On 16 July 2015, there was a shell hit. There were many shells flying. One shell hit the cellar and everything exploded. Our windowpane was shattered. The roof was all damaged. Another shell landed across the road. It damaged and broke the electricity lines that is why it was all sparkling here. I thought it was a phosphorous bomb, but that was electricity.

A shell hit the corn field and corn cobs were flying apart. There were corn cobs at that time. When the neighbours started to harvest those corn cobs, there were some small shell fragments found inside the cobs. Can you imagine? You cannot use it, neither as fodder nor for anything else. There was a shell pit one and a half meters by one and a half probably. It was quite a big crater, but not deep.

I was not sleeping at that moment. I was running around the living room and shouting: ‘Oh-oh-oh!’. And then, when I sat down on an armchair here, a shell flew in here, and past the TV set. A blanket on the sofa began to smoke. I thought that a fire might break out, but there was no flame. There was just smoke. We were scared.

 It was horrible. I wanted to lie down on the floor, but my knee hurt. My mother was lying on the bed. She said: ‘come here and hide under the bed’. I could not run anywhere. I had a terrible panic. The neighbour hid behind the armchair and sat in the corner.

We were born in Oryol region (Russia) and moved here in 1964. The old house that was destroyed used to be our first house where our family lived. The house was divided in two parts for two owners. Our family included our father, mother, older sister Galia and myself. In 1964, we started the construction process. I remember it clearly, when some man came and brought some sort of a dowsing rod. We were picking a construction site without underground water, with dry terrain. So, he pointed at this site.

When it rumbled first time on the 15th or 14th, we were sitting on a bench outside. It was at about six or seven o’clock in the evening. It was getting dark. A severe rumble sounded! Here in Stepovyi. My son had a car, so we took that car and immediately fled to Petrunki. It was so unexpected. We did not know what the war was, we did not know about explosions, shooting and shelling. We sat it out there and returned.

The first time it [a shell] landed there and all the windows were shattered in my son’s house. And the second time it hit us. That was really scary. At first you are scared, but then, I think, you just get used to it. I was in Krasnohorivka and there were some small children there who got used to it. They were just playing. I could not sleep there for three nights, but then you get used to it. They were always on time [with shelling]: at three o’clock in the morning, at 12, at around one o’clock. And this is just when you fall asleep and see the first dreams. Then you wake up and fall asleep again, but it is not a deep sleep as in the youth when you sleep and don’t hear anything.

It is a bit easier for me because I have a mother who helps me a lot. I don’t buy cereals, noodles and sugar. Now is the season for making some jarred food and I have sugar for it. I have salt for marinade. Rinat Akhmetov was also giving salt, matches and sunflower oil [food packages].

People from the Pension Fund came to us twice. We had not received pensions for seven months. How did we live? We took some food on credit in the store. Little by little and the debt totalled 2,400 hryvnias. You need to buy some bread and some other food because you cannot live on flour alone.

We were walking from the summer cottage and my mother stumbled on a dry [tree branch]. She fell and broke her hip. My sister left her in the city. She was screaming: ‘I want to go home. I don't want to stay here on the floors’. For four or five years she was weeding in the garden moving on crutches. She takes a stool that I bring to her. She sits down, takes a hoe in one hand and a crutch in the other hand. So, she weeded it thick and thin. She will be 93 years old on 19 September. She dropped crocheting just at the age of 90! She has a million crocheted napkins. My mother is a laid-up ship so to speak. We cannot take her anywhere.

I also do some knitting. I always had a dream to be able to embroider in satin stitch, but I could not master it. However, when the first shellfire hit, I sat down decisively. I never believed in magicians, never believed in otherworldly forces, in spiritualism, but I believed in myself, and so I began to do embroidery with satin stitch! However, I never leave it to myself, I give everything away. I learned how to knit a case for a mobile phone and some items for a neck and a hand – I give everything I knit out. I feel so pleased when people use it, when they wear it, when they say thank you. This is some sort of a rest, leisure for me. Whenever I have some kind of stress, I sit down and I am wrapped up in it. Because otherwise you can go crazy here.