WEBVTT 00:00:07.640 --> 00:00:10.640 War is a test for everyone. 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:22.160 In this test, it is immediately clear who is who. 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:30.280 Someone helps, someone sends help, someone evacuates, 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:40.000 someone gives some kind of help in terms of food, medicines, everything else, 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.960 someone is sitting, resting somewhere at a resort or sitting in a restaurant ... 00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:48.240 That is, each person has his own path, do you understand? 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:56.280 War is a misfortune that tests everyone for strength, for “lice”. 00:00:56.280 --> 00:01:00.520 It works with money, with power, 00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:06.120 all this is given to a person in order to show his insides, 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:12.520 his abilities and what he is like in this life. 00:01:12.520 --> 00:01:20.080 Well, and our war, it gave all of us the opportunity to understand 00:01:20.080 --> 00:01:26.480 what we are worth in this life, and what we can do to prevent 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:29.080 this from happening again. 00:01:29.080 --> 00:01:32.440 We took our first child in the eleventh year, 00:01:32.440 --> 00:01:36.080 this was our first swallow, Helen the youngest. 00:01:36.080 --> 00:01:38.840 The youngest, because we then have an older one. 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:40.960 We then lived in an apartment, 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:46.680 literally a year later we had three more children from Kramatorsk. 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:50.960 In general, we came to this decision for various reasons. 00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:54.160 Alexei and I have a second marriage, and somehow we didn't manage 00:01:54.160 --> 00:01:56.080 to have joint children right away. 00:01:56.080 --> 00:01:57.960 This issue has come up more than once. 00:01:57.960 --> 00:02:00.600 First, because there were no common children. 00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:03.440 We wanted to, and then, when the children came 00:02:03.440 --> 00:02:06.560 over time, we still did not move away from this issue. 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:10.880 And then, but we understood that we were coping, 00:02:10.880 --> 00:02:14.080 we succeed, but further progress ... 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:17.640 we could not count on this advance in 00:02:17.640 --> 00:02:19.520 connection with our living space. 00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:24.200 And then by chance, there was the call. 00:02:24.200 --> 00:02:27.720 They called us and said that we won, they would give us a house. 00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:33.680 Wow! It was something really something! We didn't even believe these words. 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:39.800 Really, probably, after a few months, this house was bought, 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:43.640 we participated in the renovation, we improved the territory, 00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:46.440 we did everything there for the children, it was so beautiful. 00:02:46.440 --> 00:02:51.680 We were happy at that moment. We lived for a year somewhere in this house, 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:54.120 and the hostilities began. In general, unfortunately, 00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:56.600 the house ended up in a war zone. 00:02:56.600 --> 00:03:01.360 We lived near the airport. And we had to leave suddenly, 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:05.680 because we were very afraid that something would happen to our children. 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:13.400 I will never forget the impression when I left at four o'clock in the morning, 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:18.320 it began, there was morning silence, the shelling began somewhere in the distance. 00:03:18.320 --> 00:03:25.040 And I looked at the garden, at the playground, I could not believe 00:03:25.040 --> 00:03:29.080 that I needed to leave this place, it was very difficult, 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:33.040 but I understood that now the shooting would begin to intensify, 00:03:33.040 --> 00:03:36.160 and we just had nowhere to go, you know, this beauty, 00:03:36.160 --> 00:03:39.120 it is for us absolutely useless if we die. 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:49.280 The first encounter with the war was ... Me and Eva, it was a very terrible story. 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:52.240 We were just being examined at the Cardio Center. 00:03:52.240 --> 00:03:56.280 And when we left the office, my husband called me and said: 00:03:56.280 --> 00:04:01.160 "Lera, where are you?" I said that I was at the Center, near the hospital, and he said: 00:04:01.160 --> 00:04:05.960 “Don’t go home.” I asked him why? He says, "They're shooting there." 00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:10.200 I didn't believe him, so I thought he was joking. How do they shoot? 00:04:10.200 --> 00:04:14.280 He said: “Well, they shoot. Better to go somewhere else, 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:18.400 take a walk, maybe something will settle down, we will call you later. " 00:04:18.400 --> 00:04:23.120 I didn't listen to him. Eva and I took a minibus, and we went to the railway station. 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:28.840 And the closer we got, the more I realized 00:04:28.840 --> 00:04:30.920 that I had already done, of course, a great stupidity. 00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:33.600 But for some reason I could not stop, we ran with her, 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:38.640 we went out on this square, and the planes were already being loaded there, 00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:43.920 people were running in all directions: someone was hiding in an underground passage, 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:47.480 there the crowd was just standing, someone was running with suitcases, 00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:49.760 someone without suitcases, someone fell somewhere. 00:04:49.760 --> 00:04:53.720 I saw with peripheral vision - someone was killed there, in my opinion, 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:57.680 I even saw some blood, but I tried, so I had a goal 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:01.120 - with a child, I grabbed her convulsively by the hand, 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:03.720 I remember it very clearly, how we ran with her, 00:05:03.720 --> 00:05:09.560 it was some kind of weightless, incomprehensible running, as if in a fog. 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:10.520 That's right home. 00:05:10.520 --> 00:05:12.720 For some reason, my goal was to come home. 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:17.240 hen we were already running through the village, I saw people with some 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:19.960 bags and suitcases rushing to the railway station. 00:05:19.960 --> 00:05:23.720 We ran in the opposite direction, towards the house, that is, in the opposite direction. 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:26.760 Then I began to hear machine gunners 00:05:26.760 --> 00:05:28.920 shooting right next to me. 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:31.640 I remember we fell there, we fell into the bushes, 00:05:31.640 --> 00:05:34.720 we crawled with her, we lay like this. 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:39.720 We hid like this. Then helicopters flew over us close like this, 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:44.160 there was some kind of shooting, maybe like some large mines 00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:45.920 or shells, I don't know. 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:49.800 It seemed to me that this was some kind of dream, here is some kind of terrible dream. 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:52.880 We saw that someone was already running there with a weapon to shoot, 00:05:52.880 --> 00:05:56.320 you see, it seemed to me that if I didn't look at them, 00:05:56.320 --> 00:06:00.920 nothing would happen. Well, silly, of course. 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:04.120 And so, when we had already opened the gate, we ran home, 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:09.080 fell to the floor, it seemed to me that, well, everything, this horror was over, 00:06:09.080 --> 00:06:10.800 but it was only the beginning. 00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:15.160 And there was shelling all night. We were lying, I remember, 00:06:15.160 --> 00:06:18.480 under the stairs to the second floor, 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:21.240 we had such a closet there, there was a small, 00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:24.920 sloping staircase, and so we dragged the mattress there, 00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:28.440 we lay there, so, all night long we trembled like that, hugging each other. 00:06:28.440 --> 00:06:31.720 And she told me all this, since I switched off somehow, 00:06:31.720 --> 00:06:35.040 I did not hear, Eva shook me like this: “Mom, they shoot again! 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:37.640 “Mom, they shoot again! 00:06:37.640 --> 00:06:42.640 Well it was such a nightmare, and she stuttered so much, 00:06:42.640 --> 00:06:51.520 it's just, it's impossible to just convey. 00:06:51.520 --> 00:06:56.080 We tried not to show the children that we are afraid, that we are scared, 00:06:56.080 --> 00:07:00.680 that something so terrible was happening. We tried to calm them down somehow, 00:07:00.680 --> 00:07:03.920 smiled there, even tried, I remember, to joke there, 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:07.280 some drawings, well, in general, we tried to do something - what we 00:07:07.280 --> 00:07:10.920 have always done, you know, while we heard this cannonade, 00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:14.040 we constantly heard these explosions. And when we ate, 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:16.880 machine gunners were running, shooting, we: 00:07:16.880 --> 00:07:20.160 "Children, let's sit down, lie down on the floor." 00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:24.440 I tried not to look at all this at all. And I was even scared, 00:07:24.440 --> 00:07:26.840 it seemed to me that this was a completely different reality, 00:07:26.840 --> 00:07:29.880 it shouldn't concern me, I didn't even want to remember it. 00:07:29.880 --> 00:07:34.680 I tried then to erase it from my memory, from the memory of my children. 00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:40.040 It was like that for about a week. But that was the very beginning. 00:07:40.040 --> 00:07:46.000 It was the most difficult time when the airport was being forced 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:49.800 and when the shelling began. We had a house with huge windows, 00:07:49.800 --> 00:07:51.920 it was an aquarium, do you understand? We only have curtains, 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:55.000 it seemed to me that I would close the curtains and nothing would happen. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.600 But when bullets began to shoot through the windows, I realized that this was it. 00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:01.720 We thought for a very long time where to go, 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:05.640 and at this moment, again, the Foundation helped us. 00:08:05.640 --> 00:08:11.920 Neither the children's affairs services, nor the district and city ones called us, 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:15.640 did not ask what was up and how we are. We split up like this. 00:08:15.640 --> 00:08:18.720 Dad took us to the station, we went to the Dnepo, 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:21.960 because the tickets were sold out already. There was such a panic among people, 00:08:21.960 --> 00:08:25.920 everything was sold out, and the shelling continued. 00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:28.400 I remember how we left. He drove us in a car, 00:08:28.400 --> 00:08:32.360 some of the children were traveling with me, and as the car was driving 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:35.440 along our road to the railway station, 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:38.640 and shells exploded near the car like this, and we don't know of these were mines 00:08:38.640 --> 00:08:41.920 or what it was, but in in general, I saw these smoking funnels 00:08:41.920 --> 00:08:44.400 just literally near the car. 00:08:44.400 --> 00:08:47.040 We rushed just like crazy along 00:08:47.040 --> 00:08:50.040 this dirt road, it was such a horror. 00:08:50.040 --> 00:08:55.120 There was such bitterness that we left our native land, 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:58.600 and no one could do anything to somehow stop 00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:02.640 this conflict, do you understand? Because our aspirations, 00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:05.960 this was our whole established life, it turned out 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:09.600 that at some point it ended, and these wanderings began. 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:11.240 It was very difficult. 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:14.120 Our children survived the shelling very hard. 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:16.200 We rehabilitated ourselves for a long time. 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:20.560 Last year, when we came to the ruins of our house, 00:09:20.560 --> 00:09:23.840 there wasn't much to see. 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:27.600 We saw what happened our handwork, 00:09:28.400 --> 00:09:32.480 well, these were our brightest memories ... 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:38.280 It turned into ruins altogether, is braided by grass. 00:09:38.280 --> 00:09:41.920 And the trees have grown there, in general, it is already, in fact, impossible to enter there, 00:09:41.920 --> 00:09:46.400 that is, there is the whole fence, the gate, all this, it is braided with some kind of ivy, 00:09:46.400 --> 00:09:51.360 the weeds are higher than my height, and the sheathing begins to fall from the house. 00:09:51.360 --> 00:09:54.240 A woman came out, who knew us very well, 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:57.360 she lost almost her entire family. 00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:02.320 And she already said that her life was over, 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:07.520 she said: "I don't even have graves where 00:10:07.520 --> 00:10:14.400 I can come and bow to my children and my husband, 00:10:14.400 --> 00:10:17.480 because the cemetery was bombed, 00:10:17.480 --> 00:10:20.920 there are not even crosses, there is nothing. 00:10:20.920 --> 00:10:24.520 " She said: "I have nothing left, that's just ..." 00:10:24.520 --> 00:10:27.800 And her house is opposite ours. It was whole. 00:10:27.800 --> 00:10:32.920 Nearby, only a piece of a shell stacked out in the ground, near her house, 00:10:32.920 --> 00:10:38.040 and that's it, but the house was whole. But all her relatives, in fact, 00:10:38.040 --> 00:10:41.560 left her, and she was left alone, an elderly woman, 00:10:41.560 --> 00:10:45.800 she stood, well, life was not in her eyes. 00:10:45.800 --> 00:10:50.080 A lot of neighbors died, a lot of neighbors simply died 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:56.160 from some kind of despair, unemployment, some kind of trouble. 00:10:56.160 --> 00:11:01.680 Many young neighbors left, and the village acquired, 00:11:01.680 --> 00:11:06.400 you know, the look when I watched a film about Chernobyl, 00:11:06.400 --> 00:11:12.120 how the vegetation went wild there - and now there is nothing, 00:11:12.120 --> 00:11:15.520 some traces of human life. 00:11:15.520 --> 00:11:18.320 I see the same thing there now. 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:22.400 Someone is trying to restore something, but these are, in fact, only a few. 00:11:22.400 --> 00:11:26.720 These are mainly ruins, these are ruins. This is greenery 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:32.240 that nobody, nobody removes, does not cut, it absorbs everything around. 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:35.920 Wild dogs are running around, a lonely passer-by, 00:11:35.920 --> 00:11:40.840 who are there, once an hour someone alone will pass somewhere. 00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:45.760 Well, it's even scary, you know? A blooming area where life 00:11:45.760 --> 00:11:49.960 was in full swing, people were building, people were doing repairs, 00:11:49.960 --> 00:11:53.680 there was an airport nearby. All this, you know, in such desolation, 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:58.440 all in some kind of such decline. This is, of course, very scary. 00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:01.760 I would not wish anyone at all to have such memories 00:12:01.760 --> 00:12:06.440 and experience such things, such events. 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:11.760 Our future is in the bosom of a large family, of course. 00:12:11.760 --> 00:12:14.640 I want to have many grandchildren. 00:12:14.640 --> 00:12:19.760 And, naturally, I am ready to raise children as long as I have strength. 00:12:19.760 --> 00:12:25.200 And we all dream that we will live in our own home, 00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:30.280 which will be able to accept our large family.