Yulia Karpenko:

I used to work at a pumping station that supplied water to factories. Now the bridge is destroyed, and you cannot get here. Buses do not run and there are no jobs. The water tower was filled up with water that was then fed to the pumping station, going through filters. We supplied this water to plants.

Schoolchildren used to go to school by bus. Country buses, going to out-of-town cottages, passed by here all the time. There were many vacationers, many summer-house residents. We have such a beautiful nature, forests and rocks. Fish was passing here and boys used to run down the steps to catch fish during high water. Now all this is gone. All the area became overgrown with weeds. It is even scary to walk there because some unexploded shells from Grad rocket launcher have remained there.

My aunt lived here with her husband and daughter Larisa. Shelling began and they left. I do not know where they are now. Somewhere in the town, probably. They used to have a shed and a gazebo. Now there is nothing, only cracks and broken windowpanes. The veranda will fall down soon too.

Sometimes people come back and sometimes they leave for good. Some moved to the town, some went to other towns. Whoever had any possibility did so.

In 2016, a shell fell near the school and it blew my windows out. My daughter and I covered the windows with plastic film, but it is all loose. We hammered them with nails, with a stick to make them steadier. It is cold, winter is coming. Our door was also slightly broken. We put it right too.

Daughter:

My cat, Chakhlyk, is my lovely pet. During the war, he was running near the store and was so lonely. I was going to the store and noticed him. He looked so sickly and was so small. I took care of him at home and now he is my nice pet. He needed my help. Winter was coming, it would be so cold for him. And I cannot just pass by when I see a little kitten running nearby.

Yulia Karpenko:

It was scary to go out into the street. It was dark and scary everywhere. There was no one to talk to, no one anywhere. You could only hear the rumble in the houses all around and banging of doors. It was very scary and we stayed inside the house and did not go anywhere because you never knew where, from which side it could hit you. This was in 2014 and 2015.

At the end of 2015, we began to come back to normal life little by little. We were going out to get water in the well and we were growing some food in the kitchen garden. As my grandmother taught me, we always laid in some stocks so that we had at least something for the future. Because you never know.

This is why I always keep something in the household [keep some domestic animals/poultry], I always have eggs and meat. Speaking of bread, during the war I even learned how to bake bread. I had my own flour, but I gave to the dogs what I baked the first time. The second time it was better, and I learned it. My children and I ate it. We ate up all the stocks of jam [with home-baked bread].

[The village was] blooming, beautiful and clean. There were discos for youth and adults, there were some stores. We have some stores now too, but they are not the same. Prices are high. There used to be jobs in Pavlopil – a fish farm and a pumping station. Jobs were everywhere, all young people worked here. It was a beautiful village and many tourists/vacationers used to come here. We have beautiful forests and rocks.

It all changed in 2014. As soon as it was reported that they came to Novoazovskyi, the whole life stopped on that news. Fear, stress, worries and tears came to the fore: where to go and what to do. But you cannot leave it all, leave all that was gained and earned during years of life. If you decide to leave you need to go with something, and at that time we did not have either money or any means and funds.

Now I work at a poultry farm in Talakivka. I am at work for two nights and then I stay home for two days and two nights.

Two weeks ago, it was quiet and calm. There was nothing, neither a whizzing noise, nor bullets, nor explosions, nothing. But now, for the last two or three days, something is heard again. And even during the daylight.

I was going to my work and saw some explosions and smoke in the fields between Chernenky and Pishchevyk. My daughter called me and said: "Mom, I'm afraid." I told her: "Well, if it is somewhere close, you know where to hide, go to the cellar".

At 28 I became a widow. I always told my kids: "You will never be in need of anything, I will be trying my best, I will work so that there is no difference where there is a dad and where there is no dad." I tried my best. I worked at Azovmash plant as an arc-welding operator. I reached the 4th professional grade. I mastered the job and I was receiving a good salary. I could afford to buy clothes and footwear for my kids, for them to be dressed prettily.

And then all this started, all those referendums, Azovmash plant was closed down, they stopped paying salaries, and that's it. There was no money, nothing. There is almost no future, no life, nothing.

Well, the kids began to realize, of course, that difficult times came. They spent lots of their time in the cellars too. They used to run to the cellar for shelter at 3 am and at 5 in the morning. My son grabbed his lovely cat Chakhlyk to take him with us. The kids used to quickly grab somebody with them and ran.

Most of all I was afraid that the windows would fall out because it took me much more than a month of work to install them. You enter the house after the shelling, and it smells here, the plaster is coming off, there is dust and the windows burst open.

I wish my kids could have a very good future. I never thought it would be like this. I did not see this in my childhood. I did not want my children to see it. I wish it all would be over soon, because the kids are growing up and they have nowhere to go out, nobody to talk to, no one to play with. No friends, no fellows, no one. There are some friends in Talakivka. There is a big village there, while our village is small. All their friends have left. Friends and classmates only get in touch on the Internet.

Daughter:

I have a classmate and we play around together on weekends. Otherwise, there is no one else anywhere here. People left and now live in other villages, study at other schools. When our school was shelled, we spent five days without electricity and were stoking the stove. There was a heavy shelling every night. We usually went down to the cellar late at night or in the morning.

I have everything so I do not dream of anything. I dream that the war will end and that is it, nothing more.