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It's Valentine's Day, 2021. I step out of an Uber into the miserable brown snow, a few days old and shoved up onto the curb. The temperature is well below freezing, but a pair of mittens keep my hands warm. I'm holding my guitar case.
Here I am, on Saksahanskoho Street, an area peculiar in the cultural landscape of Kyiv. The restaurants are more eastern, the hipsters are more grungy, and the snow seems browner. Most importantly though, Saksahanskoho is where I first played music with my friend Nate—in a dimly lit basement rehearsal studio called Checkpoint.
I'm an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Nate, also an American, is a wicked good drummer. Our first jam went well, and soon after we added our bassist David, a third member from the U.S., as well as Oleksii Leonov a Ukrainian guitarist originally from Donetsk. The four of us instantly had chemistry, and I remember those early days in the basement as a magical time of discovery.
The name Goshawk was not popular with the rest of the band when I pitched it, but it sort of just stuck. We met each weekend, playing our own songs—a melange of styles including punk, reggae, blues, hip-hop with dancehall elements. We'd invite a few friends to our rehearsals. Each time, they seemed pleasantly surprised that we weren't as amateur as they expected.
About six months after forming we played our first show at Checkpoint. Around 50 people showed up, and we turned the evening into a wild party. The memorable night can be seen on YouTube in our music video "Buzz Riff", an original song we created about Kyiv. In the opening verse, I sing, "I'm a sucker for the chestnut streets."
We started playing shows and building momentum. Kyiv is a techno-focused city, first and foremost, with a small live music scene, so we were excited for the potential to really make an impact. Our biggest show—one we didn't know would be our last for a long time—was on November 16, 2021 at an upscale new venue, Pepper's Club, in the up-and-coming Arsenalna district.
As we walked off the stage, my friend Ira ran up to me with a shocked look on her face. "Guys, look! It's Zelensky!" "No way, can't be." And sure enough, President Volodymyr Zelensky was there, along with Kyiv's boxer-turned-mayor Vitali Klitschko, there to watch a football match between the Ukrainian national team and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were all at ease, cheerful and laughing. Ukraine won.
We would all steal glances at the president's table. "Can you believe it, he let me take a selfie with him!" said one girl. "Me too!" said another. And then a tall, broadly built Canadian friend of ours spoke up: "His bodyguards didn't let me take a selfie with him for some reason." We all laughed.
For a moment, I thought to try and go over to ask the president for a picture together. Then I thought better of it. The president and mayor were among us, drinking beer and watching football. Not so different from the rest of us.
Exactly 100 days later Russia invaded Ukraine, and President Zelensky's face filled screens all over the world. "I need ammunition, not a ride", he said, when offered a chance by the U.S. to flee Ukraine upon Russia's invasion. I'm certain that most leaders all over the world would have taken that ride out. I mean, after all, how could you stay? How could you fight the second largest army in the world, led by someone who is, in my view, a madman.
"The comedian who became president" was no joke after all. The man who we saw months earlier letting his hair down, letting our friends—or most of them, at least—take photographs with him—this man was serious. He spoke with conviction. Many feared that Kyiv would be captured in the first days, and that the Ukrainian president would be captured, likely killed.
A few weeks before the war, Nate, David and I had relocated to Tbilisi in Georgia. Our guitarist Alex remained in Kyiv, unable to leave the country due to martial law. We worked with a new guitarist and played several shows, but all of us dreamed of returning to Kyiv. Tbilisi was wonderful, but didn't feel like home to any of us.
And then, nearly six months after the war started, Nate, Dave and I decided to go back to Kyiv together. We kept hearing about our Ukrainian friends who fled during the early days of the war, and how they were returning. The Instagram posts made it seem more or less safe, even fun. My parents and friends were shocked. "What?! You're going back to a warzone?"
As we approached the city by train—no functioning airports meant a 14-hour journey from the Polish border—we looked out the windows for signs of war. Everything seemed normal. It was one of the strangest feelings that I've experienced. Now we are back in what feels to me like home. It is a country ravaged by war, yet everything seems the same as when we left.
Our first show back was deeply meaningful. Our friends came out and brought some of their friends. It was the end of the short, hot summer. The sky outside was blue. I felt a bundle of emotions inside. Old friends, our old songs, our old band. We were back! The war didn't break us!
But everything has changed. The people in Kyiv are fierce, but have lived through the horrors of war that are still taking place throughout the country. When we were on the outside, we watched as our friends went to work, went to the gym, went to restaurants, went out for drinks. But we could never understand how they really felt, watching their country invaded, their fellow citizens tortured and killed mercilessly.
The air raid sirens still go off every day. It's hard to know how to feel sometimes. The foreigners that were here before the war are mostly gone. But it really feels like everyone in Ukraine is on the same page now. Before the war, it felt like people focused on their own banal non-problems. But now, the war is the only thing that matters. Support for Ukraine is the only thing that matters.
Life after the war is a total mystery. There is one thing that's for certain though. When Ukraine wins, and I am certain they will, there is going to be celebration and partying in Kyiv for weeks, something unlike anyone has ever experienced. And every single cheers, every single chant, every single song will be for the heroes who protected our dear Ukraine.
For now, Goshawk will carry on playing in Kyiv. We're planning more shows, and we go out to support other Ukrainian cultural events going on. Kyiv is our home. Ukraine is our home. And the spirit of freedom is still very much alive in the air, in the streets, in the underground. I believe Ukraine will win the war.
Daniel Hayes is a Paraguayan-American who grew up in Trinidad & Tobago. He moved to Kyiv in 2016, where he works as a writing coach for Savvy L&D Solutions, a Ukrainian company. You can follow Goshawk on Instagram @goshawk.official
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
