Stories that you confided to us
I will probably never forget this. What we saw will remain in memory forever.
…We were sitting in the yard and eating some food, while shells were flying above us. They were passing so close; it was just horrible. We will never forget it, never! It was awful! I remember everything. [When] the shelling was intense we were fleeing down to the cellar. Our dog followed us and also hid there.
Sometimes, we could spend the whole day there. But then we would get out as it was cold there... Our situation is difficult. The roof [in the house] burned down. It is not known why the fire occurred, but we could not prove that it was due to the hostilities.
The house was badly damaged. Everything fell apart. Three fire engines were pouring water on the roof. And it was winter time, so everything got frozen. When spring came, everything began to thaw and drip, and the ceiling collapsed. Now we are doing [repairs], bit by bit, spending our pension allowance on it. We were not living here for two years. We rented an apartment at Khymyk [district] and lived there. Sometimes, we found some bullets and some shrapnel; our [electricity] meter was riddled with bullets. At our neighbour’s place, the roof was smashed away too.
It was very scary when rockets from Grad [multiple rocket launcher] were flying. I even thought that we would not make it to the cellar. Grad shelling was that heavy. I thought it was the end...
We grabbed our child, and he was still quite small, and ran into the cellar to hide there. And the dog followed us. A lot of houses were damaged by Grad rockets then. The very next day we heard that two houses were destroyed by Grad on the next street, and half a roof was swept away too. The worst thing is that I will never forget how hard those Grads fired.
When they started shooting, I thought that there would be no end to it. But when it was over, we thought, ‘My dear Lord, what are we punished for by this heavy shelling?’ I don’t even want to recall it.
War... I knew this word from my childhood. My mother told me what the war was like, and how scary it was. But when we saw it – all that horror – God forbid! All the people were outside, in the street. My God, as soon as shelling started, people were screaming in fear, ‘Cellar!’ Everyone ran to the cellar. The elderly with walking sticks, dogs, and even cats understood it. Everyone ran down to the cellar. We stayed there. We set up some shelves there, put some bottled water, cooked some food, and made some canned food. We thought we might even have to live there. The longest time we spent there was 24 hours.
Our street has changed. Everyone’s windows are closed up. It looks so gloomy and black... You can tell it that people hide, board up their windows. A lot has been destroyed. I don’t know when we will repair all that. That’s how we live. We have nowhere to go. We have no relatives.
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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