"We have a big family – 9 people. We can't leave, can we?"

The war made us all adjust. Survival has become much harder. The war affected absolutely all aspects of our lives.

We could visit friends at any time and come back whenever we wanted to. Today we can't do that because we have to adjust to the roadblocks. We can't leave because of the military actions. And we can't leave because we have no money.

There are times when we want to see our friends, but when we hear the sounds of the attacks  somewhere not that far away, we have no desire to go. People used to do sports, jogging here. The military actions made them stop.

When the war began, my wife was already  pregnant. I could not take away in that position. I was too risky. So we had to stay.

The shells whistled over our heads. We could tell the sounds apart. Even children can differ the sounds one from another. Every time a shell flew over our heads, we could feel something rising inside automatically. We felt anxious. The print is huge. A crackling sound of fighting, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades. It doesn't simply just go away.

A lot of people had to leave. A lot of our friends moved to other cities. Some of our friends are in Artemivsk, less than an hour away. We also have friends in Horlivka. The districts used to be united. Now the link has been been broken. Seeing each other has become a problem.

We decided to stay. We are a big family and can't just be a burden to anyone else.  We can't just show up at the relatives's house And say we will stay with them in their small apartment. How many rooms do we need? Moving to someone else's house? How can the nine of us do it? It is very hard. We need a lot of food. We have little childre who like to scream and mess around. It is difficult. So we decided to wait it out.