On one of the first days of March, the train carrying Hanna and her mother arrived in the Zakarpattia Oblast. Hanna breathed out in relief. It felt safer here, although, at that time, no place in Ukraine felt truly safe. Mountains flashed outside the window. She looked around; in the mirrors hanging in their sleeper compartment, a beautiful, endless reflection appeared, and for the first time since February 24, she felt like picking up her camera. She took it out and snapped a few photos.
This moment marked the start of her photo project, “My Mom Wants to Go Back Home”. But at that moment, Hanna wasn’t thinking about any project.
Hanna Hrabarska is a photographer who lived in Kyiv before the war. But the place where her roots are — where she was born — is Kryvyi Rih. In the early days of the full-scale invasion, she returned there to be with her mother, to the neighborhood where her friends and family lived within a 15-minute walk. She barely managed to persuade her mother to leave. They left on February 27.
Hanna shared her train photos on Instagram, receiving responses from around the world and publication offers from international media. She says that her quiet, intimate story about the journey from Ukraine filled a gap — capturing the human side of the war. Since then, she’s been documenting her mother’s life more deliberately, now abroad.
These photos reflect what it’s like to live and to want to go home. In the first months after they left, her mother would often say, “I want to go home,” or “When we get home…” And so the project got its name.
“I’m often asked about the message of the project. Words are just symbols; everyone interprets them differently. Images are the same. I didn’t try to convey a deep meaning. When I started photographing my mom, it wasn’t a project; I just needed something to keep myself busy,” Hanna explains.
Those first photos from the sleeper car don’t quite capture infinity — her lens was too narrow to “catch” it. But they hold all the feelings of someone forced to leave a place they’re attached to — a refugee of war.
Among Hanna’s favorite photos is one taken in Budapest (Hungary) and another in Austerlitz (Netherlands).
There’s one of her mother eating a big red strawberry and crying. People who saw it thought, “Something sad must have happened in Ukraine?” In reality, Hanna had bought strawberries in early spring to cheer them up, but they turned out sour. Her mother was so disappointed she started to cry.
“When you’re in that kind of situation, your nerves are on edge,” Hanna explains. “For example, I can’t cry over events in Ukraine. I cried once — after Bucha. After the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed, I just felt numb. But little things can suddenly trigger an emotional release, like the strawberry did.”
Or there’s a photo of her mother waving a blue and yellow flag. This was mid-March, just a couple of days after they’d arrived in Austerlitz and were staying with friends.
“One morning, they told us, ‘We bought a Ukrainian flag and want to hang it up.’ My mom grabbed it and walked around waving it in the yard — it was a very happy moment. There you are in the Netherlands, in a small village, and suddenly there’s your flag. It felt like global support: people didn’t just invite us in; they bought a flag to make us feel welcome.”
Hanna says her mother “has always been beautiful, and she knows it, as does everyone around her”. Iryna, who is 71, is from Kryvyi Rih. She worked in the food service industry and later became a maître d’hotel. When her daughter was born, she stayed home to dedicate herself to family. Once Hanna grew up, her mother decided to become a nanny and excelled at it, raising wonderful children. In the Netherlands, she easily connects with people, despite not speaking the language.
“She wins over the kids by giving them candy, which isn’t the custom here. But she still buys Roshen lollipops (Dushes and Barbarys) and quietly slips them into the children’s hands. It’s gone so far that sometimes kids run up to our apartment door and ring the bell, and she’ll go to the balcony and toss candies down to them from the first floor, which they catch.”
Leaving Ukraine was Hanna’s decision. Recently, two missiles hit near their home in Kryvyi Rih. It made her realize, once again, that leaving was the right choice. When they left, she tried to convince many of her friends to do the same, but later she understood that it’s essential to respect each person’s choice, whatever it may be.
Hanna is preparing a photo book based on the project, also called My Mom Wants to Go Back Home, set to be released in January 2024. It tells the tale of a year in the Netherlands, a story “first about the journey in every sense, later evolving into a kind of constancy after our move to Amsterdam”.
Hanna and Iryna still live in Amsterdam. The photo project continues, though Hanna now photographs less often. The project will end, “when my mom finally comes back home.”
Translation — Iryna Chalapchii
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[The translation of this publication was compiled with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework “European Renaissance of Ukraine” project. Its content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation]
