I never thought I could be one of them – displaced people. I didn't learn my lesson from my family's stories, not until now.

Legend has it that some of my ancestors fled to Argentina during World War I, but no one knows if their journey was successful.

My mother's family was tossed around from Belarus to Poland and back. They lived on the border, on a separate farm. Not only did the territory itself constantly change from state to state, but my ancestors were also relocated due to various government plans. A brother of my granddad went through labor camps in Germany and, after World War II, started his family in the US.

According to my dad's diary: my great-grandfather on my father's side came from Russia to work in Turkistan, and after the revolution, he ran under bullets, saving his life, as well as his wife's and young daughter's (my dad's mother), back to Russia.

My dad's father hailed from Kharkiv, Ukraine. He performed at the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre in Minsk. He was one of the first to go to the front when the war broke out, and by the end of 1941, he was declared missing in action. Due to my dad's military occupation, I was born in a remote area, in the steppe of the USSR, not far from Kazakhstan. My family and I moved back to Belarus in 1989.

Oblivious to all of the above, I always saw myself in the privileged position of a traveler ever since I began traveling independently at the age of 16. I loved exploring different cultures, and my journeys took me first to Russia and Ukraine, and then to Cuba, Kosovo, and various European countries. I was always free to return home. Everything changed in 2022.

In April 2022, I found myself at the Lithuanian border with two suitcases and my cat, hoping to leave all the terror behind. Suddenly, all those dissident writers whose biographies I had read with wonder in school didn't seem so exotic anymore. The migrants, who had always seemed like mysterious creatures with unfortunate destinies, no longer felt like "others." It turned out that life can take a sudden twist that resets everything you had hoped for. And when you start delving into your family's history, you uncover hidden paths that connect hopes and grief like the traces of ants. Some of these paths leave deep scars on the map.

So here I am in Berlin, among a diverse crowd that I've always loved for the hidden experiences and knowledge it holds.

I continue to travel, but now I'm collecting people's stories of loss and the feeling of home. Each of us endures this experience differently. Some of us are the first in our family to go through the migrant experience, while others have been searching for a safe home for generations.

These are the first thirty stories of the Dis/Location Re/Visited project, with each participant answering the same questions in a free format:

1. Your pronoun, age, field of work, and name/nickname/prefer not to say (you can choose a random initial like N).
2. Your former country, the country you passed through, and your current country.
3. When did you move?
4. Why did you have to move?
5. How do you feel right now? Describe your emotional and physical state.
6. What do you miss while being in exile?
7. Would you go back if it were safe?
8. Who else in your family has a history of migration?
9. In the final part, I kindly ask you to send me names or links to songs from each region your family members have ever moved to, passed through, or from (it doesn't have to be old songs; it can be any genre, from hip hop to industrial, something you like: one song per region related to the geography of your family).

If you'd like to share your story, you can answer these questions anonymously using a Google form: