Things that just make sense in a bomb shelter

Valeria Shashenok was born in 2001 in Chernihiv, a city north of Kiev in northern Ukraine, where her parents still live today. Before the war, she pursued her passion as a freelance photographer. Meanwhile, one of her videos has more than 50 million TikTok views – her videos and messages go around the world. When the attacks on Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, she documented the harrowing events that war brings on her TikTok and Instagram accounts. With images of brutal devastation, ironic commentary and a very personal perspective, her work reaches millions of people. She likes black humour a lot; it helps her get through these absurd times. She says: "I remember the smell exactly when we reached the station. It smelled of people, of food and of unhappiness. It's hard to describe it all, it was just awful." Valeria Shashenok fled by train to Poland, then by bus to Berlin and finally to Italy, where she now lives as a war refugee. It is important to her that everyone learns about what happened to her: "Because this war has become a terrible reality for me. It is absurd, it is surreal, and death is happening right now and no one can change it."