I was born in Kursk. When I was 10 years old, my parents brought me here and went to work at the mine. I've been here since I was 10 years old, so, well, I can be considered a local. I raised two children. I worked as a boiler driver in a boiler room for 37 years.

We want to live. We don't want to die

Before the war, we had everything in the village. We had different activities. Children went to school, and everything was fine.   

The everything got closed. The mine was closed, which was the heart of the village. The village was deserted. People were moving out, and many houses were destroyed. Our house was always busy for 50 years. All the apartments are empty.

Many people have returned. People returned, but their homes are destroyed. War changes everything. People just can't stand it. You start being afraid of every sound. War changed lives drastically. We just want peace.

We had was no heating, no water, no electricity. It happened quite often. We suffered a lot because of this. What could we have done? Nothing. We were under attacks. In winter, we had no heating at all for a month. We had to wrap up in layers to get warm. My grandmother's flowers froze, because it was cold in the apartment. 

We want peace, that's all. And we want to live. We don't want to die.