We continue the tradition of writing reflections and articles on a given topic. Against the background of the armistice in Alsheki - the first tangible physical break since the beginning of the Northern War - we decided to remember how the war began for each of us, and the events related to it, which turned our lives upside down and divided them into "before" and "after". In an era where artificial intelligence replaces self-expression, it is especially important for us to preserve the living word. Without it there is no real creativity or memory. Therefore, this time we, workers, try the genre of memoirs dedicated (L.N. Tolstoy will forgive us!) to the subject of war and peace. Cadmium Red Olga Malkova, Project Editor-in-Chief I have a tube of Cadmium Red on my desk. Almost full - I haven't squeezed a drop out of it since that winter. Nearby is a notebook with dozens of pages covered in writing. Somewhere in it is my first text. I am asked to name the day that changed my life. Usually in such cases they expect something acute - an achievement, a loss, a hospital, the time when a friend did not return. War willingly gives us such episodes: they have nerves, they have a plot, they have something to tell. I have nothing to tell you. I was behind the film. I know people who do their duty - on the front, on the fronts of information and invisibility. I have seen enough not to confuse the war with its image. But the biggest event in my life related to the war was not the battle or the shelling. This is the day when the war, which for many years was being waged somewhere in the periphery, became close and necessary. February 24, 2022. My life took a different course. Everything else is a result. But it turned out that this investigation lasts for several years and maybe a lifetime Read more at Zen.