‘The fact that everyone is alive is a miracle’

Tetiana Smyrnova, 36 years old:

On 18 December, Andriy and I went to a concert. Kharkiv theatre paid us a visit then. It was a big luck for us and, of course, we could not miss it. I picked him up from his painting class and we went there, while our daughter Inna stayed at home with the baby and with their dad. Fortunately, they were quite far away from the epicentre of the explosion when Grad rocket launcher shell landed.

Son Andriy, 9 years old:

When we were in the community centre together with my mum, we were most scared for our younger ones, we were very worried. When the shellfire started, it could hit anywhere.

Tetiana:

At about 5 p.m. a shell from Grad [rocket launcher] hit right in the corner of our house. It damaged the wall and two windows were blown out. The entrance door was torn off completely. The car was hit by the blast wave, the garage was damaged too, and the slate on the roof fell off. Our dog was leashed behind the garage, but that morning he unleashed himself and was just running around as if he felt something… The dog was killed either by a shell fragment or by something else…

It is good that the Grad shell hit just beneath the house, beneath the foundation. That it exploded there and not higher up. If it had exploded higher, it would have gone further. My husband was sitting in that bedroom… Well, the consequences would have been different then.

My husband was in the bedroom next to the living room. A small partition wall protected him. It saved him because the interior door and pieces of timber were all torn off and all that flew in there, into that bedroom. The kids were in the back bedroom, watching cartoons. They were away from the explosion.

A day before, on Sunday evening, we played dominoes on this sofa. If that Grad shell had flown in a day earlier, we would not be speaking to you now.

Son Andriy:

Our dad rushed out and said to run to the cellar. Inna and the little one told us that dad covered them with the carpet. When shellfire hit everything was covered with fragments.

We used to have two armchairs, now we have one. And everyone’s life has changed. Now, it is scary every day. When the shellfire begins, we run to the cellar immediately. They shell and maybe they hit people. They shell and destroy the houses and villages.

Tetiana:

We just finished the refurbishment in our living room then, and put new linoleum flooring. We were lining the walls and before that we covered the roof. We just bought new furniture… So, one armchair was just torn to pieces. We could not find anything left. As for the sofa, armrests were torn off.

A month before that we celebrated our youngest kid’s birthday. He turned two years old. And now it is uninhabitable room. It is very cold and very uncomfortable here. At first, it was even scary to come in here because of this feeling of danger. We did not want to and we don’t really want to come here now.

There is not enough space for the kids because now we live in two rooms. One is a walk-through room. The TV set, the computer, lots of things and lots of toys are there... All this is in two rooms now. We have been investing into all this for seven years. And now we need to start again, start everything from scratch.

Now, the help from Rinat Akhmetov is very important for us because we have found ourselves in a tight financial situation. We will need to restore and repair the house. We will have to collect money for the repair of the house and for restoration. A lot has been lost, unfortunately.

Son Andriy:

I dream about the end of this war and about peace, because we don’t want to see and hear this shelling anymore. Our village can still be hit by shellfire and people can get wounded.

Tetiana:

It was definitely a miracle that everyone remained alive. We just made the refurbishment before that. I always thought about it. That it could hit the house, that something could happen. We all walk on the edge of the knife, so to speak. So, for me life was on one scale and this living room, the refurbishment that we made in it, the house that we all love very much were on the other scale. And when the living room sacrificed itself, so to speak, we felt sorry for it. But we are just happy that the kids are safe and sound.