Stories that you confided to us
Nadiya Bryzhashova together with her husband, five children and her mother were forced to leave their hometown Popasna amid the shelling. They had only 15 minutes to get ready. It seemed that the horrors of the war, with the damp basement, were behind. But no. In a new place, in Svatove, military warehouses suddenly began to explode. The family survived this ordeal with horror. They just started to come to their senses and thought they were in a safe place. The family hardly started their life from scratch in a new place, but everyone dreams of returning home.
We stayed in the basement all the time together with our five children because the shelling was incessant. It was impossible to get out, to go get some water, to go anywhere.
On 24 January 2015, we left for Svatove. When we still were in Popasna, first, our balcony was pierced with shell fragments, and then it reached such a peak that we could not even eat or do anything else. Neither humanitarian aid, nor anything else was given to us because the shelling was incessant.
It was hard to explain it to our kids. Maksym had lessons at school that were 15 minutes long each. You would take your child to school amid the shelling. When it paused, you would bring him to school and stay there with him. Once the shelling resumed, you would take him and run home under the shellfire because it was scary there. There is no basement in the school building. At home we at least have the basement.
There are no windows in the building. The balcony door was blown out. The balcony itself was hit hard. I don’t know how to restore this all. I was not there. This is what our neighbours told us when we got in touch by phone.
We left early in the morning, on the 24th. At half past five. We hired a car for 1,500 hryvnias. And in the evening, literally on the eve of our departure, the windows were blown out because an apartment that was in a building opposite to our house was hit.
Shells from Grad rocket launchers were flying, everything was flying overhead. We lived in the first section, first entrance, and he [the driver of the car] parked between the houses. We could not run fast because it was very slippery. We were just carrying, pulling the kids as best as we could. He called and said that we have 15 minutes. What could we do during those 15 minutes? We couldn’t even go up to the apartment because it took us some time to get out of the basement… When we were on our way in the car, we saw broken electricity lines hanging everywhere. There was no electricity, no gas supply. Everything was cut. Grad rocket launchers were rattling and we thought we would not be able to leave.
I got into the cabin together with the kids, together with my eldest daughter, and with three younger ones, while my son, my husband and my mother – we passed by and took her with us – we put her inside the minibus. She was with two sticks.
When we were on our way, we telephoned some of those people who had left the place. They found a house for us and told us where to go. So, we came here. We registered as IDPs, but we did not receive any money during three months. No money was paid.
On the first night we accommodated the children on three beds, while we ourselves slept on the floor. Next day, we were going around and asking our neighbours. Some people gave us a bed. There were no chairs, nothing. Our neighbours gave us some plates and forks for some time.
We were stressed and shocked. We didn’t know what to do, but we were glad that we had left that hell. I could hardly believe it.
We turned to local authorities (administration). We were prompted to go there. They helped us with some food like pasta, butter etc. We were surviving. In February we received aid from Rinat Leonidovich [Akhmetov]. They were giving us some food aid and we were living on those food packages during three months.
We have to start everything from scratch. We have children. We needed to buy an iron and ironing board, and at least to somehow arrange some living conditions for the kids for them to feel a little bit like home.
I understand that they cannot help us all the time. We need to live for the sake of the children, for the sake of their future. We are trying our best. It is very difficult, but I think it’s hard for everyone now.
I get UAH 1,300 as child care allowance plus we get IDPs’ payments. We are paid UAH 2,400 for the family. This is for payment of utility bills. A lot of money is spent on medicines. My eldest daughter, who is 18 years old, gets sick quite often. She needs expensive medications because when we stayed in the basement, we caught cold, even though we brought those wooden frames from the beds there. But still the basement was unheated, and we were the only ones with kids there. All others were adults, those above 40 years old and the elderly.
Our living is hard. There were explosions of ammunition here. We experienced shock anew, for the second time. It happened on the 29th. It was half past seven in the evening. We were watching TV and the kids went to bed early for some reason. Usually, they go to bed at nine. So, on that day they went to bed at seven. It was half past seven when it started thundering.
I wondered: ‘What has just thundered so heavily?’ My husband said: ‘That is probably someone’s wedding.’ And then it thundered again and again. I told him: ‘Hurry up!’ We got dressed and ran out into the street. And we could see some glow at a distance. We started making telephone calls to those people, IDPs, who live there, in that block. They told us that [ammunition] warehouses were exploding. Everyone was told to go inside their houses and basements/cellars, whoever had what, and not to go out.
The children were frightened. It began to thunder and the windows began to rattle, the window leaves were bursting open. We got the kids dressed fast. The children began to shake. We went down to the cellar. Right at that moment, it thundered just really hard! The doors burst open and the windows were blown out. We went through it the hard way. Some hysteria or some panic began. I myself started to shake. We thought that we had left for a safe place…
During four days we didn’t go out anywhere. And then I took my bicycle and went to buy some bread. I couldn’t buy bread anywhere. The town was like a ghost town. It looked like Popasna.
When all those explosions started here, the children were screaming: ‘Mom, let's go home!’ They were shocked. Of course, we want to go home, to restore our apartment. To restore it and, God’s willing, to return home. But it will be very difficult financially. We would like to see it quiet down there. So far, that is not the case there. It is not calm and quiet. We hope that the war could end soon. Our kids make some drawings and they write that they want this war to be over. They write: ‘Make NO war!’
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/
