‘I want peace to come to Donbass and everywhere, in general’

After a direct hit at our place, only the walls remained, one can say. On 31 March 2017, our house was directly hit and shells were landing near the house. The roof was torn apart, with nothing left. The walls were destroyed, which for now, thank God, I have been helped to repair. The house inside was riddled. The doors were blown out. We lived without windows and doors. We have counted that some 24 projectiles hit our land plot, along the entire perimeter with our neighbours and across the plot.

It was scary at first. We could not understand what it was. Yet, over these years, we have got used to it. Earlier, shelling happened at certain times. So, we learned that at some particular time we could run to a shop, at another time we could do something in our gardens, while at the other time we had to take cover in cellars or stay inside in rooms without windowpanes not to get hurt or cut.

I used to have a glass greenhouse. It was a heated greenhouse. We grew cucumbers and tomatoes. We had a lot of flowers. The shell hit close to it. There was a huge pit there, of a depth equal to my height. It took us some effort to fill it up.

I raise two kids alone. We live on social allowance. As a low-income single mother, I receive a social allowance from the government. We do our best to survive on it.

When the direct hit occurred, I suffered a mild concussion. Its consequence is that now my nose bleeds regularly, blood comes out of my ears. But I cannot afford to go to Mariupol to do a CT scan of my head and a scan of my spine. It is very expensive. I cannot take away this amount from my kids: they will stay hungry if I go for treatment.

I suffered a headache, and there was some noise in my head; then in three days it was over. So, we thought it had passed, but recently, my ears, my nose have started to bleed; I feel dizzy and suffer from regular headaches. And the entire situation, the war itself adds to this tension.

In the past, we could get out [for a walk] with my kids. About five houses away from us, there had been a school; it was destroyed, and now it is closed. We could take a stroll in the playground there. We could go to visit some friends. We cannot do it now.

I want to see peace, I want peace to come to Donbass and everywhere, in general. I want everything to get back to normal, I want shelling to stop, and I want to live peacefully and have everything we need.