Exclusive:
A YouTuber from Liverpool travelled to Ukraine to experience for himself what life is like in a war-torn country and he claims he came back a completely different person
A Brit chose to travel to Ukraine to see the impact of the war with Russia and saw sights that made him leave a different person.
Chris Reilly, 37, travelled to Ukraine to see the country for himself and step out of his comfort zone. Due to Ukraine being in a ‘no fly’ zone, Chris flew from Liverpool to Krakow in Poland, and from there travelled 26 hours on a bus to reach Ukraine.
Setting out on his journey to Ukraine from Krakow, Chris was immediately greeted with the reality of what life is currently like in Ukraine. “The bus had no lights and the bus goes almost 80 miles per hour, with lorries going at the same speed. The roads are narrow and it was so foggy, I couldn’t see two feet in front of the bus. I saw four lorry crashes just on my way there,” Chris said.
“It was crazy. And then I was getting air raid alerts from all the different areas we were going though, and I just thought we were like sitting ducks then.
“It was driving into the unknown, and it was snowing as well – making it more eery.”
Chris, however, never questioned what he was doing as he was thinking about the bravery of the other people on the bus. “On the way there, nobody spoke for about 16 hours. It was so eerie and it was so strange. We got to the Ukrainian border, and waited five hours in a queue… then as soon as we to through the border, everybody came alive, so they must have been full of anxiety and fear. As soon as we entered Ukraine, people were speaking to me and they were happy because they had got past the border.”
Chris didn’t plan his trip, he just went. “I just became a local. All the soldiers wanted to buy me drinks and tell me stories,” he shared.
When he got to his apartment in Kyiv, his was quickly greeted with an air raid siren and left questioning what to do. “I though what do the locals do, so I went for a walk and they were all getting on with their lives,” he added.
“This is normality, this is just their life there. You could almost be in Liverpool. You could even go shopping in Chanel. It was morbidly normal. But the mood does change everyday, depending on what’s going on in the area.
“So you don’t really feel any fear in Kyiv, other than when the air raid sirens go off and you hear explosions and gunshots – but that becomes normal too.”
Initially Chris stayed in Kyiv, but he also later explored the east of the country in Bucha and Irpin. In Irpin, he visited a mass grave and went through the trenches. He also saw a ‘car cemetery’ in Bucha.
Travelling further east, Chris also detailed how he saw drones and people trying to escape. “The drones don’t look like our drones, they look like model airplanes. I heard a few of them getting shot down – full on gun shots and explosions,” Chris shared. During is trip, Chris himself saw around one drone a day, but the number in the areas he visited were actually around nine per day.
The worst things he saw were people being attacked and people fleeing their homes, where they have lived all their lives. “The houses are just smashed to pieces. It’s like a movie set and you are just waiting for someone to say action,” he said.
Chris found that he wasn’t too emotional when in Ukraine, but when he returned to Krakow, and was in Krakow Square, he came across Ukrainian singing about being tortured and broke down. “Then when I landed at Liverpool Airport, to get a taxi I broke down there as well. It was a strange feeling of guilt, of why have I come back, I should still be there. Even now I can’t stop thinking about everybody there, and how they are,” Chris explained.
Landing down at Liverpool Airport, Chris quickly realised that people moan a lot in the western world, “about stupid things that are ridiculously materialistic”. Whilst admitting he used to moan a lot himself, Chris revealed this was part of the reason he wanted to travel to Ukraine, to make himself a better person.
“I knew that once I got back it would transform me and make me a better person. I can feel that I grew from stepping outside of my comfort zone. I got comfortable with being uncomfortable,” he admitted. “I advise everybody to seek discomfort. It does something amazing to you and I can’t ever be the same again.”
Now back in the UK, looking back on his trip Chris finds that the most surprising thing he experienced was how much the locals and Ukrainians wanted to show him around and tell him stories, educating him on what life in the country is currently like. Seeing the different locations, graves, destruction and impacts of the war, Chris felt helpless. “I wish I was in some kind of position to do more – it was so emotionally draining,” he added.
“For me, it was about understanding it [the conflict and its impact] for myself. When I left Ukraine, it wasn’t just as a traveller it was as someone who has looked fear in the eye and walked forward anyways. It was like my greatest story and profound lessons that I had for a full week, with the deepest connections and that is because I dared to step beyond what is comfortable.”