"She'll drink my life juices". Musician and husband of singer ONUKA - for the first time about his 7-month-old daughter, family estate in Chernihiv, and a rocket hit near his house

Producer and husband of the ONUKA singer Yevhen Filatov told us why during the war their family lives in two cities, and not in ideal security conditions. The couple with two young children live in both Kyiv and Chernihiv.

In an interview with OBOZ.UA, the musician explained why the century-old house in Chernihiv is so dear to his wife, which she is ready to "raise from the ashes". He also opened the curtain on his personal life, telling us about his three-year-old son Oleksandr and seven-month-old daughter Lina.

We talked during a private screening in Kyiv of the documentary Long Day, directed by Alan Badoiev. Yevhen Filatov was the film's composer.

- At the beginning of last year, there was a lot of talk about another project that you are directly involved in, the reality series How the World Sounds. Ukraine, which collects sounds that convey the character of four Ukrainian cities - Chernihiv, Odesa, Lviv, Kyiv, and one region - the Carpathians.

- The authorship is not mine - I am the host and composer of this project. It was created by a large team, but the idea was invented by the Synelnikovs (Nataliia and Yevhen, the general producer of the badoev.id agency and the director and host of the programs "Heads and Tails," "Better at Home," and "Craft Travels," who survived two weeks of occupation in Bucha at the beginning of the invasion - Ed.) If you haven't seen it yet, I strongly advise you to watch the recordings on any digital platform - I hope you will like it.

The sounds we collected are very unique and inherent in the city where we shot the next episode. An interesting thing, and I'm sure many people don't know about it, is that traffic lights at pedestrian crossings sound different in every city. I also used to think that it was a universal sound, but it's not. In the Odesa edition, you can hear seagulls and the sound of the sea, in the Lviv edition, the sounds of a tram, and in the Kyiv edition, the sounds of the subway. There are also church bells, the acoustics of refugee rehabilitation centers, and the sound of sirens during air raids – this is how our cities sound now. But I am an optimist, so I do hope that the war will end as soon as possible. And we will live on with only peaceful sounds.

As for the film Long Day, it's different music, and different meanings. I want as many Ukrainians as possible to see the film, and I am also very proud of this work. Although I must admit, it was not easy to work, because this is not an artistic production, but a documentary truth that ordinary Ukrainians filmed during the first days of the invasion on their phones. It's a unique project: we managed to organize more than 240 hours of footage into certain lines, a titanic work. I was amazed to learn that so much was compiled into a coherent picture. It turned out to be a full-fledged movie made by Ukrainians themselves.

- Where was your family when the Russian invasion took place?

- We were in Kyiv. We live outside the city, so it was scary and hard. But we were all together, which made it morally easier to survive. And then we went to Chernihiv, where we have a house. Things were not easy there either. In mid-August last year, a rocket hit very close to our house - it hit a local theater, there were dead and wounded... Now we live in both Kyiv and Chernihiv.

- Even before the full-scale invasion, your family started restoring the century-old family house in Chernihiv. And during the great war, your wife said that even if it was destroyed during shelling, she would "raise it from the ashes" because it was so dear to her. Tell us about it.

- This is my wife's family estate. The house was built more than a hundred years ago, it survived two wars, and we hope that despite the shelling, it will still stand. Nata's grandfather, a Chernihiv-based musical instrument maker Oleksandr Shlyonchyk, used to work there (the instruments he made were once played by the Belarusian Pisniary and folk groups from other countries, and later by his granddaughter - Ed.) It is thanks to him that Nata's project is called ONUKA.

We have restored the house and his studio to almost 100 percent of the way it was when the artist was alive. We tried to create the impression that he had gone out and was about to return. In the future, it will be a creative platform - a space for various lectures and master classes on creating musical instruments. I'm working a lot in Chernihiv now, and there are still a lot of projects ahead.

- You and your wife don't like to publicize your personal life. She had both pregnancies in secret from the public. How old is your daughter, who was born during the invasion?

- Our daughter is 7 months old. Her name is Lina (named after the poet Lina Kostenko - Ed.). She spent her first night in life in the bomb shelter of the maternity hospital because there was a massive shelling in Kyiv at the time. Now that Lina is actively growing up, we are very happy with her. For me, she is a little princess. She is already sitting up, and in a few months, we hope, she will start taking her first steps. She has a great relationship with her older brother Alexander. We live together. Our dog is very respectful to the kids, and they reciprocate. All of us together are a kind of small gang.

- Can your wife entrust you with this gang for a while?

- There are times when we share parental responsibilities, if necessary. But still, the main burden falls on the nannies, because there are a lot of things to do. But children are the most important thing. For example, today Nata was going to attend this event with me, but then decided to stay with the kids.

- Who is the good cop in your family and who is the bad cop?

- It's different. It depends on the situation and who started this game of dialogues first.

- Is a girl-child a different feeling than a boy?

- I still don't fully understand it. But somehow I feel that the girl is something very strange. How will we be friends, how will I raise her? I can't say for sure yet. It seems to me that she will still drink my life juices (laughs). But I'm ready for it.