Vladyslav is fifteen years old. He has been living amidst the war for as long as he can remember. A battle arena before his eyes. The teen witnessed some real horrors from the third floor of a high-rise building in Maryinka. A shell damaged his flat back in 2015.

Vladyslav’s essay took the third place in the essay contest “One Day” that was held by the Museum of Civilian Voices.

The war came and things turned very bad soon, while before that, everyone had lived peacefully, and now such events befall us… Then everything became much slower in some way and now almost nothing changes and we just live on.

It was a nighttime then. Well, at around 11 o’clock in the evening, probably, when the first rounds of shelling happened in our place, which flew by really close. We could even see the shells and how they hit somebody’s houses. So then, I began to realize that things were not very good. I saw all this hustle and bustle around, when everyone was running somewhere and they did not actually know where to go. Basically, we were trying to figure out where to flee because the place where my grandmother and I lived had a basement that was not suitable, well, for hiding from shelling there. We did not know where to go at all and everybody was very nervous. We did not take any things with us, nothing. Then, we at least found a place where we could hide. Well, there was a relatively good bomb shelter there, and then everything became more or less clearer, while it was not clear before that.

I did not understand then what war is. That is, I just felt some kind of fear, and that’s it.

Well, I mean, I was not afraid of some particular things. That a shell could fly in and hit us, or anything else. It was just scary, I felt scared in general. The most acute were the first days, or rather the first nights, as soon as the war began, because the shelling attacks were very intense. It was really scary. The ceiling was crumbling in the place where we hid in the bomb shelter. That is why it was the scariest time of all then. Later, it became a bit quieter but we were still scared. We sometimes went out, well, just to breathe some fresh air or for any other reason, but otherwise we stayed there a week or a bit more without going out during quite long periods. At night, it was cold there and it was hard to sleep there at nighttime. Well, we did not even have any particular reason for going out. Some adults could go out in order to get some warm clothes, some blankets, because it was cold there, as I mentioned earlier.

While I did not go out, as they worried about me and I myself was afraid to go out. I want to donate the first part of the Harry Potter series by Joanne Rowling to the museum, as this book is very important to me. This is such a magical story, very calm and comfortable, in which I was hiding from everything that was happening around me, from all that fear. That is, I plunged in reading and just escaped from reality, I would say. I often read it in the bomb shelter too when we had lighting there. Then, I also read it when we left here, but all the same, I didn’t really perceive the outside world around me because I was just absorbed with reading this story.

I mean, I tried to feel safe and it helped me feel safe. Our flat was badly damaged. Both of our balconies were damaged and this part was hit too. Everything was in a very deplorable state. Only recently, we moved back in here because we managed to restore at least something. For certain time, for about a month, we lived without electricity at all, and it was really hard then. It was very difficult even to heat up the food because we needed gas. We used some gas in gas cylinders and made some kind of field kitchen, some portable stoves. That’s the way we cooked.

With time, you don’t really notice these damaged streets, these houses, and something else, because you just get used to it. So you walk by without noticing it and take it as normal, although, in fact, it’s not normal at all.

In the first place, the war for me is a very serious threat precisely in terms of fear. That is, it becomes scary. I don’t worry so much about the state of the house, and even no so much about life, but it’s just the feeling like everything is very and very bad. That’s how it is for me, that’s how I feel it. I think that such competitions as the Foundation’s essay contest are very much needed because, firstly, it motivates children to write, first of all, to reveal some talents, some inclinations for a great future as a writer.

Secondly, it helps to re-create a complete picture of what is happening. That is, to learn everyone’s stories and understand that everyone feels bad. That it is bad not for one person, but that everyone suffers from it. You know, firstly, this topic is understandable to everyone who lives here. I mean, I knew it at once, what I would write about. That is, I immediately had some thoughts. I was already thinking about how to put them appropriately, how to properly describe my feelings, because it was more difficult than just describing events. That is, it was sort of obvious for me that I needed to write it because I wanted to express my thoughts.

War is one of the most [terrible] things that can happen at all.

That is, I wanted to convey an idea that peace is very important and it needs to be secured, and that a lot of people suffer from war, which is... Well, that is, they did not expect this, they were not ready for anything as bad as that – and then it befell them suddenly.