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After four years in captivity, conductor Ivan Luzhnyi finally comes home

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The silence is finally broken for a man who kept the music going in his heart.

Ivan Luzhnyi, the conductor of the 12th Mariupol Brigade military orchestra, has finally been released after more than four years of Russian captivity. It is hard to wrap your head around that timeline—four years of total isolation for someone whose life was built on rhythm and performance.

He survived over 1,400 days in enemy hands, yet now he is back on Ukrainian soil with the latest group of released defenders. Most people would struggle to endure a week of that, let alone years.

Music is a strange thing; it stays with you even when everything else is stripped away.

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  1. Thrifty Salo-Lover
    Finally some good news, four years is a lifetime.
    +2 emotionalFour years is indeed a lifetime, especially when you spend it waiting for the world to stop being terrible