Stories that you confided to us
‘Just a fraction of a second, and the wall would have fallen on our daughter’
Serhiy Lavrov, father:
They mostly shell at night, in the evening, until 12 at night. Sometimes, in the morning, early in the morning too. Three or four days ago, a strong shelling was early in the morning.
It was on 14 June 2016. A shell landed about one and a half meters away from the house. Then, everyone ran out in shock, the whole street gathered to have a look. Nothing was left here. Neither the fence, no... Everything was lying like that down the street, everything was scattered. Sheets of metal were scattered. The gas pipe was broken, and electricity wires were cut off.
There was a crater some two meters in diameter, probably. The wall was destroyed, as well as two windows and the roof slate. Everything was damaged and carried away. And the entire wall fell down, everything collapsed there because of the explosion.
I was in the kitchen warming up some meals. The younger daughter was lying on the bed and was watching television. As soon as I warmed up the food, I called her and right at that moment an explosion happened!
She said: ‘I got up, turned off the TV, was on the way to go out and an explosion happened.’ When I rushed towards her, I saw that she was lying on the floor. I picked her up and said, ‘What's wrong with you?’ She said, ‘Nothing. I can't hear in one ear.’
There was a complete mess here. There was no this wall here. The entire wall was down. One could go out into the street.
Tetiana Lavrova, 13 years old:
A shell hit the house. It exploded one and a half meters away from me. We were in the room with dad and then he decided to go and cook something to eat. When I got up and just crossed the doorstep of the room an explosion happened. And that's all. Then, I just remember how dad started shouting: ‘Tanya! Tanya!’
I raised my eyes, I looked up and saw dust and sand everywhere, and I ran to my dad. Dad and I first ran to the bathroom. We waited it out there. And then we ran to the cellar.
Then, our neighbour came and she gave me a soothing pill at once and we went to her. Then the OSCE came. I don’t know what happened next there as I was at this neighbour’s home. I only had my elbow slightly scratched and my knee a little bit too. Well, but I was also strongly deafened with the explosion. We went to the hospital right away, and there we were told that I had a slight concussion. They put some drops into my ear there and it was okay, the consequence of concussion was gone.
Serhiy Lavrov:
Then I took her and hugged her mightily. It was a surge of emotions, surely... It was impossible to describe. It was horrible then. Well, it's easier now, I would say. She was just lucky that she was behind the door and near the partition wall. If it were not for the partition wall and the door, she would probably have been hurt too.
Viktoriya Lavrova, mother:
When I got to know about it, I called my husband and he did not answer. Then he picked up, finally. I asked, ‘What happened there?’ – ‘It's okay. Everything is okay. Do not worry.’ I asked: ‘What's with Tanya?’ – ‘It's okay.’ I heard people screaming while I was speaking. He said, ‘Everything is okay. Do not worry.’ Well, I fell into hysterics, a little bit, surely.
The next day, when we were on our way to the hospital, we received a call from the Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center: ‘Where are you? Do you need help?’ I said, ‘So far, no. We are taking the child to the hospital. We need to have her hearing checked.’ ‘Well, if you need something, contact us. We will help you. We can send you to a sanatorium, a rehabilitation center,’ And then later, they called again from the Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center offering to send the child [to rehabilitation].
Many thanks to him, surely. He is the only one who helps people with food, medicines, and everything else. Nobody else. There are so many millionaires there, but no one helps like him. And many people are grateful to him for this.
Serhiy Lavrov:
Probably, the Lord helped that it happened so. If just a fraction of a second later, the whole wall would have been on her and fragments. If you just look at the bed where she was lying here and where I was lying, there were such quite large fragments…
This, I think, will remain in the memory forever, till the end. She will remember it. I think, no one will forget about it, especially children. It stays in her memory. It is unlikely that she would forget it. Adults don't forget. And war veterans who survived the 41st year do not forget anything, and this is a child. It has been imprinted [in her memory]. It is for a long time.
When quoting a story, a reference to the source – the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation – is mandatory, as follows:
The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/
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