I studied in Donetsk, in a culinary school, and they sent me here to work in Hranitne. I met a Greek and got married. I worked in a cafe for 35 years. I'm retired now.
I hurt my leg when the shed was bombed.
I wanted to go out when I was hit by a blast wave. I fell on the threshold. I broke a femur. Now I have plated there. I'm crippled.
This probably happened in 2014. I was scared and couldn't get up. Ilyusha [husband] said, "Stand up." I said, "I can't stand because the leg doesn't move."
The ambulance came. They told me it was a bruise. My daughter took my grandfather and me to her home in Myrnyi. They took me to Volnovakha, did an X-ray, "Oh, my dear, you have a fracture." The operations have begun... they put plates in it.
Everyone tells me, "No, no one can walk with such a disease." So I would cover myself up like this in the hospital, crying and talking to myself, "I will walk, I will walk, I will walk." That's all I said.
I had no idea how I would walk? Husband is old, I'm old. What would we manage? Then it got a little easier. They told me that I could get up slowly. I told my daughter, "Sveta, go buy a wand in the store, I'll start walking. I'm going to try. I will try."
And so I did. Little by little, step by step … We were on the fifth floor. I said, "Sveta, let me go down the steps little by little. And you stay next to me, so that I do not get caught." Then I started doing it myself. Whenever I saw this fifth floor, I wondered how I would go down. So went down slowly.
We had a daughter for two and a half years. In February, we could not stand it. My daughter has a small room. There are five of us. There is nowhere to sleep. Ilya said, "Let's go home."
We came back. There was no ceiling. Nothing. Everything was broken.
He filled all the holes with cloths. We started heating the stove. Well, we managed to survive. We would sit on the sofa, snuggle and just sit. There was nowhere to go.
My blood pressure was always high, but then it became low. I don't know what medication to take. My daughter-in-law called. She is a medical worker. She said, "Send grandpa for a chocolate bar and coffee."
At first we were afraid, very afraid. Oh, it was so terrible! When they started shooting out of nowhere. You could see everything from the yard. I had nightmares. Whenever you heard a strike, you begin to worry.
Now we have calmed down a little. It is very hard to survive. "It is all in God's hands," that is what we say. Very scary in the evening here. That is how we live. I walk around the yard even without a stick, I hold on to this or that.
I take a stick if I really need to.
We are very grateful to Rinat Leonidovich. For his work, for everything. That he protected us and fed us. I really appreciate this, Rinat Leonidovich. God bless you.
We've already seen it all. We just wonder when will this war end?
