"No one thought that we will live in basements in the 21st century"

In 2010, my daughter died. There was a fight. And she decided to interfere. She was hit in the carotid artery. No one was there to save her on time. The children were orphaned.

I worked in Luhansk as a cashier for a local company. I had to leave, because I needed to get custody of the children. The guardianship council said, "You either work or you get custody. If you continue to work, the children will become orphans." I didn't finish the year before I could retire. I had to leave my job. We try to pull through.

It is terrifying, though. People who did not see it, did not hear the whistle of mines, shots, can't really understand what I mean. You just need to see and hear it yourself. Going in the entrance when a shell explodes in front of your nose... It is very scary, very hard.

We lived in the basement for two months. They ran to the market and came back. It was necessary to prepare something during this time, while there was a lull, because there could be sudden attacks. We knew the time when they started shooting –  in the evening from 09:00 p.m. to 03:00 a.m.

There was a lot of destruction. Many people got injured. But we didn't leave. Maybe it was because we are patriots. Or maybe we don't really want to. After all, we have our own apartment here. Leaving for a new place is very hard. Especially when you are a pensioner. No one really needs me. If only I was younger and I could work!

We ran to the basement. Here is the place we lived through the war. We spent two months in this bomb shelter. We spent the night and ate here. The children were here during the shelling. Everything was civil here. There were deckchairs here. We all slept there with the children. Both adults and old people. We invited everyone  here. We didn't refuse anyone.

There were explosions that shook the house. We were very worried that, God forbid, we were not hit by a shell.

We had cups, sugar, and a first-aid kit in the basement. We had good things here. We had an antenna. We watched TV here even when there were no attacks, we had cable TV.

I'm a pensioner, I got the worst of it. I had to run to the market to cook something to eat. We cleaned here every day.

Everyone was afraid. All the people who survived the war, who did not leave and did not leave their homes, were very worried. They are afraid it would happen again. We don't want this to happen again.

I don't just speak for myself. On behalf of all the residents of the city of Happiness, I say a big thank you to Rinat Leonidovich for not giving up on us. For helping us when we didn't have any money. We survived thanks to these kits. We cooked food. The children and the adults were happy. We really appreciate this. Now we also get humanitarian aid for the baby. So thank you very much, Rinat Leonidovich.