Stories that you confided to us
An incendiary bomb hit their home. And two miracles happened at once. First of all, no one was home at that time. Secondly, the shell did not explode. It destroyed the roof and rooms.
It is terrible when you take your child to school and get a call a couple of hours later too pick him up because the area was being shelled. We sit in the basement, because the children are afraid to stay there. And at the same time, it's scary to run. It is scary, because we are responsible for the lives of our children.
Although they say that the center is safe to live, however, they still shoot everywhere. Bullets and fragments flew around very often when children were playing in the street. It was scary to let them go outside in the summer them, because it was the attacks were especially severe in that period of time. They still shoot. If you go outside for whatever reason, you might get shot.
The shooting is followed by a peculiar whistling sound. It is horrible. Attack happened both day and night, especially in the summer evenings. We did not even go out to the garden or to the yard. It was impossible.
There were times when we were afraid to turn on the light. When we turned on the light in the evening, they would aim at the windows.
On 3 June 2015, there was massive shelling that lasted the whole day. So we took the children and went to Kurakhove. We rented an apartment there. My husband worked in a clinic in Marinka. He was on shift. There is an emergency room in the clinic. They work around the clock.
It started on the night on 2 June. So he had to stay at work. He was in the basement during the whole attack and got home in the evening, probably on 4 June. I can say exactly. But I remember that the attack lasted for a very long time.
And when my husband got home, the first thing he noticed was that our front metal door was displaced. He immediately thought, "What could it be?" When he went further, he saw that the second door, which leads from the house to the veranda, was warped completely. Then he saw that the ceiling had fallen, and all the furniture was broken, as well as the window.
At first, we thought something had exploded, that something had flew into the window. And when we removed the debris it was covered by, we saw that it was a shell that fell into the roof.
We called the Emergencies immediately. They said it was an incendiary mine. It didn't explode. Its impact caused such destruction. Everything was broken. And if it had blown up, they said that half a house or even a whole house would have been destroyed. They took it out. It went into the floor, half a meter deep.
I wasn't there to witness it. Children and I were in Kurakhove. I wasn't even told about it right away. Everyone arrived the very next day. They were very worried. Both the husband, the mother-in-law, and my mother. And they came to us there, in Kurakhove, in our one-room apartment.
I didn't understand what it was. I thought maybe they were afraid of the shelling. It was so horrible. And then, an hour or two later, they confessed what had happened. They told us not to worry.
Well, the most important thing for me is that everyone is alive. Surely that is so terrible to have no house. However, the worst thing is probably to be left alone.
At first, I sighed because everyone was alive and well. And then I got scared.
We arrived in Marinka when it got more or less quiet. We wanted to clean up. It was terrible. We had to take a loan to do repairs in the kitchen. We bought a fridge and a TV set. Small pieces of the TV screen are still in the wall. It broke in flinders. We will have to remove all plastering or just cover it with something.
Furthermore, the equipment was spoiled by some liquid. Emergency workers said that this is an incendiary liquid that cannot be washed completely.
The first time we left Marinka was in September 2014. We found an apartment and moved in. We lived there literally until the new year began. At the end of December, we returned and decided to stay at home. It didn't work out though.
It is very difficult to find a normal apartment when you have children. An apartment that would have normal conditions, that is clean, at least. There are a lot of dormitories, but they are dirty, filthy places were syringes are just lying around. People who live there obey the call of nature right there on the floors. I think it is creepy and unpleasant. I don't think you can live there with children.
So we came back. We lived at home for about a month. At the end of January 2015, heavy attacks started. Our neighbors suffered a lot. Houses and roofs were smashed. So we had to move out, too. We returned to Kurakhove again.
We returned to Kurakhove several times. We went there and back again, because it living like this was impossible because of the shelling.
We haven't moved anywhere since April 2016. However, we lived with our parents one winter. They live next to us in Marinka. The children go to school. It's hard, the children take all the school and study changes very badly. They had to go to different schools during this period.
Kolia went to kindergarten back then, in 2014. We had to change kindergarten. So the children had to get used to other children in kindergarten. It is very hard. Then Kolia got used to school, to the class, to the teacher for a very long time. It must be hard for the little ones.
It is terrible when you take your child to school and get a call a couple of hours later too pick him up because the area was being shelled. We sit in the basement, because the children are afraid to stay there. And at the same time, it's scary to run. It is scary, because we are responsible for the lives of our children. We have to be very careful. We have to make the right decisions at our own risk and peril. We have to run by the trees to have some kind of cover during the attacks. It was scary, of course.
We can't make plans, because we cannot influence the situation. We all hope for peace. We wish Donbass got back on its feet, and Ukraine healed. We don't want any separation. We want to live all as part of Ukraine. We wish to be happy.
In global terms, we have learned from this whole situation not to plan ahead for the future.
I really want to restore the house, so that guests and friends will be able to come. I wish life was peaceful and easy.
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/
