Well-groomed daughter recognizes dead mother in photo of Bucha
By Uladzimir Zhyhachou 04/08/2022 19:47
The photos of civilians killed in Bucha shocked people across the world. One of the images in particular stands out. A dead person’s hand can be seen on it. Her red fingernails bring terrible certainty to two women. One recognizes his client, the other his mother.
This photo went around the world. The hand of a dead woman in the freed Bucha. Her nails are painted red, but one of them is white or pink, decorated with a heart. The woman’s name was Irina Filkina, she lived to be 53 years old. It was her manicurist of all the things that identified her.
Before the war, Irina Filkina took makeup lessons from a beautician from neighboring Hostomel. The image immediately caught her eye, says Anastasia Subatschewa in an Instagram post. “At first I couldn’t explain why this particular photo appealed to me so much.” But then she understood. “Irina was my client, she took makeup lessons with me,” the post continues. According to them, the last lesson took place on the eve of the war – on February 23.
“She was over the moon, she always practiced more than anyone else,” writes Anastasia. “She kept telling how much her makeup was appreciated by her admirers. She created an Instagram account,” continues the beautician. “She said, ‘I finally understood the most important thing – you have to love yourself and live for yourself. And I’m finally going to live my life the way I want to.”
“She was shot in the middle of the street”
Irina died on March 5. “She was shot in the middle of the street less than 15 minutes from home… With a bullet the size of my finger,” wrote the deceased’s daughter, Olga Shchiruk, on Instagram. The woman was riding her bicycle home from work when the shooting began, the dead man’s family told TV channel 1+1.
The next day the daughter, who does not live in Bucha, discovered that her mother had been shot and that she is probably dead. In addition, Olga was unable to reach her mother over the phone. After several weeks of hoping that her mother was still alive, Olga saw the photos of Bucha’s dead in early April. One of them showed the hand with the red nails.
Relatives have not yet managed to bury Irina Filkina. Her body—along with hundreds of others—has been pulled from the street and now requires a forensic examination. In memory of their mother, Olga and her sister decided to create a charitable foundation to support children orphaned in the war.