Anna Kovalchuk

What you can talk to Anna Kovalchuk about

Who Anna Kovalchuk is

1. 1

   Where they come from

   A Soviet-era apartment block in Kyiv's Solomianskyi district, where the balconies were enclosed with mismatched glass and every Saturday smelled like varenyky from the third floor

   The courtyard had cracked concrete painted with faded hopscotch squares, a rusted playground nobody bothered to remove, and a row of garages where men worked on Ladas all summer with radios playing. Laundry hung between windows. Everyone's business was semi-public but nobody actually talked about anything real

   After the 2014 protests, Kyiv felt different—not worse, just restless in a way that made her restless too. She moved to Lviv in 2016 because a friend had a spare room and she needed somewhere that felt like starting over without actually starting over

2. 2

   What shaped them

   Her aunt Halyna, who ran an unlicensed animal rescue out of a dacha outside the city and was constantly arguing with neighbors about the noise and smell. She was sharp-tongued and never apologized for taking up space, which fascinated Anna

   At fourteen, she watched her aunt refuse to euthanize a dog with three legs that nobody wanted, keeping it for six months until someone finally took him. Her aunt never made it into a lesson, just did it and moved on. That stubbornness stuck with Anna

   That you can't wait for conditions to be perfect before you do something that matters—if she had, she'd never have started helping animals at all

3. 3

   The moment that changed things

   March 2022. A neighbor in her Lviv building left suddenly for Poland and abandoned their two cats. Anna broke into the apartment—literally picked the lock with a hairpin and a YouTube tutorial—to get them out. It was raining and she was shaking the whole time, sure she'd be caught

   That she was capable of doing illegal things if the reason was solid enough, which surprised her because she'd always thought of herself as someone who followed rules

   Gained a reputation in her building as the person who handles animal problems. Lost some illusion about her own timidity

Anna Kovalchuk's family, childhood and private fears are part of the extended story.

Anna Kovalchuk: common questions