Natalia Grezina:

"Will this metal weigh on my chest, when I’m lying in the casket?
Finally, I won’t be able to notice.

All these medals are so heavy.
I never thought that something so small and thin could be so hard to carry.
I look at them; they are also heavy to see.
Some of them I got for valorous acts during the war, some as a commemoration of the battles I took part in, some of them simply for having survived. Although there was nothing simple in survival: you are pushed to the edge, forced to do things you were not imaging or even thinking of being capable of in order not to fall in the shooting line or to find something to eat that day.
For all these achievements, you get a metal token as a sign of bravery.
Even though, honestly, I would prefer to forget about the circumstances some of them are reminding me.
They form an uncomfortable armour once they stand all together pinned on my jacket.
It’s terribly hard to move, even.
I hope I will be the last one to carry this burden; that Natalia won’t have to bear it.
Despite my wishes, though, I know that it won’t be so: conflict is still all around us and in her future too. 
A less resonant battle, perhaps, but a never-ending one.
After all, the Black Sea always turns red."