small brother. Her parents were in the war zone and she was not able to get in touch with them. Their city was shelled around the clock by the enemy’s MLRS (multi-launch rocket system). Anastasia’s maternal grandparents and many relatives are still in Volnovakha, her hometown in eastern Ukraine, which is now occupied. Anastasia doesn’t know when she'll be able to see them again. “In the first week of the war, my grandfather died and my parents couldn't bury him because it wasn't safe for them as the city was intensively shelled. My parents buried my grandfather in the yard, as there was no other way out. Now we are waiting for the moment when we can return and honor his memory properly”. Kateryna Popova, ELLE.ua chief editor also escaped from Kyiv immediately after the war began. She remembers very well the moment on her way when the enemy helicopter threw a bomb on the military vehicles of the Ukrainian army nearby their car. “The fragments flew everywhere, a fire, cars were on fire, people tried to escape”. The first month of the war was very probably the hardest. Many Ukrainians choose Volunteering as a way of life. The ELLE Ukraine editorial team didn’t stand aside. ELLE Ukraine fashion director Natalia Osadcha started coordinating requests from the military, doctors, and IDPs. ELLE Ukraine beauty editor Marianna Partevian helped to clear the rubble of houses in Chernihiv and Kyiv regions together with the organization Repair Together. Now almost 98% of the team came back to Kyiv where they continue to work. Sonya Zabouga, Elle-Ukraine editor-in-chief "Between despair and hope - this is what the life of the Ukrainians looks like today. The war forced us to reconsider the sense of happiness. Today, more than ever, we appreciate the simplest things - the opportunity to return home every evening, be close to loved ones, share the comfort of home, start the day with good news, and have confidence in the future. Recently there has been much talk that the topic of the war in Ukraine is gradually losing its intensity and relevance, that a certain fatigue has appeared. But believe me, for Ukrainians the pain is still strong. I feel the pain every time I go on Facebook, where I now often see posts about friends and acquaintances who had been killed on the frontline. I feel the pain every morning reading the messenger feeds about the shelling of our cities. I feel pain every time I talk to those who survived the horrors of the occupation and those who remain in the line of fire". Svitlana Kravchenko, Elle-Ukraine senior-editor “When I think about last year, I feel like I have lived several lifetimes (and believe me, this is not a metaphor at all). From external signs: I gained weight, cut my hair several times, and stopped liking myself in the mirror. I try to fill my day with both work and household affairs all the time so that I don't have time for anxious thoughts. Twice during this time (about two weeks each) I had serious emotional depression: I cried, I ate stress, and I could hardly force myself to do anything. But I allowed myself to experience these states. When they ended, it was as if I got a second wind and I went to work with new energy. Today all Ukrainians live in a state of such an emotional swing. But we are very supportive of each other. And it helps not to lose heart completely. Kateryna Popova, Elle.ua chief-editor "I haven't planned anything for a year now (and my loved ones know for sure that I am a person who always plans when there is no plan of action - I am stressed) because every day of our life can turn out to be the last. I feel all the injustice of the world (reading the news, this feeling never leaves me) with my skin. This bitter sense of injustice overwhelms each of us today, but nothing can be done about it…. the world will never be different. There was a lot of pain, disappointment, and loss of contact with friends, it is difficult to live with a feeling of anxiety, sadness, and regret in the native country, of the grief of the Ukrainian people, loss. Minimal calmness and a more or less stable psycho-emotional state are a luxury today. Life has acquired a completely different meaning, and only now it has become painfully clear. And the meaning of life, as it turned out, was in the arms of loved ones, peaceful sleep, morning coffee, and a clear, peaceful sky above your head. We have been looking for meaning for so long, and it was so obvious. Now we really will never say “never”.