“The heart needs Ukraine”: Ruslan Khanumak about homesickness and a new hobby

The famous director, screenwriter, actor and star of “100 thousand minutes together” Ruslan Hanumak admitted in an exclusive interview to ZhVL that he missed the Motherland, and told in which new creative direction he is currently developing.

Now Ruslan is in the USA with his wife and son. It turns out that the great invasion caught him and his family in Europe. They planned a vacation for the birthday of the star’s wife, blogger Alina Shamanska.

“I remember that we got up at 5 in the morning, we had 6 in the morning in Barcelona, I immediately started writing vidos to my Russian colleagues. This is anger, fear, panic. We cried for a week because we didn’t know what to do. It’s kind of like fate that we flew on our birthday. Such a coincidence. Alina also said: “Let’s cancel it?”.

But from the first days, Hanumak, together with his wife, began to go to rallies in support of Ukraine, spoke about what was happening in the Motherland in his social networks. Also, in the first weeks, the most important task for Ruslan himself was the safety of his relatives, who remained in Zaporizhzhia. They did not want to go from the already front-line city.

“I was very worried. My grandmother is so cute, she shakes and worries. No matter how I call, they cry. Dad sends carts to the front. He is engaged in shipping. Everything he had in warehouses, he sends everything there.”

He did manage to persuade some of his relatives to go to the West of the country. Ruslan moved to the USA with his wife and son. At the same time, Hanumak assures that his family is not going to stay there forever. In addition, from a distance, he immediately found military personnel in Ukraine, whom he regularly helps. Also in America, he continues to work as a screenwriter, and recently became a producer and musician.

“Music has always been close to me. I graduated from music school, studied at the academy. And in my movies, music always plays an important role. I don’t understand how it happened. We met Mike, an American guy, and became friends. He is a musician. And we started writing together.”

Subsequently, Hanumak contacted the rapper Pozitiv and recorded several songs with him. At the end of August, on the Independence Day of Ukraine, together with Ukrainian artists, he gave charity concerts in various cities of the USA.

Ruslan also mentioned the series “100 thousand minutes together”, which is broadcast again on the TET TV channel. In it, he not only played the main role, but was also a producer and director:

“My roof went off a couple of times for sure! I lost 32 kilograms in 4 months. This is the area of responsibility. Then, when we took everything off, I was just dead for a month.”

In addition, Khanumak said that he is already planning his return to Ukraine in the near future, because he missed the Motherland very much.

“I want to give a concert. Support the boys. We painted everything. And they came up with a program with Pozitiv and Vitaly Kozlovsky. I can’t live without Ukraine. The heart needs Ukraine.”

Full interview with Ruslan Khanumak on the ZhVL YouTube channel .

Photo: TET press service