Cultural activist Daria Kolomiets and the Ukrainian tattoo studio Black Hearts Club organized a charity event in New York to support the Women’s Veterans Movement with the participation of Polish-American actress Suzanne Szadkowski.
A vital part of the event was the reading of monologues by Daria Kolomiets and American actress Suzanne Szadkowski, known for participating in the TV series Gossip Girl, The Gilded Age, and others.
Daria read from her audio diary in the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Suzanna told the story of Olena Nikulina, the wife of Maksym Nikulin, a soldier of the Azov regiment and defender of Mariupol, who is still in Russian captivity.
Olena recorded it in the spring of 2022 for Daria Kolomiets’s Diary of War project. These are voice messages from Ukrainians about their experience of living through a full-scale invasion, recorded at the beginning of the great war and released in podcast format. In her “diary,” Olena Nikulina tells how she and her five-year-old son left Mariupol, how she found out about her second pregnancy when her husband was at Azovstal, about her faith in victory and her expectations for Maksym to be released from captivity.
Suzanne noted that she wholeheartedly supports Ukraine and believes that the United States is not doing enough to help Ukrainians defeat Putin.
Over three hundred thousand hryvnias were raised during the evening. All the proceeds from the event will go to the Women’s Veterans Movement NGO to purchase winter uniforms and cover other needs of Ukraine’s defenders.
