Stories that you confided to us
During the war, a third child was born in this family. Mom was scared to go to work, she was afraid not to return home and leave the children orphans. The father's earnings were only enough for the very minimum, so the family was greatly helped by the food packages from the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
She is my child of war, born at the end of 2015, frightened in the womb. In Donbass now all children are children of war. Accustomed, but scared for life.
“It was there before the war ...” a phrase that has become common in our family, conversations with friends and acquaintances.
So familiar that sometimes I wonder. Children, in a tone of connoisseurs in boring voices, argue about which gun was pulled along the road or what is happening far beyond the horizon: flies away or goes down? And where is it? And if it is close, then the kids with frightened-spellbound faces rush, looking for a higher viewpoint.
It can be especially scary in the evening to put children to bed when you hear that somewhere far away there is again shooting from something big.
I begin to reassure myself: "It won't reach us."
But all the same, from anxiety, thoughts begin to rush; the pictures that exuberant fantasy draws are one worse than the other. With an effort of will I shut the mouth of my imagination, because thoughts are substantial. And once there was no war ...
"We never knew how happy we were."
How happy we were before! And we didn’t know it. We thought it would always be like this. Airplanes were flying high in the sky. The white line on the cornflower-blue surface always gave birth to childish thoughts: "People fly somewhere far away, to interesting places where I have not been."
And after there was the downed Boeing - and almost three hundred human destinies that ended in our Donetsk sky.
Suburban trains, passenger trains and many freight trains went through our village. And after there was a blown up railway bridge near Novobakhmutovka, bombed-out railway tracks in Avdiivka.
"Everything altered instantly, abruptly and very painfully"
Everything collapsed slowly. In the process of destruction, we got used to the idea of war, but the realization of this fact came much later. And along with the realization came the feeling that everything changed instantly, abruptly and very painfully.
Before the war, my family was not big. I had two children, I had plans for the future, I had a job. Now I am on maternity leave to care for my youngest daughter, she is only a year and a half.
She is my child of war, born at the end of 2015, frightened in the womb. In Donbass now all children are children of war. Accustomed, but scared for life.
"I stopped going to work – I’m afraid not to return"
Before the war, I worked as a teacher at the Avdeevka vocational school. Iworked part time, because there were not enough hours, but we managed.
When active fighting began, I stopped going to work.
I was afraid that something would happen to me - and the children might be left without a mother. I was afraid that I would not be able to leave work (suburban trains did not run then, and the buses ran very irregularly), and at home everyone would go crazy with anxiety. There were also problems with communication, it was not possible to call and calm down. Still, being near children is not as scary as parting with them.
I thought about going somewhere, even to the west, even to Russia. But what to do with my childhood, my home, the graves of my grandparents? This is where we grew up, this is our land. How am I going somewhere?
"On the edge of survival"
With the dad of my youngest daughter, we are trying to make ends meet, working, gardening, working on the ground. But the biggest problem is the lack of earnings, which we had before the war.
If we were villages with our subsistence farming and survival skills, we would survive without problems. But in a two-room apartment, only the cat we are going to have can be considered subsistence farming.
Our family, like many thousands of others, is now on the edge of survival. Before, we had the opportunity to work in Donetsk and other cities. Now this opportunity is cut off, and cut off for the living, for family and friendship ties.
"The hidden corners of our souls were opened"
Tough times have come. The comparison of prices and incomes is petrifying. If adults wear out what they bought before the war, then the kids are hungry and are growing. Sometimes it seems that the growth process is taking place before our eyes. And our family is torn between the needs to be well-fed and dressed.
With all these problems, the hidden corners of the souls opened in people. Some felt resentment and bitterness, while others got a desire to unite and help each other.
If it was not for humanitarian aid, our family would be very, very hard. My children perceive humanitarian aid as gifts, rejoice and fiddle around in packages.
My daughter Diana (my middle child), examining the car of the volunteers, the inscriptions: "HUMANITARIAN HQ HERE TO HELP", asked me: "Who is this?" I replied that these people had brought humanitarian aid. “A-ah! These men and women brought us food! "
"Help is necessary"
Our family is deeply grateful to the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation for the help in this difficult, very challenging time. This help is truly necessary and timely. Thanks for the help of the Fund, our family is able to carve out crumbs of money for clothes and medications. We can't do without them. Children do not stop getting sick both in peacetime and during war.
When the peace comes and everything starts to fall into place, plans for the future, hopes for the best, opportunities to earn money will return. Then hopefully we won't need help. We will be able to share what we have. But now we do need this help.
We are immensely grateful to the Foundation and personally to Rinat Akhmetov for support and help, for the helping hand extended to us.
May God grant you all great happiness in life, good health and, most importantly, the peaceful sky.
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/
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