Ukraine: "You wake up every day and you wait for that one message, that one call"
A sound designer trained at FAMU in Prague, Victoriia Kralko spent months collecting phone calls and messages from Ukrainians separated by war - soldiers, refugees, families waiting for news. Born in Prague to Ukrainian parents, she turned this material into Hovory (Calls), an audio series that recently won Czech audiobook of the year 2025. This interview was recorded last Friday. A few hours later, one of the main character of the first episode, Serhiy - the Azovstal defender whose wife Mila had been leaving him daily voice messages for over four years - was freed in a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine.
We are recording this interview in our studio at the radio. You know well this kind of environment because you work with sound. How did you develop this connection with sound?
“I study sound design at FAMU, the Film Academy in Prague. I discovered that sound, independent of picture, is also a very powerful storytelling tool.”
When did you realize that this material - the conversations, voice messages, and text messages - would be important to work with?
“I knew these moments from my own life. This is how it started, basically, because I have had these conversations with my cousin who joined the armed forces at the end of 2022.”
“For some time, he and his family started communicating only by phone because he was all the time at the front line. And I realized how war changed and transformed human connection and relationships - how it transformed them and put them in the virtual space.”
So it was the communication with your cousin that brought this to your mind. And then how did you gather the others?
“I realized how war changed and transformed human connection and relationships - how it transformed them and put them in the virtual space."
« The first person was Mila, from the first episode. Mila is a woman from Mariupol, the wife of an Azovstal defender - Serhiy, who is unfortunately still in a Russian prison to this day [Editor's note: This interview was recorded on Friday, May 23rd. That same day, after more than four years in Russian captivity, Serhiy was released from Russian captivity as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. Mila sent the news after this conversation took place.].”
“I met her at an Azovstal defenders' support meeting here in Prague. It was a very small gathering. I saw her - I knew she was the wife of an Azovstal defender because she had a flag. It was black, and there was a big name, his face, and the word Mariupol. I was nervous, but I did approach her and asked if she would like to talk to me about her experience - that I was a student at the time, that I wanted to make a project about the war in Ukraine, and that the question of people held prisoner in Russia was very important to me. She agreed. I was scared she would not want to talk, but she wanted to talk very much. »
It's described in the first episode - the way she leaves destroyed Mariupol and arrives here in Czechia. She had everything on her phone. She just sent it to you, that's how you put it together?
« No, that's not how it happened. She doesn't live in Prague, so I went to her, to a small Czech town. I sat with her and had an interview first. She told me about her experience, and I asked her if she had any communication with her husband. She told me that she writes to him and records voice messages every single day - even a few times a day.”
“At the time it was two years from the beginning of the invasion, so for two years straight she had recorded messages to him every day, which he never received because he of course has no phone in prison. And she is waiting for his reply. I found that very powerful - this one-sided communication where you are waiting for the other person to answer, and that is what you want the most. You want him to see it, to reply. You wake up every day and you wait for that one text or call or voice message.”
“She was very brave to give me all of her conversations. She sent me the voice recordings, and we also tried to reconstruct her phone calls from the first days of the war and the three calls she had with him in prison - they were very short, like thirty seconds each, and already three years old by then.”
“Czech actors giving their voice to these people”
These calls and messages are in Ukrainian - but your audio series is in Czech. We deal with this quite often in radio, having to dub soundbites into different languages we broadcast in. At what point did you decide to not use the original sound?
“From the beginning, we decided not to use the original sound. I had promised everyone who trusted me with their stories and their most intimate moments - because phone conversations are very intimate - that I would not use the real material.”
“I think some of them would have been fine with it, but this is how we conceived the whole project. It was essentially about Czech actors giving their voice - their Czech voice - to these people, which I think was also a powerful moment in itself, because we know these voices from films, from radio, and here they are identifying with someone who lived through war.”
Can you mention a few names of these actors?
“Yes - for example, Pavla Beretová, who gave her voice to the daughter of my grandmother, who is also featured in one episode. She was great. And Jitka Sedláčková played my grandmother - my Czech grandmother, so to say. Daniel Krejčík was amazing. And of course Anna Fialová and Miloslav König, who played Mila and Serhiy from Mariupol.”
These are very strong conversations, heartbreaking sometimes, and some must have been quite hard to re-enact to record in the studio.
“Yes, it was hard. But the director, Bela Schenková, is unbelievable - she could really transform what was on the page into something lived. The actors, for example, had their phones next to their ears the entire time. When they were typing answers, they were not reading from a script - they were holding their phones in their hands, really acting through the phone. That was Bela's idea, and it was what made it feel authentic.”
Also with the sound effect - you can recognize the sound of a message being sent, but it's a very light sound effect and it becomes very natural.
“Yes, our sound designer made it very subtle, leaving real space for the voice, because the voice is what carries everything. The sound effects are in the background, but they are still there.”
“And we didn't want the sound of bombings, explosions, air raid sirens - we wanted something that would be emotionally similar, but not exactly those sounds, which might have made it too theatrical, too dramatic. The voice already carried the drama. It didn't need more. And the silence, sometimes.”
Adapting these series into different languages – is it something you would think about?
“As for a Ukrainian version, I was not initially thinking about it, because when I made this decision I thought that Ukrainians already live this every day - they don't need to be told.”
“But that is also not entirely true, because not every Ukrainian has a connection with someone serving at the front line. And I have had messages from Ukrainian friends saying: you need to do this in Ukrainian, we need this. So I am thinking about it now.”
“And other languages - English especially, which is the lingua franca of the audio world. That would be a dream!”
Audiobook of the year
How did it feel to receive last April the major prize for audiobook of the year 2025?
“That was surreal. I appreciated very much that the judges saw importance in this project, because as a person with a strong connection to Ukraine, I have been frustrated for the past years that the war Russia started is fading from public debate and media space. This recognition showed me that it still matters to other people - that they listened to it and that it touched them.”
Also in the actual Czech national political context with a new government – and perhaps also the shifting attitudes towards Ukrainian refugees deeper in society?
“Yes, also in that context. Though I don't know if those who are most opposed to Ukraine would ever listen to something like this. But it is a reminder to those who no longer find it a relevant or important topic - a reminder that it still is.”
Of the five episodes, which story would you keep with you the most?
“Of course it is the story from Mariupol — the one we've already talked about. It has stayed with me, it is still with me. Mila and I have actually become good friends. I still write to her every week, or at least I try. She is here in Czechia with her son, who is eleven years old, and she is still waiting for Serhiy — now in his fifth year of illegal imprisonment. He has no idea that we made this project. He has no idea he has become the central figure of an audio series. He doesn't know about it, and we know nothing about him. That is something I think about every day. »
Were there any recent signs of life through his Azovstal comrades?
« Not for a long time. For months there was nothing. Last year, one very young soldier - twenty-two years old, I think — was released in a prisoner swap. He contacted Mila through the Azovstal defenders' families organization. He told her that Serhiy still had all his teeth, which is a good sign, and that he was alive. He had apparently seen him in one of the cells. But he had also been transferred somewhere deep into Siberia. That is the last information Mila has, and it has been months. »
In your future projects, do you intend to keep working in connection with Ukraine and what is still happening there?
"It is not only about Ukrainians in Ukraine. It is about Europeans, about the future of Europe, about whether we show that evil cannot be allowed to go further."
“Right now this is my main focus - not only Ukraine, but exposing imperialism and Russian war crimes. Ukraine is important to me because it is one of my mother countries, but also because I think this war has an impact on all of us in Europe. It is not only about Ukrainians in Ukraine. It is about Europeans, about the future of Europe, about whether we show that evil cannot be allowed to go further. It is also about our own future.”
And that will be a sound project as well?
“I am focused on audio and radio art right now. I have found a real passion in it, and this is where I want to continue.”
