‘We hope we will not be bombed today!’

In Stakhanivets village, on Michurina street, a shell hit our house, right in the roof. We were not here then. We left the place. The roof was damaged and there is no ceiling in the bedroom, all the walls are damaged. Well, in short, the destructions were quite large. In February 2015, a shell hit our house for the second time, right at the foundation. There is no wall, no window, everything is damaged: summer kitchen, all the sheds, everything was smashed. All the windows and doors were blown out. Nothing was left intact. We can say that we were left without our house.

We now rent an apartment in Soniashnyi – the children lived there. Sometimes I live at my father’s place in Zolote. And we don’t know what will be next. Whether we will come back here or not, we don’t know, because we will not be able to restore it all on our own.

On 20 September 2014, my neighbour, my friend Liuba was killed. She was in the yard then, in the vegetable garden, and she was probably running from the garden when the shelling began. She was [killed] by a shell fragment right near the house. A shell landed not far from there and there was a shell pit. So, she was probably hit by a fragment... Because the doctor then said that her abdominal region was damaged by a shell fragment.

On the next street, a woman was killed too. The next street, Sadova Street – a woman was killed there too. Shakhtarska Street – a man was killed there. We have a pond, where the mine is, a man was killed there. In the summer of 2014, an old man came here with his grandson to visit their relatives. Both the grandfather and his grandson were killed. People die for nothing.

There are some houses where people still live because the mine still operates. There is a hospital. Where should people go? We left the place previously. And what? Eventually we came back. Nobody needs us anywhere.

First, the children left in 2014. Then I went to my children. Well, and the grandfather stayed alone, he stayed in Zolote because he [said]: ‘I will not go anywhere. Where shall I go?’ And then in February, when things got even more scary, we took him out of there. Well, we stayed there for about a month. He [said]: ‘I am going home, I don’t want to go anywhere. I need to go home.’

There is no joy in life, no future. We do not know what will happen to us tomorrow. We get up and we only think one thing: Lord, at least we have not been fired at, not bombed today. We hope nothing will hit us. We have just one wish, Lord. And we want to go back home.