I worked at “Azovmash” plant as a crane driver. I had a smallholding, a vegetable garden. Somehow we were moving on. We did not think that something could change in this life. What did we think? We would live our whole lives in Telmanovo, give birth to children, and die there. Everything remained only in memories.
In 2014, we heard a hum: tanks and equipment were driving along the road. Even now, when I recall, I get goosebumps. We thought that they were just passing by and it would not affect us. And when everything started in Kyiv, we thought: "Well, this is in Kyiv, it's far from us." And when we heard the first shots, explosions ...
My middle son soon was able to figure out from the explosions what was shooting, where and what was flying and said: “Mom, these are “Grads”. And where is the machine-gun: “Oh! They shoot from machine guns. " He knew. The child is four years old. When we arrived here, in Kamenka, a firecracker fires - and my heart is already jumping out. It's very hard, scary!
They started digging trenches here. They shot endlessly. We sat without electricity for three, four months. Winter, snowstorm outside, and we have no electricity. We use a battery from a car or a motorcycle with an LED light. Our children are small. How to sit with one candle? There is no connection, the phones do not work. They are put out of action because there is nowhere to charge them.
They fired on us from 13th to 14th January 2015. Then for the first time they fired on our village from "Grads". I was in the hospital. Senior son was at home. I had a shock and fear for him: he was at home, and it flied there, to the village, and I saw how it was flying. It flew and made noise! It was very scary.
When we got home, the son came out, he was in shock, fear, but did not show it. There were no windows, everything was blown out. Shards flew into the house. He came out and said: "Mom, our windows were falling out."
Being so scared, I did not know what to ask. But the main thing was that he was alive, he was whole. I said: "Zhenechka, where have you been, son?" “I,” he said, “was between the wall and the cabinet and stood there while they were firing at us.” God! It cannot be conveyed. Such fear for my son!
We sat and thought. They are shooting - and there is no end. Everything flies, explodes. We are sitting at home; everyone hides in the basement. Well, what's the point of this basement? If a shell should fall - it would simply fill up this basement, and we would be there with the children. A crowbar or a shovel in the basement would not help or save.
Our bag was constantly but together, stood at the ready. But where to go if no one was coming to get us out? Nobody needed us. So, we sat down. January-February 2015 was very scary.
These "Grads", these shootings were endless. We sat, the door was open into the corridor, so that if they started shooting, at least we could run out to a place where there are no windows.
We sat there until the summer. So what? The war was not over. And they were shooting and shooting. There was no work, I stopped receiving social benefits, there was simply nothing to live on. There was a household, but it also needed to be fed. And the children need to be fed.
My parents helped. They kept a cow, gave a penny. For the first month it was enough for us to rent an apartment. I found an apartment in Kamenka very quickly. We came with one bag, absolutely nothing. And somehow we stayed here since 2015. We’ve lived somehow.
I come to visit my parents in Telmanovo once a year. And I immediately start to panic: when we arrive, they start shooting, now it should start. I don't go there without pills. A sedative, I always have a tonometer with me. Because I have an immediate panic attack. I'm starting to get scared all over. That horror remained inside.
My mom stayed there with my dad. Dad said, “This is my home. Let them shoot. Let me be killed here, but here. I am not going anywhere; I am not leaving. "
But what to live on? They are two pensioners. They can no longer get a job. We come once a year, help transport the hay, and that's it, and we leave, because I can't stay there for a long time.
I just havesomefear. I went to a lot of doctors, did an MRI of the head, passed a bunch of tests to understand what was wrong with me. It could be the thyroid gland or something in the head. Thy couldn't diagnose.
When I gave up everything and there was simply nothing to cling to, they told me: "You have a panic attack." Prescribed drugs. Since 2015, I have been taking them every six months. Because the panic is such that I feel like I’m dying. It just covers me. Somewhere they start knocking out a carpet on the street - that's all! Fear is inside. I don't know what to do, where to run. Drink a pill or call an ambulance? And the ambulance, well, they come: “Calm down, take a pill, lie down. You're just having a panic attack. "
When I arrived here and did not know what to live on, where to go to work, I was pregnant. I went to the center of employment. I was sent to work as a rail track fitter! Is it for a pregnant woman? "Write," they said, "a refusal." I said: "Do you offer to work with a sledgehammer for a pregnant woman?"
At the plant, I worked not only as a crane operator, I lifted a very heavy load, 18 kilograms in one hand, in the other. And it worked fine. I can work, but not with the belly. The documents are in Telmanovo, there in “DPR”, and I am here, and no one can get them for me. We sent requests there. I waited three months for at least someone to answer us, so that I would receive at least something from them.
From August to January, I got nothing. I did the best I could. Everything in our life can be learned, absolutely everything. When I moved here, I realized that. I went to look after other people's children, clean up at the stairs, and lay out goods in the store. They called: you need to come. For 40 hryvnias per hour I walked, laid out the goods. I went to hairdresser courses.
Employment center paid 550 hryvnia per month. I had to pay for an apartment. It was good that the targeted allowance was provided on the basis of a resettlement certificate, then my personal file was not needed. It was very hard, very hard.
I learned about the help [of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation]. They said: "You can register for it." We got flour, sugar and butter!
I do not plan to return to where I lived. It's hard now, because I'm on maternity leave. The child is very sick. The slightest draft, air conditioning, if we are visiting somewhere - that's it, the next day the child has a hoarse voice and immediately turns into bronchitis.
And we get sickness for a month, or even more. I can't give the child to kindergarten yet. Who will pay for these sick leaves? They'll just kick me out of my job.
I applied for housing. We were offered a dorm room. I would, of course, agree to move there if I was alone. But since I have three children, it is simply unrealistic to live in one dorm room.
As long as it is possible to rent an apartment, we are renting. God help, it would work out - they would give us something. In my entire life I will not gather so much money as they now want for apartments. While somehow we are moving on. And when I go will to work, it will be easier.
When we just moved here, I was registered with the social service, at the Center for Family and Youth. From there, we were advised a psychologist for the older child. She studied with him. I thanked her so much, only she helped to pull it out. He was constantly in these thoughts. He is constantly at war. He has closed in on himself.
We changed two schools. He didn't communicate with anybody. When we arrived at the first school, they simply called him: a separatist. But why a separatist, if we lived in the territory controlled by Ukraine? He came home and said to me with tears in his eyes: “Mom, if you take me to that school, to that class again, I’ll just leave home, I won’t come back here.”
Before that, I did not know what was going on, and he did not tell me. For a year we went to a psychologist, attended training sessions. He was drawing, telling something. He opened up to her - then it became much easier for him.
We changed the school. He was in the fourth grade. And the children accepted him, they are all near him: "Zhenya, Zhenya, Zhenya." And now he moved to the ninth grade - they are all friends with him.
I want us to live like human beings. To get over this war, volleys, trenches. So that the fields were sown with grain, and not mines ...
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