In Ukraine, the first case of COVID-19 infection was recorded in the spring of 2020! I decided to film a project on how people’s behavior changes during a pandemic and chose the most crowded public place in the city of Izmail – the market! What I observed brought both laughter and tears! Due to the fact that there was immediately a sharp shortage of protective masks, there were craftsmen who started sewing these masks at home and sold them at high prices! In Ukraine, elderly people are very poor and are not able to buy masks every day, and therefore pensioners themselves sew masks from what they have on hand!
At the local market, sellers are fenced off from buyers with film, and on the way into the market there are workers who measure body temperature at the entrance to the market! Some manage to get past such checkpoints, but they are caught in the market and taken outside the market!
It is interesting to watch how people help each other: when a person forgot a mask or does not have money to buy a mask, then the one who passed the control passes his mask to another! The pandemic has revealed human qualities and vices! It immediately became clear who was showing mercy and who was greedy for money!
