Stories that you confided to us
War is famine, cold, and destruction. Gray, unfriendly faces with baggy eyes from constant lack of sleep due to the relentless bombing.
The war changed my life dramatically. In my country, I became an TDP refugee (temporarily displaced person). This is not even the worst of it all. It just so happened that I became a forced orphan. I haven't seen my mother, father, brother, or sister in more than five years. They stayed in Horlivka.
Struggle to survive
Children's laughter can no longer be heard on the streets. The downfall of moral and ethical principles. The trip home from the shop, which took no more than half an hour earlier, became a whole quest for survival. I had to run from one shelter to another.
Everything that the people who live within a war zone range can think of is how to survive. Those who live there are tired of the war. They want to know when it will all end.
My first war encounter in Artemivsk (now Bakhmut) was an airstrike which happened one and a half kilometers from home…
One day I was woken up at night by a noise in the street. I head a cross-talk. So I looked out the window. It turned out that those were the armed men and the soldiers who took up the defense of the tank unit were having an argument. Their 'dialogue' quickly turned into a shootout. The used small-caliber firearms, grenade launchers, and machine guns.
Tracer ammunition rounds were shot about fifty meters from my window. WAR IS A TERRIBLE FORCE.
My little daughter said, "I don't want to die"
At first, the situation in the city was not so critical. But gradually all the people were becomming more and more concerned about the events that were about to happen. All that everyone could talk about was news and events related to the war.
During one of these conversations, my three-year-old daughter Dasha said, "I DON'T WANT TO DIE."
It is terrible when a child who has heard about the war from others or from the TV screen, had to know the knowledge of war at that age.
Life turned upside down
The war changed my life dramatically. In my country, I became an TDP refugee (temporarily displaced person). This is not even the worst of it all. It just so happened that I became a forced orphan. I haven't seen my mother, father, brother, or sister in more than five years. They stayed in Horlivka. Unfortunately, the relationship with my wife did not work out, and we have decided to terminate the marriage.
Now I live in Kharkiv.
My daily life depends explicitly on my health, physical and mental abilities. A stable labour market situation, which is now extremely bad in the whole country, is also very important.
My stability, my confidence in the future, my home remained in the period that is now properly called 'before the war'. We had to start life from scratch in another city.
Civilians need help from the state
The Donbass residents were mostly supported by the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
The Red Cross and UNICEF also helped us out. But people need to know that their state also supports them, not just from caring donors or charitable foundations.
The worst thing about war is getting used to it
The frightening thing is that we are already used to living in constant war. And those who could change the course of history are in no hurry to do so. But we already have a generation of children who, at the age of five or six, have never lived in a different way and do not know what peace is.
My dream is to see the future of my children in a peaceful, economically independent legal state, where the life of every member of the state, competent education, affordable medicine and the priority of basic human values are honored.
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/
