Nataliia Cherviakova, 26 years old

Winner of the 2024 essay contest, 2st place

Zolotiv Vocational Lyceum

Teacher who inspired to write an essay - Snizhana Ihorivna Yehorovska

 

«1000 days of war. My way»

24.02.22 / 4:00Morning. It's semi-darkness. Explosions.

We all remember the morning that woke up the whole country. It seemed that this could not happen to us; it could not be real. It was a dream, a delusion.

The war caught me at home, in my Mariupol. We affectionately called him Marik. It all started like for everyone else - I started flipping through the news feed with horror and calling my family.

My husband is a military man, he was already defending the border at sea. He is a maritime border guard. I managed to get through to him. I started asking him where he was, what was happening, what my daughter and I should do. He replied that everything would be fine; the enemy would not be allowed into the city, and we had to be careful.

A few days later, the city lost water, then electricity, and then gas.

It was March. The cold. The basement.

There was no longer any communication in the city. Shops were looted. There was no pharmacy or ambulance. We were left without heating, with leftover food that was spoiling without refrigerators. It was very cold outside, which made our situation worse.

We put on everything we could find for ourselves and the children.

I was in the basement with my daughter (she was three at the time), my mother, grandparents, and neighbours. Our city was being shelled every minute. The air raid warning did not work, but it was not needed because the explosions did not stop.

We cooked our food over a fire. When the explosions were close, we had to quickly run to the basement to save ourselves.

The boys, neighbours, took water from a spring about a kilometre away. It was very risky, many people died near this well. They brought water for us as well. We helped each other, shared food.

We could already tell when a tank, Grad rockets, cannons, mortars, machine guns were firing, when they were shooting from us and when they were shooting at us.

The city was burning; it was being wiped off the face of the earth. Smoke, ash, and ruins everywhere. Arriving at our house. My head is foggy; my ears are ringing, even though we are in the basement. You try to pull yourself together to see if everyone is there, to assess the situation. We found our neighbour dead near the house.

No one took the body, so he was buried in the yard. They buried in every yard, sometimes one or two people, sometimes whole families, entrances.

My daughter Mila froze upon arrival, and for about seven minutes, she stared at one point as if she couldn't hear or see me. Then she started to come to her senses a little bit, answering questions. To say I was scared would be an understatement.

I knew nothing about my husband. I was extremely worried about him. Every minute I was waiting for him to come, for news that he was fine.

At the end of March, we took the risk of leaving the burning city. We understood that if we didn't leave, we would probably not survive. But it was also dangerous to leave because we had to drive through the whole city.

I will never forget this road. Burnt cars, overturned buses, broken trees and poles. Dead people. Blew up bridges.

Burning houses around. Fragments of bombs and rockets. Bricks, slabs from houses. All this was scattered all over the city. We were trying to drive around, but it didn't work. In a moment, we stopped because of an explosion nearby. More debris, roofs, stones were flying. We quickly got ourselves together and moved forward because we realised there was no turning back.

Eventually, miraculously, we left the city. When we stopped and looked back, we saw a black cloud of smoke; the whole city was on fire. My Marik. That was the last time I saw him like that.

After leaving, the horror of my life did not stop. I started looking for my husband. A few days later, I found him. We managed to get in touch, but it still gave me no peace. On the phone, he said goodbye to me, told me that he loved Mila and me very much and wanted us to be happy. He asked for our photos.

I didn't want to hear anything, I shouted through my tears that he would definitely come back alive, my daughter and I were waiting for him. The connection was cut off.

I stood in the middle of the field for some time, exhausted, not feeling myself, half-conscious, trying to come to my senses and shake off bad thoughts.

It was the last call. Then, he and his comrades were taken into honourable captivity from Azovstal. This captivity was an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, and in three or four months, they were to be returned through a prisoner exchange, but Russia did not keep its promises.

My husband has been in captivity for three years. During this time, I have not had any contact with him.

I know exactly where he is, how he is. But he knows nothing about us. He saw his daughter when she was three years old; now she is six; she is a first-grader.

My personal hell, my story is still going on.

1,000 days of war and 1,000 days of pain, fears, worries, and suffering.