“Separatist Diaries”: For the first time on the Internet
A year ago, a book was published in a circulation of just two hundred copies. “Separatist Diaries” – notes from Luhansk students describing the events of the summer of 2014 in a city under siege, mercilessly shelled by Ukrainian artillery.
This book was not included in the lists of fashionable bestsellers, and was not glorified by literary critics or state awards. But it is a hundred pages long, almost samizdat - more significant than most modern literature.
The modest collection had not previously been presented in electronic form. “PolitNavigator”, in agreement with the publishers, today publishes “Diaries...” on its pages.
This is a document of a terrible era in the history of Ukraine. Today we see the world-famous “Diaries” of Anne Frank, describing life under the Nazi occupation, or Tanya Savicheva’s notes about life and death in besieged Leningrad as such casts of their time.
The very title of the book - “Diaries of Separatists” - conceals the bitter irony of people who, being ordinary peaceful citizens, were indiscriminately defamed by Kyiv propaganda and, by the will of fate, found themselves in the epicenter of the events of the civil war in Ukraine. Behind the indifference to their fate of the world community, behind the meaningless verbiage of Kyiv politicians, behind the animal cruelty of the new Nazis, one can discern the terrible word “genocide”.
They persevered, survived and created this small book of testimony. Thanks to the courageous Luhansk residents and caring Sevastopol residents, this book is published for the first time in an electronic version and becomes available to every caring person.
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DIARIES OF "SEPARATISTS"
The book contains memories of residents of the city of Lugansk about the military events of the summer of 2014. It reflects real events, real feelings and destinies of people who experienced a common misfortune in Lugansk and beyond.
FROM THE COMPILERS
The idea for this book did not arise by chance.
At the beginning of the “military” academic year, a competition of creative works with the very prosaic name “Summer 2014” was held at the Faculty of Philology of Lugansk Taras Shevchenko University. Students were invited to share their memories of the “most unusual holidays” of the past year. The results of the competition were not just surprising, but had the effect of a bomb exploding: what was presented in the student essays was more like a confession. They merged bitterness and tears, love and hatred, fear and self-irony, compassion and misunderstanding of the reality of what was happening...
When we read these revelations of yesterday's children, who grew older by years with each “arrival” of a mine, the sound of hail or a tornado flying overhead, tears came to our eyes, and a wild cold covered our souls. All works were united by a common phrase: “THE WAS THE DAY WHEN I OLD DIED... SO THAT TOGETHER WITH MY CITY, LIKE A PHOENIX, I WOULD BE REBORN FROM THE ASHES.” It was this indestructible thirst to live, to live in spite of war, death, propaganda lies and psychological pressure from militant representatives of the “United Country” that became the impetus for the creation of this collection, which includes the most heartfelt memories of our children. They were supplemented by diary entries from schoolchildren, university teachers and ordinary residents of Lugansk, a city that survived the horrors of artillery shelling, a complete blockade and during these days became for us, its residents, a real HERO.
In this collection, we tried to reflect as accurately as possible the experiences, emotions of the authors and their perception of military reality, so we chose the form of a diary, which allows us to preserve the real names of the authors and emphasize the REALITY OF WHAT IS HAPPENING. This is not a work of art. THIS IS A CHRONICLE. A chronicle of our yesterday's life, which continues today.
INSIDE FOREWORD
MARIA
Much has already been written about the war in Donbass. Unfortunately, this topic is very popular, and I’m sure it will be relevant for decades to come...
But there probably won’t be very many recordings of real eyewitnesses of the war. Why? Yes, because in the cellar, as well as in any other part of the house, there is no light, and a candle or flashlight, in order to save money, is used only when absolutely necessary. Yes, because in the intervals between firefights you need to have time to stock up on water from the pump, stand in line for bread and humanitarian aid, and at the same time catch the last minibus before 12 noon. Yes, because, unfortunately, thoughts are not occupied with creativity, but with thinking about what you can save on so that you don’t know how long you can last without a scholarship, salary or pension.…
And there are very, very many such “yes because...” And they will definitely write about them again. About the beloved city of Lugansk, which was bombed before our eyes, about the fates of until recently happy people who also collapsed before our eyes.
People like me, residents of Donbass who survived this war without leaving their home, will write...
TORN NOTES ABOUT THE WAR...
TATYANA
I will not write anything about military operations, about the National Guard and militias, about who is right and who is wrong, who is a hero and who is a scoundrel. There will be no politics in my notes. These are simply the observations of a person living in war conditions. I write them for myself and for my closest friends: both those who survived all this, and those who were far away, but remained with me in spirit and worried about me.
Forgive me for the raggedness of thoughts, style, lack of a clear plot. This is not a literary work, this is a piece of my life - the creepiest and most unforgettable...
We are living in a war... For more than two months now... It sounds crazy: in the twenty-first century, in the center of Europe, citizens of a civilized state are killing each other. The army, to which we were encouraged to donate SMS messages for five hryvnias, is destroying the region that provided the lion's share of the national income. I don’t know what this war will be called in a couple of years, how it will be described in textbooks and monographs (and those interested will appear, they will even write dissertations, I’m sure)... I decided to write down my thoughts about this war. Whether they turn into a book or remain fragmentary fragments is not important. This should remain in memory. At least my friends.
FAITH
My brother and nephew are leaving today. In search of a way out of the mousetrap, they try to get to Alchevsk by train, and then further, until only Lugansk is under blockade...
When leaving, my brother strongly recommended that I keep a diary, which I have been trying to do since that day.
Added to their worries are the worries of relatives, acquaintances, and neighbors who are leaving the city every day.
So some more neighbors stopped by for an hour, took our things, with tears in their eyes gave us a bag of almost defrosted meat and left. To the two empty courtyards, another one was added with a garden, a large vegetable garden, chickens, two cats and a formidable dog Semyon.
The city was empty... The remaining residents - strangers, but united by a common misfortune - became closer to each other. The queues are different from the pre-war times: people share news, tell people where they can get bread and water, no one swears or makes trouble, partly because they listen to every sound. It seems to me that people have become kinder.
Time and space were freed up, but it became empty and sad. There is no water for the second day, no light for the fifth. Leftover food perishes in the refrigerator.
It's morning again. The night did not relieve the fatigue. It’s quiet, it’s cool, it’s still...
YULIYA
Unfortunately, I’m starting to write my diary so late. Hoping for the best, I thought: I’ll remember everything and THIS will all end quickly. But unfortunately... But I started from the wrong place. THANK GOD - I'M ALIVE! I am in my house, in my apartment.
My parents left while I was on vacation. It even sounds abnormal, a sharply resonating peaceful word. We left on June 18, early in the morning, by taxi to Izvarino. Before leaving, everyone, of course, was nervous, the parting was tense and fleeting. I didn't want them to leave. Having gone through these 6 weeks without them, I understand: it’s good that they are not here... Everything that happens here is very scary. WAR!!! This is a terrible word and even more terrible is the reality of being in it.
I noticed that the days began to be counted differently: if you lasted from night to night, you survived. This continued “actively” until 2.00, then “passively” until 4.00. And at 5.00 - they started bombing, it seemed very close - and until 10 in the morning. Every day... The clocks also began to count differently: a special sense of time has developed, when you feel the beginning of each hour, you don’t want to - but look at the clock. The biological survival clock is triggered. And all this in a new sound space, scary, unreal - as if intergalactic space rockets were flying...
NATALIA
Trying today to comprehend the events of this summer after six months, to isolate the causes and preconditions of the catastrophe that befell us, to put together my own history from the mosaic of individual events, I come across the impossibility of reproducing at least some kind of complete picture of what happened. It consists rather of scattered memories, association pictures, emotions and feelings, reflections...
...Bewilderment, unwillingness to believe even the obvious. Against the backdrop of the emerging political chaos, the first paramilitary clashes in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, and the Odessa tragedy, the naive mantra endlessly repeated in the minds of every Luhansk resident becomes familiar: “This cannot happen to us. This can never happen. Not in the very center of Europe, not in a civilized state, not at the beginning of the XNUMXst century...” A new page in the modern history of Ukraine began, however, with the latest barbarism. The war cut a furrow through souls, destinies, families, forever dividing our lives into “before” and “after”, depriving us of work and shelter, friends and loved ones, exploding the way of habitual and measured life with shell fragments.
TATYANA
Everyone is scared in war. It doesn’t matter whether you voted in the referendum on May 11 or not, who you consider to be yours - Poroshenko or Putin, who is “ours” for you - the militia or the national guard... The war spares neither one nor the other.
Any war means death. In our war it is also there. But it’s not death itself that’s scary, but its ordinariness. When on June 2 a bomb was dropped on the regional state administration and 11 people died, everyone was horrified. And today people die every day - in line for water, for humanitarian aid, in the yard, in their apartment - we are no longer horrified, we are accustomed to death next to us - and this is the most terrible thing.
I don't want to blame those who left. Most had reasons: small children, sick parents, broken windows. Some simply could not cope with their emotions and left, thinking that they would return in a couple of weeks when “everything would settle down.” These people are not cowards, and not all those remaining in Lugansk are heroes.
My neighbor recently said: “It’s good that there is no connection, otherwise I would have to answer stupid questions - “how are you there?” I understand her. How to tell over the phone even close people sitting in Kyiv, Kharkov or Crimea that every evening you make two beds: on the sofa and in the corridor, behind the main wall?
YULIYA
At night it sounded both near and far. Something is burning. The smell of smoke in the apartment was impossible; it ingrained itself in my throat and hair. And the mosquitoes are buzzing))) Mosquitoes are better than mines. Stupid humor (((That’s such a good night, as Tsoi sang...
Morning. Thank God I’m alive and in my apartment. The mines flew again, the whistle exploded... Brought up in a patriotic spirit, I always respected the military, officers, and defenders of the Motherland. The words “duty” and “honor” have never been just words for me. Granddaughter, daughter and wife (albeit former) of officers.
Now I hate all the weapons invented by mankind. You can save a person from an incurable disease, or you can improve “Katyusha” to “Grad”, “Smerch” to “Hurricane”. All these Nonnas, Cornflowers, Carnations, Tulips, Topolkas, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled guns, tanks cause indescribable fear.
Fear is a very strong feeling that seizes the will and paralyzes a person. Fatalism develops. But the strongest human instinct is self-preservation. Therefore, like an animal, you can quickly find yourself in the corridor (that’s the safest place). Do not sleep for several nights in a row, do not eat and pray to God for the preservation of life and home.
DARIA
Yes, everyone is scared in war, but it is impossible to say what was the worst. It was scary every minute, every second, stupidly scary...
It’s scary when you fall face down in the hallway of your apartment and cover your head with trembling hands, while the ground shakes beneath you. It’s scary when a shrapnel pierces the gas pipe of a house, and you, along with the other residents, run out into the street, praying that the house doesn’t fly into the air, while each room is filled with caustic gas and it becomes difficult to breathe.
It’s scary in a dark and damp basement, where you close your eyes and hold your breath, listening; where the shells fall. And you slowly go crazy in this confined space: will it hit or not? It’s scary when parents go to the “stream” for water, because there is no more water left at home, and shells are flying over their heads. First you hear the Grad salvos, then the whistle and explosion. In reality, this happens in a split second, but in your mind they last for an eternity... It’s scary for your loved ones. It's scary not to wake up. Scary as hell.
The war, which has always been something distant and unreal for us, without asking any of us, came to our home, and with it - tears, pain, losses, fear...
NATALIA
...Deaf-blind-mute city. Of the four hundred residents of an apartment building in the very heart of Lugansk, only about thirty remain. Continuous shelling, people trying to leave and flee from the war. A feeling of constant, sticky fear and absolute helplessness, some kind of absurd and terrible phantasmagoria in which, by the will of fate, you take part. A daily necessity becomes an almost two-kilometer journey deep into the private sector, where water can be collected from underground wells. The “road of life” is known to all locals.
Time seems to have stood still, the space is limited by the boundaries of one’s own apartment and yard, where neighbors gather on unusually quiet summer evenings to listen to the latest news “from the big world” to the crackle of a radio taken from the depths of the balcony. All the brighter and more acutely, against the background of all-consuming anxiety and fear, the image of the little quiet Angel of our yard, the only child in the entire quarter remaining in the besieged city, comes to life in our memory. He became for us an unspoken talisman, the embodiment of the fragile beat of real life, hope and the answer to the question “for what?” that was so necessary for us then. - to survive, to withstand, to preserve yourself, your home and the most precious, most valuable thing in a person’s life.
YULIYA
During this time, the population, unfortunately, learned to distinguish “Grad”, mines, grenade launchers, etc. by sound. The sounds are terrible - as if space rockets are flying. I never want to hear this in my life!
AT 17.00 IT BANGED SO MUCH!!! It was the worst thing in my life. I was sitting by the window in the kitchen, and in two steps (some animal instincts awaken) I found myself in the corridor. The whistle of a flying mine cannot be confused with anything. Then a sharp bang, a rupture and an explosion. It “flew” to the neighboring house. The result is that 6 apartments burned out. The rest have windows, balconies, and driveways. 2 hours have passed... You can hear the sound of windows being boarded up and banging in the distance...
I went outside (for the first time in two days), walked around the house (not completely - only from the end - it’s dangerous to walk far), what I saw was a terrible sight. Thank God - no one died. There were no people in the apartments: some had moved out, some were sitting in the basements.
I called my sister (she is in Lugansk on the other side of the city), the connection somehow broke through - a miracle. I called my parents - my dad said seriously for the first time: “Leave whenever possible!” I was scared... I WANT PEACE!!! THERE WILL BE PEACE!!! THERE IS A WORLD...
TATYANA
If someone asks me later whether it was scary in Lugansk those days, I won’t be able to answer unequivocally. At first it was very scary - my chest was burning with horror. It was very scary to run into the basement with my sister and dog Jem and hear a shell exploding behind me. It was scary to go upstairs and expect to see your destroyed house. It was scary to go up to the apartment to see if the bedridden mother was alive and if the windows were intact...
There were days that became a turning point: on these days the center and our Alekseev quarter were especially actively shelled. And, probably, at this time the fear ended. Fear has crept somewhere deep, deep, even when a shell or mine explodes very close, it doesn’t have time to come out. And my Jem is no longer so afraid. I thought they quickly get used to only good things. It turned out that they also get used to bad things quickly. Will the time really come when silence will be permanent? But after lunch the shelling intensified, and by four o’clock enemy Grads began to bombard us. Our valiant Ukrainian army selflessly turns its guns on a city where second-class people live who do not interest them.
By the way, our quarter was fired upon by Polish brothers from Czech howitzers. This is what I understand – European integration in action!!!
NATALIA
...Mom’s eyes, full of quiet pleas to “take care of yourself,” accompanying me under the bombing on the last bus out of the city, and in the background - a shrill female scream, the driver wringing his hands in despair, a tall and strong man, under shelling that never stopped for a minute, trying to explain that the small bus was overcrowded and he was not able to take more passengers, After all, we won’t drive along sandy country roads...
It’s amazing how, in a state of maximum psychological stress, all facets of humanity are revealed, shading fear, pain and hatred with a sense of belonging, community, sincerity: the grueling August heat, the smell of burning, the difficult walk with things on the hot sand to the checkpoint - and the help of complete strangers , the only bottle of mineral water on the bus, divided equally among all passengers, and the quiet courage of a young mother with a two-year-old daughter in her arms, to whom she told fairy tales throughout the 6 hours of the journey, trying to calm and distract the child...
YULIYA
I save candles. I don’t light anything, I write by touch. Cloudy, hard to see, at 20.00 it’s already dark.
Hails, mines... the house was shaking so much that there was dust in the entrance, everything was shaking. Glass fell from those who didn't have time to fall out yesterday. And again the mines flew. Disgusting whistle. At this moment, every time, your whole life flashes by in a moment. And you wait for a break... Quiet again. They say Lugansk is surrounded. Ukrainian radio reports: the battle is going on for the Sharp Grave.
Thank you, Lord, for a new day, for life, for silence, for a preserved home. The apartment is cool and dim. For two months I have been living with open windows, taped crosswise.
During the night it flew into three neighboring houses, the destruction was terrible: fallen walls, balconies, fire - everything was lying around. Thank God, people went to the basements for the night, more comfortable - women's (dry and clean), worse - men's, and somewhere in general a hostel - people and animals.
I’ve been sleeping in the hallway for a week now, dressed, bags packed (documents, money, things, medicine, packed lunch). It was a terrible night. Not only is it impossible to sleep, it’s impossible to stand or sit—there’s always “golden showers” halfway across the sky. Light as day.
VLADIMIR
There was a day when Old Me died.
My grandfather and I sat in the garden, talking about something and listening to the street. And suddenly - the most terrible sound of my life. It’s like the cork shoots out of a bottle of champagne, a bottle for your funeral, and then the whistle turns into a screech...
You already jump out of your chair and grab your grandfather’s hand. Glass shatters. My ears are blocked. You run, looking for your mother, grandmother. Together we run to the cellar. Everyone has their own role: some take jackets, some take lanterns (there is no light in the house, and going down to the cellar without light means you might fall badly). Another explosion. The plaster falls.
You pray. You pray. You pray. You are trying to calm your parents, and, at the same time, yourself. Third shot, damn screech. Explosion. So close. You wait 10 minutes. He got out himself, looked around, looked at the house. Thank God we keep the windows open 24 hours a day, otherwise there would be no windows anymore. You help your parents get out.
You run out into the street, and there...
There is smoke, the neighbor is barely running, there is blood all over her face. Mom ran for iodine and bandages. We run with our neighbor Uncle Volodya into a house with a hole in the roof, at least 1,5 by 2 meters. There are rubbles, pieces of the roof are lying around the garden, the windows are broken, everything is crumpled. And the smell. The smell of burning, rotten pears, and something else. Something disgusting, vile...
Let's run in. Aunt Olya, a neighbor, is crying. This is her sister's house. He points towards the rooms. There is no roof or ceiling. What's left covers the floor. We climb there, look, search. Aunt Luda, Aunt Olya's sister. I can not see anything. Behind the door is a dog, alive, but severely beaten by the blast wave. A man who doesn't know any of us, just walking down the street and stopping by to help, takes the dog to take care of it. I look: the ladder lying on the floor is heaving. We quickly begin to disassemble. We find another dog, try to lift it, and there is already a pool of blood under it. “We won’t help her anymore,” says Uncle Volodya. We can’t find Aunt Luda. We think, thank God, it went away before the explosion. And then I see an arm, a hand, torn, charred, bloody. The leg seems to be missing a foot. And the face. It's hard to watch, I can't watch...
The whole area has gathered, everyone is offering help. Nobody comes - neither the ambulance nor the police. Who knew that the ambulance would arrive in half an hour and state the fact: “Dead.” Who knew that the next day I would have to photograph the corpse of a woman we had known all our lives for forensic examination. Who knew that the corpse would lie there for another 3 days, in the heat, until the morgue finally sent a car. Who knew this would just be the beginning?
TATYANA
How to describe your emotions at the sight of a dying guy of 22-23 years old, whose leg was blown off, what words to describe his gray face and eyes covered with the haze of death? I ran to the Ministry of Emergency Situations to report him, hoping for a miracle, but two hours later I saw him there, already with his face covered with his jacket. He lay in a neighboring yard for more than a day... He had no documents with him. Handsome young boy! Did his loved ones find him in the morgue?
Yesterday the mother of the deceased guy came to the neighboring yard. It turns out that she was looking for him all this time. He is 31 years old, his mother is a doctor. They were buried without relatives. God grant that she finds his grave. She asked me to show him the place where he lay. I remembered him and since then I never walk past - I always remember his face and eyes, as if covered with ash...
Now I always take my passport with me. Even if I go for bread, I put it in a file and hide it in my bag. There is also a small icon of the Mother of God. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes on your feet in case you have to run. A passport is for personal identification: you don’t want to lie as an unidentified body in the morgue...
I'm actually surprised that I haven't broken down yet. If you imagine me visually, I’m like the Wolf from “Well, Just Wait,” who decided to lift the barbell. I hold it, and fate catches more and more “pancakes”. I sway from side to side, my spine bends, but for some reason it doesn’t fall into my underpants. Counting "pancakes":
1. Lying mother who doesn’t understand anything.
2. A nurse who was hit by a car.
3. Lack of salary and any cash receipts.
4. Electricity and water turned off.
5. Lack of any communication.
6. The aunt from whom the nurse ran away, and the need to go to her on the 10th floor twice a day, wash her and try to feed her (and this against the backdrop of shelling).
7. Broken windows in a friend’s apartment that need to be repaired.
8. Take two – again broken windows in the same place.
9. Shelling of the Alekseev quarter, which my sister, Jem, and I almost got caught in, having managed to jump into the basement.
10. The death of an aunt who needs to be buried in a human way, which is almost impossible.
11. Glass all over the city and a lot of feral dogs, which makes it difficult for Jem to walk. Everything else is small splashes.
And, oddly enough, I’m still holding this barbell. This means my spine is stronger than I thought.
FAITH
The cannonade thundered all night. It exploded somewhere not very far away. Signal flares flashed and slowly burned out in the black sky. The acrid smoke of the fires covered the entire city... The night was noisy, but a sweet dream pulled me into my pillow - they never went down to the basement.
There is a slight lull in the morning. I ran into the neighbor's animals with bowls of porridge. They, missing their owners who have left, do not want to let me go. As she left, she crossed the four-legged creatures: “Stay with God!”
Sunday afternoon. We reach the temple in silence. The small, clean church is like an impenetrable dome - you step behind the fence and it becomes calm. Still a very young priest, Father Nikolai serves sincerely and with love; it seems that he is not at all afraid of difficulties, and he is even glad of the trials.
Towards the middle of the service the shelling begins. Towards the end there is calm again.
On the way home, I notice how quickly and carefully the holes left by exploding shells are being patched up on the main streets.
The day is hot and depressing. In a semi-molten state, they trudged home. Destroying heat...
When we returned home, we found our neighbors running around in a panic: while we were in the church, our area was being actively shelled. One shell hit the neighbors' yard with now our animals. Tormented by terrible pictures, for a long time I did not dare to go to the bombed house. There were even thoughts about how and how we would have to finish off a dog dying in agony, whose kennel is located in the middle of the yard, and it is on a chain. While bad thoughts were haunting me, the men jointly opened the jammed gate and turned off the gas. It was difficult to determine the epicenter of the explosion, which was clearly in the yard two or three meters from the booth. The entire yard was swept away, trees were cut down, asphalt was plowed, the roof was cut with shrapnel, windows were broken, the metal front door was like a sieve, but fortunately the house was intact. There was a suffocating mixture of gas in the air - there were gas cylinders on the corner of the house, it’s a miracle that they didn’t explode! Our joy and surprise knew no bounds! A frightened cat was making its way to meet me through the fragments, and a dog was greeting me from the chain with a worried but quite healthy bark. How did they manage to survive? You really are left with God!
And another abandoned dog, Semyon, doesn’t eat anything out of longing for his owners. I walk around him, begging him not to commit suicide...
TATYANA
War reveals the true face of man.
My aunt’s nurse turned out to be a rat, having run away from us and not warning us that she was leaving, but in the process she was “pricked” for a thousand. How I want to look into her eyes and say everything I think using verbal adjectives. And a stranger, when I was looking for diesel fuel for the hearse, gave me 7 liters at the same price at which he bought it himself. If not for him, we would not have been able to bury my aunt...
The war brought back a product of Soviet times - queues. Moreover, the longest ones are for bread, water and dog and cat food. The latter inspires optimism: people do not become hard-hearted; their favorites, as before, are not indifferent to them. But, alas, not everyone! I saw on the streets a discarded staff cat, a Moscow guard cat, and a Siamese cat. I was especially impressed by the Shar Pei: in a harness, with a leash and a note stuck behind the harness. Neighbors said that a man in a black Mercedes dropped him off. Of course, it was very difficult for such a person to place the dog in good hands. Fortunately, the Shar Pei was adopted by the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
Some throw their dogs out into the street, while others pick up strangers. The girl next door got herself a puppy. This is another confirmation of my hope that everything will be fine: she considers him not a burden, but a joy!
FAITH
First of all, I go down to the alley to feed the fire victims. An obviously overweight dog, who recently swallowed unripe pears on the fly, on the fifth day of leaking refrigerators cheerfully rolls up to a bowl with a double portion of meat, and the cat increasingly sadly fishes out smelly chicken heads from the porridge. I drop in on the desperate Semyon. The food has not been touched. The rest of the day I walk around, praying: “Lord, think of something!”
In the evening, the husband can’t stand it and goes to the neighboring yard to look for Semyon. The unfortunate man was found fallen into the kitchen basement. The big dog can’t get out on his own, but it’s a little scary for us to go down - the dog is serious, with teeth. And we can’t leave it like that. What to do? I look around: an old umbrella with a hook handle is hanging on a nail. My husband Dmitry hooked the umbrella hook behind the collar, slowly forcing the animal to pull itself upward. And so they fell together, in a hot embrace, to the ground. The grateful, toothy dog immediately made it clear that from now on we are friends forever. And I couldn’t believe my luck: firstly, everyone was alive, and secondly, large reserves of water were found in the kitchen, which was inaccessible to us because of the formidable dog. In the evening, having divided 8 liters of “trophy” water between 2 dirty bodies, we allowed ourselves to splash around a little.
YULIYA
I was poorly prepared for the war: there are few candles, few water bottles, no carts to walk on water (((. A neighbor brought two candles (20 hryvnia each) - thank you very much.
I started going out only near my house. There are very few people: there are 5 of us left in twenty apartments in the house (6-story Khrushchev-era building, 33 entrances). There are only 100-150 people left in our microdistrict, and in good times of peace there were about 4 thousand. There are many elderly, disabled, sick...
From the sources of information, a TV with the channel “Russia 24” appeared from the battery of a passenger car (one kind person broadcasts) - gathering at 17.00 at his car. The second window to the world - at 20.00 the Ukrainian radio picks up in one place. So there is a choice.
We have a commandant made up of Afghans. Now guarantees order. This is especially necessary when distributing water - everyone has no nerves. They started giving humanitarian aid. Particularly active pensioners went to get it. They give you according to your passport: 1 kg of rice and buckwheat, 1 liter of vegetable oil, 1 pack of butter.
Yesterday my school was hit, a shell hit the roof and went through the entire building from the 1st to 4th floors. There is no more school... Cherished words: PEACE - LIFE - SILENCE.
TATYANA
I will write separately about personal water supply.
Some areas were lucky: for example, in the OR plant town, water flowed by gravity to the lower floors. And just a few hours after the power went out, we felt all the charm of waterless life. True, I am a thrifty girl, I filled half the bathtub and, besides, I already had water cylinders on my loggia in anticipation of such situations.
At first, the water in the bath helped me a lot. True, I had to wash myself, showing ingenuity and miracles of resourcefulness. A basin was placed on the floor in the bathroom (accordingly, the entire floor was occupied). Clothes and slippers were left behind the threshold. I stood in a basin and poured water on top. The whole trick was to ensure that all the water dripping from me ended up in the basin. And given the individual protruding fragments of my figure, it was not easy. Therefore, after washing, I used a flashlight to collect water from the floor with a rag and poured it into a bucket. Water from the basin went to the toilet, and from the bucket to watering the flowers on the balcony. Sorry for such details, but the washing process was indeed very labor-intensive.
You can imagine how glad and even happy I was when the water in the bath ran out and I was finally able to bathe in it.
YULIYA
Water hunting season opens. Everyone is running around in the water in an organized manner, I write “running” and it’s true, and 70-80 year olds too, grannies and grandpas can barely move, pulling these 5-liter bottles with all their strength.
No water for 4 days. They say at the Gorvodokanal a 600 liter tank with oil was bombed: now there is no oil, no water. It’s the same with the light: the high-voltage lines were broken, no one will repair them while the fighting is going on.
At 7.30 I go to the stream for water. There are 17 liters of bottles in two bags. There are a lot of people on the stream, there is a long queue, I collected it in the pond, there is stagnant water, but there are frogs, so you can take it. I went twice. The back and arms fall off from the heavy weights.
I “did up” water in the basement of one of the houses, kind people suggested, I went without a flashlight, by touch. This entrance (where you can go down to the basement) was shelled yesterday, there are holes in the walls. There is no gas in their house - it got into the pipe. I went down into the basement. After lunch, other “good people” turned off the tap. It is unclear where to get water now. The stream is dangerous, three people have already died and several have been injured. It's mined there. One man lay dead for a day until they rushed to look for him...
They say they should bring drinking water...
ABOUT! New source. You can get some water at our boiler room. Of course it’s strange, somehow, but still – WATER!!!
On the way back I came under fire again. Lying around a bit...
The shops are all closed. They brought the humanitarian aid and gave us three titles each. Bread is delivered every other day. I don’t take it, I have crackers, and even then I don’t eat it. Yesterday, one pensioner was killed near a bread kiosk, another was wounded in the leg.
At 14.00 drinking water was brought. Some women are hysterical, crying - panic in general is also a terrible thing. While we were waiting for water, it was very scary, because it had happened more than once - people were being fired at “on the water.”
People also continue to die on the stream. It’s no longer clear how many people died there, but they still continue to go there: they wash themselves right there and take water and blow up mines so that there’s nothing to bury. The excavator arrived and “filled up” - all that was left was in a common grave, and here was the funeral... The Kingdom of Heaven is for all of YOU!
Nobody pays attention to the shelling anymore. War... You need to constantly run somewhere, or get something, or hide...
The hunt for water continues... At the checkpoint they sell water: 1,5 l - 9.00 UAH, 5 l - 17 UAH. Oh how! To whom is war, and to whom is mother dear!..
TATYANA
Next week we will celebrate a small anniversary - a month without electricity and water. If the issue with light could be resolved without leaving the house (flashlights and candles were already prepared just in case), then with water it was not so easy. Replenishing water supplies is a daily task. At first, we got water from the fire station - we stood in line at the hydrant for 4 - 5 hours. Then they started shooting at these water bursts, there were deaths - and the firefighters stopped setting up the hydrant. We started walking to the speakers.
Our two routes: 1) to Gusinovka to the church or a little closer, to Moskovskaya. If there are no people, the operation takes an hour and a half and you walk on asphalt. 2) on the street. Lermontov - faster in time, 45 - 50 minutes, but half the way is stones and gravel. It is very difficult to travel with a cart. But quickly, which is very important in wartime.
At one time, in a cart and backpack, I brought 25 liters of water. If you managed to turn around twice in a day - 50. My personal record is 30 liters at a time. Damn my knees! You don’t even have to talk about osteochondrosis! But I bathed, washed my hair, did laundry, and periodically even washed the floors. Yes, I water my flowers too, although I had to sacrifice the petunias on the balcony.
FAITH
A hot day is full of worries. Tomatoes have ripened in the garden beds - it’s time to think about preservation. Without water, the procedure looks joyless. Today I collected ripe tomatoes from all the yards entrusted to me - there hasn’t been such a harvest for a long time! I left some for treats, and ground the rest for tomatoes (there will be something to console the returning neighbors, since so much work has been invested).
The neighbors have a drain, a thin trickle of water, and if it runs out, it will be very sad - there are no wells nearby.
The air is melting from the heat - just sizzling heat. No water, light, communication. There are no medicines in pharmacies - and they have been closed for a long time. I save my husband from pressure with wet rags and breathing exercises.
Washing dishes in bowls takes up most of the evening, but the second half is crowned with tea drinking by candlelight. Strange as it may sound, the war also brought positive changes to our lives. Previously, I was often offended by my husband for endlessly disappearing on the Internet, and he was offended by me for endless conversations on the phone. And here you are, there is no Internet, no telephone, and almost no people. Only He and I – Romance!
YULIYA
Silence... Silence is very frightening. It is not clear what will happen after it - you are subconsciously preparing for..., I don’t want to write anything terrible, I don’t want to negatively charge the space around me and in myself.
It’s a tearful morning... I think about my parents, sister and niece: where are you, my family, I feel very bad without you, lonely, forgive me for everything. I look at your photographs and talk to you. I love you very much and I want us to be together and decide for ourselves when and where to go, where to live and with whom. And the tears are no longer salty... I ask God every day for all THIS to end quickly, for me to remain alive, and for us to meet. God willing!
Today I was in the city for the first time in two weeks. I was at the university. We are working... In the city there is also no water, no electricity, no communications. People walk around, I even saw two children, about five years old.
I returned home, and my sister came to see me and collected some things for my parents. While we were sitting, it was noon - the time of shelling, and we two “blondes” sat too long. While we were going to the bus stop, we came under mortar fire and lay on the asphalt. I walked her to the middle of the road and parted ways... There is no connection - I’m worried about how she got there, did she get there? I believe that she will still be able to leave for a peaceful life!
FAITH
We enjoy the rare silence. I never could have imagined that short moments of calm would be so precious.
Knock on the gate. An unexpected but pleasant meeting - Father Alexander, who had made his way from the village. Quickly, without reacting to our attempts to refuse the products unloaded from the car, he blesses - and the car dissolves in the hot dust like a mirage... We sort out the gifts: prosphora, 3 cans of chicken stew, some home-made eggs.
Later Palych came in, brought a bottle of kvass and was happy, like a child, that he could surprise me. There is no water, but here is kvass! Luxury. He said that in the morning, militiamen drove up to the line at the local store and handed out lemon juice to the children and kvass to the adults.
Thanks to another neighbor who had left, those who remained had dinner like a king: fried meat, juicy pink tomatoes, black aromatic tea, a bottle of red wine - the remnants of pre-war life.
On the way back, I stop by to feed the fire victims, and the shelling begins again. I’m rushing home like a bullet, but I plan to return and at least restore some order there – to create a semblance of life.
YULIYA
Civilization is returning and so are the people. The market is crowded, everything has become more expensive. I plunged a little into peaceful life, its semblance. Went out hunting on the water. Something is happening around: somewhere a fire started - a huge black pillar, somewhere Grads were working from different sides... They went home... At 17.00 a car horn sounded, everyone came running, 45 - 50 people. And suddenly a sharp whistle, a bang , everyone ended up on the asphalt... I (like a real blonde) sat down beautifully (fear was paralyzing). The second salvo... Someone pushed me to lie down. We lie pressed into the asphalt, and these mines keep flying and flying...
Houses are collapsing, you can hear not only the sound of glass, but also walls and ceilings collapsing, trees falling. It seemed to have stopped... They began to come to their senses... I ran home, and as I ran I saw in one of the houses a raised slab between the 5th and 4th floors, collapsed roofs, cut down huge poplars. In my house, the blast wave broke the glass in the old windows, where they were still intact. It was scary in the crowd, gripped by fear and panic. She constantly whispered: Lord, have mercy! Then I fell into a stupor for two hours: I didn’t speak, I didn’t walk, I just sat in an empty, dark apartment alone, like all this time... I don’t know whether it was a punishment or a test. Need to live! Will live! God is with us!
TATYANA
Military diet... I am far from comparing our diet with what people had during the Patriotic War. God forbid! We didn't starve. It’s just that the menu has become very unique given the lack of a refrigerator.
If I cooked buckwheat porridge in the morning, all three of us (Mom, Jem and I) ate it all day. If I bought a piece of chicken, it was used to make broth for my mother; Jam gobbled up the bulk of the meat, I got the leftovers, but I could catch up with, for example, a sandwich with cheese or bread with jam.
It was not uncommon to have a combination of incongruous dishes: leftover semolina porridge from breakfast and fried herring - this was lunch. Cold lunch rice with mayonnaise - dinner. Oatmeal with tomatoes, buckwheat and grapes, soup and bread with mayonnaise... In terms of calories, there was probably no shortage, but constant stress and a very small amount of sweets (for some reason, for the first time in my life I didn’t want them) did their job. What I have been trying to achieve unsuccessfully for the last two years has happened: I have lost 6 kg. This is despite the fact that she began to eat much more bread than before. Hurray, I fit into jeans that have been missing me for four years...
FAITH
By lunchtime we are waiting for our neighbors to visit us so that we can somehow festively dispose of the long-suffering leftover food from the refrigerator. I think the refrigerator should now be called differently, “just a cabinet.” I put a large apple pie in the oven (fortunately there are tons of apples in the neighboring orchards). It's time to get used to tea without sweets... But I found another advantage in the current situation: you can crack the condensed milk you saved up in good times with impunity.
Father came and we all sat down together in the yard, under the spreading apple trees. It was a special quiet day, and nothing reminded of the war. The men solved household issues, and my neighbor and I enjoyed the rare silence, summer, a scattering of fragrant flowers and the fact that we didn’t have to worry about preparing dinner.
My father, as if he had shed two decades, animatedly talked about the years he spent in the north on an expedition.
We had a great time this day.
By evening, distant booming explosions began to be heard. “Grad” reminded me of itself a couple of times. In the evening a thunderstorm broke out... The rain, however, was symbolic, but at sunset there was a stunningly beautiful sky and a rainbow wide across half the sky... “Thank God for everything!”
With the rain, as if on cue, heavy guns entered into a skirmish. And the “Svidomo” mortar men gladly used the moment of the noise curtain. It was creepy. I really do. If it weren’t for the calm look of the owner of the house, I would already be sitting in the basement. But, overcoming fear and shuddering after each peal, I had to keep him company.
Rolls of thunder blocked the work of howitzers and Grads. A mine hit a barn about 20 meters from our house, fortunately no one was hurt. The militia immediately identified the mortarman, and for some time the retreating echoes of the chase could be heard.
Leaving the house in the morning, near the nearest nine-story building we notice the first crater - the consequences of yesterday's shelling, and after 50 meters - the second, slightly short of the gas distributor. The store was damaged by shrapnel. Another 30 meters away are the burning remains of a two-story house... My heart sank, my head was instantly tightened by a hoop of pain, maybe this was a bad dream? I wish I could wake up soon.
As soon as we stepped on the threshold of the house, the cannonade began again. Together with the cats we go down to the basement. In order not to lose heart, I think about besieged Leningrad. We are now in incomparably better conditions, it’s a shame for us to complain at all!
FAITH
We are getting ready for the holiday - the first Spas, under the roll call of guns, expecting that soon, as always, the mortar shelling will begin. There is no poppy, no honey, but I still collected a bouquet of small garden flowers from a neighbor’s garden - it’s a holiday! We left the house under volleys of heavy guns: before we had time to retreat, the enemy mortar men woke up. A couple of shells fly overhead and fall onto the territory of the plant, deafening us with a nasty metal explosion, the third stupidly plopped down, without exploding, much closer. We speed up our pace, instinctively feeling with our eyes every ledge of the road, so that, if necessary, there is somewhere to fall. But we still have to go: Lord, save us!
And only in the temple do you feel completely safe: charged with optimism from the young priest, we go home. On the way, in the courtyard of a high-rise building, I notice a girl of about six who is animatedly telling something to her mother, our neighbor. Suddenly a volley of heavy guns is heard. I shudder and look around. The girl, without even blinking, calmly continues to tell something. I even felt embarrassed, and her mother, noticing this, said: “Yes, Olya knows that these are militias, and she is not afraid.”
YULIYA
Early morning. Aviation Day. I'm sitting in front of an open window. Even the birds don’t sing, some lonely bird screams in the distance, but this cry cannot be called a song (((
At 6.00 am, the “welcome” of the residents of the former flight school for navigators begins with salvos from various guns. During the day it “flew” into the basement of the house where there was an improvised “bomb shelter” - one ceiling had failed. The grannies were scared... Thank God, everyone is alive! Happy holiday to you, good people. Happy Aviation Day!
Considering that I live in a former military town where an aviation regiment was stationed, this sounds especially cynical. Dad, I love you and congratulations! It’s good that you, the pilot, don’t see this. Do you remember, a year ago, we celebrated on our playground: kulesh, there were a lot of people - and most importantly, we were TOGETHER. After this year’s holiday, you will still be allergic to fireworks – for the rest of your life!
A person, of course, gets used to everything, adapts, but in the 21st century, in the center of Europe, dooming people to hardship, killing and destroying cities is unnatural, unacceptable, scary, godless! God Almighty - prohibit war, murder, suffering. I ask you to make sure there is PEACE!!!
TATYANA
Surprisingly, there is absolutely no free time (despite the fact that I don’t work and get up at 5 in the morning). Where does it go? I tried to determine: 1) delivery of water - from an hour to three; 2) the market, shops - also a couple of hours (you have to run to different points, stand in lines (how can you not remember the bygone 90s?) until you buy the most necessary things; 3) attempts to get through by phone - from one and a half to three; 4) cooking and washing dishes, in the absence of water, also takes a lot of time. And since there is no refrigerator, I can’t cook for future use - I cook every day; 5) ma mulka - two hours (washing, feeding, treating wounds, etc.) This is not counting non-everyday tasks such as cleaning, washing, etc. And if you consider. Since at 7 pm the day basically ends (it gets dark), it turns out that there is no free time at all.
But I got enough sleep for a month in advance: I have to go to bed around nine. At first I slept without waking up, lately at three or half past three I wake up and get enough sleep... And at first, in June-July, I slept all the time during the day, walking around like a sleepy fly. No, it’s better if you don’t have enough time, otherwise you will become dull and turn into a vegetable... By the way, after the shelling of Lugansk stopped, my sister began to have insomnia: she listens all the time, waiting for a shot. I think she's not the only one...
FAITH
From the side of the city of Shchastya, controlled by the Ukrainian army, residential areas are regularly shelled, and “yellow-blue” “mortar patriots” target bread and water, bus stops, markets, schools in line...
Heat!!! Everything around is dying (the most appropriate word), the earth has turned to stone, the sky is not blue, but dull white. The shelling has not stopped for three days. There is no water in sight, and the driver changes the place of delivery every time. But I still go on reconnaissance by water. In the courtyard of the 9th floor there is a crowd of people waiting, they speak in whispers, latecomers move on tiptoe, even animals creep up. The day before, only in our area, mortars shot at 2 cars with water. But all the same, as always, suddenly a mortar attack begins - and everyone crawls home with empty containers. A few minutes - and there are no people: the street is dead.
I can’t wrap my head around this: how can you hunt people, ordinary people, standing in line for bread and water? People deprived of peace, sleep, who do not know what is happening to their loved ones, living even on the other side of the city? Those who call themselves patriots of Ukraine simply do not consider us as people; it’s probably easier to pull the trigger that way. What motivates them? Not love for the Motherland, that’s for sure.
TATYANA
Nature does not tolerate emptiness - I have been convinced of this more than once. Now this has been confirmed in relation to friends. I have never been so happy when I meet an acquaintance on the street. A colleague, a casual acquaintance, a former neighbor - everyone practically turns into beloved relatives. The staircase landings in the entrances have become clubs of interest. In those houses with electric stoves, residents prepare collective meals over a fire and consume them together. I wonder if this relationship will continue after the war? Or will we go back into our shells?
When you try to analyze your inner state, you are struck by the almost complete absence of emotions. It’s like you’re frozen, they say it’s emotional burnout. I am in a state of some kind of emotional dullness: I don’t miss my friends, I don’t feel sorry for myself, I’m almost not afraid of shelling. The brain refuses to analyze the situation and make predictions. I try not to think about the future. And how can you think about it if you don’t know what will happen to you in an hour? I’ve always loved planning...
Some of my friends have been re-evaluated. Fortunately, more for the better than for the worse. One of my, as I thought, friend (our relationship is more than 30 years old), while there was a connection, did not bother to call from voluntary emigration and ask: “Tanya, are you alive there? Maybe you need help? And a casual acquaintance from Poltava (we met a couple of times at conferences) called constantly, offering help. I was moved to tears by her proposal: “Maybe you need money? I have 500 hryvnia.” And I know that she doesn’t have extra money, she would tear it away from herself to send it to me if I agreed...
A childhood friend who now lives in Moscow called every day while there was a connection. An old friend from graduate school found me on a landline and called me three times a day, trying to cheer me up. And, of course, my two best friends were tested by this war.
Peace will come, for sure. And relationships with friends will be based on what you have experienced. Apparently, their number will not decrease; instead of one that fell out of the clip, several new ones have appeared. Maybe through your prayers, guys, I’m alive...
And deep, deep inside there is a feeling that everything will be fine. I can’t explain what this means, even if asked. I just know it will be good...
FAITH
Today the long-awaited rain fell and I even managed to collect some water, thanks to which I remade a bunch of things: I washed a change of clothes, did wet cleaning with the same water and watered the barely alive cucumbers with the remains of it. Purity! She brought two bouquets of garden flowers into the house. It became easier to breathe. Having given up on trying to get bread, I use the leftover flour to make a pie with dough roses. War is war – but beauty is on schedule!
In preparation for the Feast of the Transfiguration, I collect apples, pears and grapes from neighbors’ yards and decorate the basket with flowers. The festive service is bright and solemn. We were very glad to meet Tatiana in the temple, because now every meeting with friends is an event and a holiday: the person is alive! It feels like all of us who remain here are like rosaries connected by an invisible thread. Everyone says “Lord, have mercy!” – and we are already holding each other and receiving invisible help. From the words of one of the priests that it will soon be easier, I conclude that the end of this war is not yet in sight. The main thing now is not to think: who is to blame and who started it first, but to perceive everything as a test. You need to go through it and not turn into an evil humanoid creature...
HOPE
My birthday was unforgettable this year. My friends were not with me, there was no festive mood, because the shelling did not stop all night. But when the guests arrived, mostly the remaining neighbors, who brought me a birthday cake in the form of a bun with birthday candles inserted into it, I forgot about the shots for a moment. It was touching to the point of tears. Everyone wished me not banal things, but a peaceful sky above my head, because this is the most important thing not only now, but always.
And then we all together, by the light of a kerosene lamp, listened to the stories of my sister Olya, who works at the post office in the telegram department:
“Yesterday, one old woman, the mother of a son who ended up in the army during mobilization, dictated the text of a telegram with tears: “Sasha, your elder brother has left for the militia. Why is this fate for me and our region?”
“The other day, a pregnant woman with a five-year-old son, with trembling hands, wrote the text: “Everything is fine with us. We love you. We’re waiting.” And the boy tugs at his mother’s hem and asks if they’re going to go get some water into bottles today...”
“And the girls paint their lips, kiss the letters, put them in envelopes “for an unknown militiaman,” and go home laughing...
TATYANA
September 3... A very specific anniversary: the city lives for a month without electricity and water. It's already very annoying. I have to look for water (many water pumps I went to stopped working). And it gets darker earlier. I have to go to bed at 9 o'clock. And in a couple of weeks, will I have to go to bed at eight? I started dreaming about peaceful life all the time: light in the apartment, talking on the phone, friends... How I missed all this! During the day I don’t admit it to myself, but at night my subconscious betrays me.
People began to return to Lugansk. Six schools, kindergartens, and universities started operating. Those who arrive are surprised that, at first glance, everything is normal in the city: there are no corpses lying on the streets, there are no ruins. They arrived when the city began to recover; they did not see broken windows gaping with emptiness, trees broken by splinters, smoke from the burning Central Market, blood stains on the asphalt. Only those who survived these terrible months here, looking at Lugansk healing its wounds, remember the places where they were.
The streets are already like during the May Day demonstration (though only in the first half of the day). The market has seen an increase in both sellers and buyers. Lugansk is preparing for City Day: parks and streets are being put in order. If only they had provided light and water for this day!
FAITH
Today is city day. The light and water promised for the holiday were never delivered. There is too much damage, and there are not enough materials, as well as specialists.
The morning is sunny but cold. The last warm days... We visited our mother-in-law. We managed to get some real bread. And this is already a holiday. Carefully laying out the gray fragrant loaf, I remembered my grandmother’s words “Bread is the head of everything!” Later, cutting it into thin slices for dinner, I remembered every piece I threw away in peacetime, stale or moldy. My mother-in-law received humanitarian aid and, having sorted out the bags of food, we all feasted on naval pasta with Russian stew.
Today our republics are exactly three months old. It still sounds unusual. Days, months, years flew by before the war... A war day is completely different, different in its composition, sound and smell. Waking up from sleep, without yet opening your eyes, you thank God for another night and get ready to live a new day. You prepare to do the most mundane things, and at the end you are happy with what happened. Anything, even the simplest thing, is like a feat. Every hour of life is meaningful...
TATYANA
During war, values change. You no longer need new outfits, a new haircut is not so important. You are happy if you managed to get water at the pump in the morning without queuing or buy a fresh loaf of bread after standing for only 10 minutes.
The concepts of “beauty” and “makeup” have also undergone changes. Once you wash your hair, you’re already a beauty. You can’t paint your eyelashes with mascara - you won’t have anything to wash it off in the evening. Therefore, in the morning you mark your eyes with a pencil (let them know that they are there), and before going out, you paint your lips. And as an uneradicated habit of peacetime - perfume. If you look from the outside, it's probably funny. I dressed so that I wouldn’t mind falling to the ground during shelling: the T-shirt was appropriately wrinkled, the jeans were ironed using the soldier’s method (under the mattress) - and at the same time I smelled of Chanel or Dior. Yes, you can’t stop living beautifully!..
During the war, the character of Luhansk residents changed a lot. If at first scandals and quarrels often broke out in line at the pharmacy, over water, over bread, now I don’t hear them anymore. After the shelling of the center of Lugansk, everyone living there somehow became close, everyone greeted each other in line for water, and helped each other. More than once I have caught myself talking to strangers - and they willingly answer me.
VLADIMIR
Everyone who remained in the city during the war changed incredibly. Yes, it was the most terrible time for Lugansk. The time when Ukrainian Lugansk died to rise, different, renewed, like a Phoenix - from its ashes.
This summer I saw so much horror that, perhaps, it would be enough for 10 lives. I saw how people died, good people who had loving families, friends, hobbies, their own meaning in life. And all this was erased in one second: by a mine, by a shrapnel, by a bullet, by an artillery shell, by a cluster bomb... There was a man, but there was no man. I remember when the connection started to appear. Only two locations in my area. It was happiness, you could find out what was going on with your loved ones, say the most important words. "I'm alive". Or something that I didn’t have time to say before the war. So, people died there too, sometimes without having time to reach their relatives. There, too, mortars hit people who just wanted to write or say just one or two phrases to the people they love. Seeing how people we knew, respected, loved, died, even those whom we disliked, did not like, or simply did not have time to recognize before the war, we ourselves died. Inside... They died to be born again, along with their city...
TATYANA
I never thought that there were so many people in the city who were willing to volunteer for free. One of the volunteer girls (a financier by profession), who delivered humanitarian aid to the bedridden, said that after their company closed, “in order not to go crazy at home, I became a volunteer.” And there are quite a lot of them.
During the war, I mastered a new profession - a garbage collector. After visiting the city executive committee twice, the trash can finally arrived. But there was a lot of garbage in front of the boxes. And I personally, with my own little hands, remembering the experience of archaeological work, scattered three containers of all sorts of rubbish with a shovel. Oddly enough, my heightened gag reflex had disappeared somewhere, and I shoved my usual disgust away. But now our yard is almost clean. The rest was added within a day. By the way, when we called three men for help (and three neighbors and I were cleaning the sewer) from a neighboring house, they looked at us like we were stupid. In short, only women cleaned up the garbage. If only my friends could see me, throwing glass and all sorts of garbage into the trash with a shovel and interrupting the smells of the trash with the aroma of “Gardens of the Nile” from Hermes.
So, about heroism... This word, it seems to me, has several levels of perception. Generally accepted: a hero is someone who has committed an out-of-the-ordinary brave act, pulled a child out of the fire or a grandmother from an ice hole, rushed into an embrasure, etc.
Of course, there are such heroes in our war. But I want to write about a different understanding of heroism - unceremonious, ordinary. Today there are a lot of heroes in this understanding in Lugansk.
A hero is also a person who, walking on water for his family, will take a few bottles for his elderly neighbor, who will share food and shelter with a needy person at a time when it is difficult for himself.
The heroes now are those who did not give up their work and do it under fire: minibus drivers, janitors, electricians and, of course, water carriers, doctors and emergency workers. How many of them have already been wounded, and some have been killed. These people work without salary. What they do saves the lives of the entire city, this is no longer a job, this is a feat.
I don’t consider myself one of those: sometimes I’ll do something for the grannies in the yard, but that’s nonsense, that’s the way it should be.
And those whom I mean should be recognized after the war: with prizes, awards, and human respect. I'm afraid they won't get any of this. But ordinary residents, I hope, consider them heroes. I am for sure!!!
FAITH
Yesterday we accidentally met an ambulance driver we knew, who told us how after each shelling their car runs around the city looking for the wounded. Since there is no communication, people simply go out onto the road and stop a passing ambulance or car with militias, who often themselves deliver wounded citizens to the nearest hospital.
Every day, emergency doctors are ready to patrol the broken streets again and again, and the remaining doctors in the city are ready to provide the necessary assistance. These people amaze me. Exhausted, tired, with red eyes from lack of sleep, forced to work almost around the clock due to the lack of specialists. After all, many left the city, and those who remained bear the entire burden of life under siege. Add to this the lack of all communications and constant shelling - and the task seems simply impossible. But they cope without expressing either irritation or disdain, which was often encountered in their former peaceful life. Under these conditions, none of them lost their sense of compassion or basic human decency. In my opinion, everyone who stayed here and, in such conditions, and did not become an animal caring only about themselves, deserves respect.
VLADIMIR
All this time we were one family - those who stayed here stood with me across the water, at the water pump. After all, there was no water, light or communication for more than 40 days. They stood steadfastly, did not quarrel with each other, but joked and communicated. Despite the fact that shells sometimes flew above us and, at any moment, we could be torn to shreds by a mine, which the “valiant” saboteurs loved to launch into crowds of people. Once, my mother and neighbors and I were almost killed in such a line of water. We left 10 minutes before...
After all, as it turned out, separatist terrorists do not deserve the right to drink water. It should be clarified that “separatist terrorists” are people who stayed here out of love for the city, their home, regardless of their political views and worldviews.
Indeed, just think, just a few women, men, a couple of children are standing on the water. We are subhuman, why should we think that one of these people is a doctor who has saved an incredible number of people in her life, and that man is a builder who has built dozens of houses, and the children who stand quietly do not play, but listen to sounds , all the time in tension, under fear of death, on the alert - future scientists, athletes, musicians. We have all become one family and will remain so forever.
FAITH
On the streets there are militias, dressed in different clothes: dusty, unshaven, tired, but cheerful. They can be found everywhere. Freed from military action, they provide assistance to all services: they deliver water and food, and help repair broken houses. As one of my neighbors said: if you need anything, stop the car with the militia and they will definitely help.
Everyone has already somehow adapted to the lack of light and water, and communication, sometimes after spending a lot of time and effort, can be caught. Local radio announced strict energy savings. From now on, we turn on the boiler once a day, we can give up the electric kettle, and the vacuum cleaner once a week. My contribution to the economy.
People continue to return to Lugansk. Neighbors Larisa and Victor returned today. Storm of emotions. The dog Semyon's joy knows no bounds. They were very close to the city of Shchastya, “behind enemy lines.” We watched with pain in our hearts as shells flew from their territory to Lugansk. Sometimes a truck drove past the house where they were sheltered, followed by a tractor and a barrel on a trailer. Once they asked what they were carrying, the locals quietly explained to her that there were killed soldiers of the Ukrainian army in the truck, they were dumped in dug ditches and covered with some kind of chemical from a barrel, they were buried, and the place was leveled with a tractor. Thus, thousands of soldiers are listed as missing. Apparently this is happening along the entire front line.
Now our Lugansk and Donetsk lands are a mass grave for the right and left.
We are getting used to a peaceful life... We walk, rustling the soft feather beds of yellow leaves. We choose sunny areas of the streets, basking in the last warm rays of the cooling autumn sun. The sound of hammers can be heard from everywhere as people rush to patch up broken roofs before the lingering autumn rains. Passing by one of the houses, we find in the yard a neatly stacked mountain of long, khaki-colored, securely stacked boxes. There are not enough construction materials and the roofs are being patched, breaking boxes from shells. On the lawns, the green grass is getting closer and closer to the explosion craters. The earth is healing its wounds. From time to time, dull pops are heard - unexploded mines are being cleared from houses and gardens.
I like the way our city lives now. No fuss, no unnecessary noise. People began to communicate more with each other and became more friendly. We have almost become accustomed to silence, only destroyed houses and militias on the streets still remind us of recent military everyday life.
NATALIA
...September is colored with notes of languid anticipation and hope. After all, the fragile truce gave the joy of being home again, close to loved ones, and at the same time - a feeling of powerless rage at what was done to your city, your home, people who will never be the same. This September, the few first-graders with snow-white bows became a symbol of hope and faith in the best, the continuation of life, but the solemn assembly in my home school, which began with a minute of silence for a third-grade student and his mother who died during the summer shelling, sounded like a reminder that cannot be consigned to oblivion, which will forever remain in our memory and heart, about our responsibility to the future.
IN YOUR TURN...
Oksana
Wedding “in the ATO zone”...
I wanted to write about this wedding, but from a different perspective - about the love of two loving hearts located in different parts of the globe, born in the polar continental zones and at different times, with dissimilar cultures and languages. The girl Skazka lived in a peace-loving country called Ukraine, and the guy Bean was already working in an economically developed, dynamic country called China. If not for one BUT.
The wedding was celebrated “in the ATO zone”...
She was always different from her peers, shunned her classmates, avoided communication, and was closed to many. For many years, the class teacher did not even know that the girl Skazka drew beautifully, could play the piano, and sing beautifully in her gentle voice, like herself. But Skazka created her masterpiece detective stories about distant countries and Ukrainian migrants in Latin America, reading them only to her mother, the main connoisseur of her work. As someone who loves her only child, mother, of course, praised Skazka’s creativity and prophesied a great future for her as a writer, while understanding that motivation is the main mechanism of her daughter’s word creation. Years passed and nothing changed in Skazka’s life - she was still not like the others. Classmates kissed boys in the corridors, walked in the evenings and disappeared at various provincial parties. But the Fairy Tale lived a different life...
But then the graduating class approached - exams, testing and the choice of a university and a prestigious specialty. Skazka and her mother traveled to a number of Ukrainian universities and settled on Lugansk, because exotic languages were studied here - Japanese, Hebrew, Turkish and Chinese. It was here that our Fairy Tale realized that she wanted to understand this incomprehensible language for all residents of the East European Plain.
But the demand for this specialty was frantic and our heroine, among the selected future linguists, began to gnaw on the granite of science - that same Chinese language. Moreover, it’s quite successful. The praise of the teachers inspired Skazka to perform linguistic hieroglyphic feats and this is the result - the girl Skazka was already dreaming of going for an internship in China.
And here is the long-awaited and incomprehensible, alien and strange China. The flight was, as always on Ukrainian airlines, half-starved and heavy. But it was even harder to fly on Chinese airlines in a crowd of Chinese who not only sat, but also managed to stand in the aisle of the plane. In general, when a group of students was met by a representative, or rather, a nice representative of one of the universities, our girls no longer cared where they would be taken or what would happen to them. Then a two-month culture shock, lack of European food, dozens of weight lost in Ukraine, programmed Chinese teachers and the lack of basic living conditions - heating in the cold season, excess hot water and other European pampering (or more to come). We learned to take a shower in 3 minutes, eat noodles, rice with vegetables and learn Chinese. It was there, in the southern province of China in Meizhou, that the girl Skazka met Indonesian and American boys, improved her language in the literal and figurative sense: in the morning - Russian, in the afternoon - Chinese, in the evening - English, at night - Ukrainian (yes, homework in Lugansk no one canceled the university).
Now comes the fun part. And so the girl Skazka, fascinated by languages, did not notice how a Chinese guy quietly approached her, who looked devotedly into her eyes and did not give the slightest hint of showing increased attention (yes, the Chinese are like that - they know how to wait). They walked together, talked, had small talk, ate in a cafe. Our Chinese guy, let's call him Bin, was able to realize that in front of him was the Fairy Tale girl he had been looking for for many years. It turned out that she was very well read, played the piano beautifully, had a gentle thin voice, was overly modest, polite, patient... But most importantly, he saw her inner beauty and realized that she was the one and only Fairy Tale.
But our heroine flew to Ukraine for the summer holidays. Bean waited for her for a long time and hoped for three long months that she would return.
Her return was not easy - a difficult flight, thunderstorms, delayed flights from Hong Kong. He did not sleep or eat, waiting for her with a bouquet of white lilies in Chengdu. And she returned. The bouquet has clearly wilted, if not withered. But it doesn't matter. I wanted to run, hug and scream. But no. The Chinese are not like that - they know how to wait. We returned to the taxi from the airport, huddled close to each other, but restraining ourselves. In the morning, Bean brought breakfast in bed to the girl Skazka, who lived with her New Zealand and Malaysian colleagues in the same apartment.
It was from this moment that the girl Skazka and the guy Bean decided to be together. Sticking with each other in this one and a half billion Chinese society: joint evenings, returning home on a motorbike, common weekends somewhere in the lap of nature, common friends. Everything was going well. But difficulties arose with the work visa for the girl Skazka (she was too young for this) and she had to fly away. It was a difficult breakup. Bean understood that she would not return. To be with her, he needs to fly to Ukraine.
During the long winter they communicated on Skype and lived part of their virtual lives. But how I want to live the real full-fledged destiny of young people. And Bean decides to fly to her.
It was May 11, 2014. When the war began in the southeast of Ukraine (the Ukrainian authorities called it ATO - anti-terrorist operation). The whole world watched the events with bated breath. And Bean flew, flew again and rode the train, not thinking about what would happen to him. More accurately: I thought, but I understood that love is a feeling that inspires men to take strong actions.
This Chinese guy spent his summer in the ATO zone from May 14 to July 19.
You may ask: why so long? I’ll answer you: according to Ukrainian laws, the newlyweds had to undergo a probationary period for a month - that’s it. Then Bin waited for a certificate from the Ukrainian embassy in Beijing, which confirmed that he was single. It's still a month. So no “military-political events in the ATO zone” could disrupt the usual regime for registering the marriage of young people. On the contrary, it made it more complicated. There is an announcement on the doors of the registry office: Due to the fact that hostilities are ongoing in the ATO zone, the registry office is open twice a week. But no one canceled love? Long lines in this wonderful establishment confirmed that persistent brides and grooms did not change their decision even in the ATO zone.
But the difficulties in creating an international family did not end there. After submitting the application, it was necessary to go to the registry office with a Chinese translator a week before the painting and confirm that the form was filled out correctly and that you were persistent in realizing your wedding dream. But about the translator, who gave his firm consent to be at the appointed time later. By the way, he lived in the area of the Lugansk airport - nothing foreshadowed trouble.
The first disaster happened when the happy Skazka and Bean were returning with their first purchases - an air raid on the regional administration. They saw and heard the planes that became the “first signs of war” in Lugansk. Skazka and Bean, clinging to one of the buildings, being close to the place of shelling, were already thinking about how to survive and not die. Who would have thought that in the 21st millennium Ukrainian planes would kill Lugansk residents - residents of their own country? They returned home with a lot of questions and no answers. I wanted to shout: what are you doing, Airplanes? We want to live-live-live...
Time stopped. But the brain continued to work - we need to live on and survive... The wedding dress was chosen in a hurry, when there were no shellings or explosions. We managed to enjoy ourselves a little. And then return to reality again. One by one, shops began to close. I had to walk in the unbearable heat along the central street of Lugansk - Oboronnaya (public transport had practically ceased to function because cases of mortar shelling and the death of drivers and passengers had become more frequent) and look for little things that would later become important at the wedding ceremony. Thus, in a few short days, wedding details were bought up.
Now it was necessary to find a room for the ceremony. Special thanks to our “Caucasian” restaurateurs (let them not be offended and do not consider this chauvinism) - it was their entertainment establishments that agreed to help with the celebration. They settled on Aqua Rius, a very cozy, quiet, cultural restaurant on the road to Lugansk airport. It seems to me that in this harsh time, on the occasion of such an event, the owner himself was immensely glad to have visitors. But he is not only happy, but also concerned about the geographical location in relation to the airport. But more on that later.
What's a wedding without a toastmaster? These are probably the first people (they are now called animators) who left the city in connection with the beginning of the summer season somewhere in the resort areas of the Crimea, the Azov region, and so on. They did find it. The presenters even managed to hold a wedding in Stanitsa, Stanichno-Lugansk district, immediately after the first bombing in early July. And, being on militia territory, sing the song “One Motherland at the Table...”.
And of course – the wedding procession!!! The whole problem was that the “monopolists” of wedding cars lived in Aleksandrovka, a village near Lugansk, where fierce fighting took place. Nobody gave any guarantees. Therefore, until the last day, no one knew: will there be cars or at least a car?
And guests had to be invited to the wedding cortege. This is even more interesting. We planned a small party for 30 people. Close and relatives from different places in Ukraine, Russia, Georgia. Everyone agreed to come to the wedding and convinced them to reserve seats in the restaurant. But a week before the joyful event in the life of the girls Skazka and Bina, guests began to refuse in the following sequence: Moscow (they will not allow their 25-year-old brother into the ATO zone); Kyiv (problems with trains and shooting in Debaltsevo); Dnepropetrovsk (mom doesn’t let me in after news broadcasts); Antracit (militia take away expensive cars from drivers); Lisichansk (they are afraid to travel with small children along the Bakhmut route); Kharkov (young guys are disembarked from trains heading to the ATO zone and sent to fight in the Ukrainian army); Severodonetsk (the city had already been bombed and people were scared); Batumi (simply scary).
In a word, it became even more fun because of hopelessness. But not for long. We decided not to cancel the celebration.
And now a little about the translator. A week before the wedding, heavy shelling of the airport began. Therefore, the nearby elite villages were the first to suffer. Our professional translator Elena lived in one of these villages. But for the last XNUMX hours she did not live, but existed in the basement, hiding from the “Gradov” shelling. Therefore, a bold mobile call from the basement that she would not be able to come stunned everyone. The fairy tale was thinking about the wedding. To which Elena the translator answered: “What wedding? There's war on the street!!!!" But after cooling down a bit, I decided to find a replacement. Very ineffective. All the Chinese left Lugansk. Only Bean remained. That brave Chinese guy, whose face already showed bewilderment and hopelessness. What to do?
The Internet was still working - let's forgive it all the garbage and verbal nonsense - but it saved the future family. The situation was smoothed out by the youth social network “Contact”. It turns out that there was still a glimmer of life in the city for graduates of the Chinese language specialty. The first girl's name was Ekaterina. On this day, a shell hit their house on Inzhenernaya and people died. Many families were on the verge of breakdown from pain, anger, and loss. Katya was no exception. She categorically refused to leave the apartment in the near future and help register the marriage. Next were Yulia, Vadim, Elena - everyone was afraid for their lives and thought that everything would be resolved in the coming days. Or maybe weeks. Alena remains. She did not speak Chinese, although she had a corresponding specialist diploma. Her mother lost her job for an indefinite period of time, so Alena agreed under certain conditions. Everyone was immensely happy that the wedding was going to take place.
Yes, we forgot about the beauty of all members of the wedding ceremony and, first of all, the bride. Men may find it funny, but it’s a fact. Hairdressers closed, beauty salons did not work, manicurists left the city after the first shots. But there was a brave wedding manicurist in a salon located in the old city center. In it, the volleys of guns in the village of Metalist near Shchastya or in front of Shchastya (there is such a city) were clearly audible. In addition, the salon was located in a house in which a gas pipe exploded a year ago. Therefore, they are no strangers. The wedding manicure was done to perfection, but my mother didn’t have time, there was too much shooting. Everyone felt terrified. Near the salon, a few days ago, a passenger car was blown up on the roadway by saboteurs and mortars who fired at houses, bus stops, minibuses and other places of stay of Lugansk residents. Therefore, this pile of metal “showed off” in the most crowded place on the roadway.
The hairdresser's name was Yana. She was a volunteer and in the morning she helped take children out from under shelling, so, having a kind heart, she agreed to do the wedding hairstyle for the bride and guests.
Surprisingly, the girl Skazka managed to find all sorts of wedding things in the city, for example: balloons, holiday posters, surprises for guests, candles, fans, etc. There was a shop along Oboronnaya where the salesman would run across the street to the pharmacy several times a day and buy sedative tinctures, because the shooting on the main street in broad daylight did not stop, and even became more frequent. And no one knew who would be the next victim. That’s why the announcement at the entrance: I’ll be there in 10 minutes was not taken down. Approaching the store, all the buyers or timid people, or maybe frightened Lugansk residents, could not determine from the contents of the announcement exactly when the seller would return. Therefore there was no trade. But the girl Skazka became the happy owner of many things from this strange store with an even stranger salesman who always drinks sedatives and complains about heartaches. Although there’s nothing strange about listening to doors opening or gunshots on the street all day long.
And then, the day before the wedding, massive shelling begins from the airport to the military registration and enlistment office area. I’ll explain to those who don’t know Lugansk: the military registration and enlistment office is located almost in the central part of the city, so Ukrainian shells flying from the airport hit houses, offices, bus stops, an oncology clinic and a bus station. What does this have to do with a wedding? The restaurant was located on the main street between the airport and the military registration and enlistment office, and the Skazka house was behind the bus station (also next to the military registration and enlistment office). The newlyweds decided to test the waters in the restaurant and check the fulfillment of the order and the availability of the restaurant itself.
The owner of the restaurant was sitting on the second floor and either protected the premises from explosions with his body, or wanted to be the first witness to the next destruction in the city center, or wanted to see that he was not alone in this crazy city. His important appearance reassured the bride and groom. But no one gave any guarantees that the restaurant would not be shelled on the wedding day. The cooks were peacefully doing their job: preparing aspic, meat rolls, fish delicacies, and the director threw up his hands and did not know what to do. An alternative was chosen: if shelling begins on the wedding day, the service staff will bring the created culinary masterpieces home to a cozy Khrushchev apartment, where you won’t turn around and walk around.
An interesting story about a 5 kg three-tier wedding cake. They also refused to conduct it due to the unstable situation in the city. In the back seat of a taxi called “Moskvich” I had to transport the bakers’ work of art with two swans sitting at the top, who were no longer behaving so majestically by the ceremony itself.
There is a general problem with taxis: the “oligarchs” of the taxi business gave the order to leave the city and move the cars towards Mariupol - the resort area (if only they knew what would happen there in a month), so amateur Azerbaijanis, pensioners and other guys-drivers worked for cheap cars. The dispatchers of the remaining taxis did not guarantee that the car would be delivered to the place of call within a few hours; the call was valid only for the next 10 to 15 minutes and provided that there had been no shelling at the place of call for the last hour.
The photographer and videographer were found quickly and without problems. They, as creative and extreme people, had something to do in the city. Although the videographer left the city on July 13, the photographer, due to his young age, lasted until the beginning of September.
The wedding ceremony was scheduled for July 12. The evening of July 11 has already arrived. All the brave participants in the wedding ceremony were afraid to think about tomorrow. The night promised to be “calm” for many reasons. First: no one knew whether there would be peaceful life in the city center on July 12; second, will there be taxis? will the restaurant remain intact and will everyone be able to get to or from it, etc.
The morning began with the fact that the hairdresser Yana was late: she was driving her lady's car and was sandwiched along the highway by two armored personnel carriers, which had no intention of letting her pass ahead. This brave volunteer hairdresser escaped captivity and arrived an hour late.
All the guests present appreciated the enchanting artillery shelling of the “ukrov” (as they began to call them in the ATO zone) from the airport as congratulatory and tried not to overshadow this important day. Guests from among the heroes arrived - a close friend of the mother, another friend of the mother, grandmother, grandfather, others moved immediately towards the registry office - a translator in the provided taxi (first they had to find it - they found it), a friend of the mother, another friend of the mother. A total of 11 people were expected instead of 30.
After the hairdresser arrived, it was necessary to quickly wash the hair of all the charming guests, since water in the ATO zone was already becoming a rarity in the taps of houses at that time (or it will still be from August 2). Almost everything was done. The “haircuts” (there’s no other way to call them) are ready.
The second very important fact was the wait for the wedding car - will it come or won’t it, will it leave or won’t you? To “maintain the wedding pants” and search for the car, the groom was sent with his male half – the bride’s father and grandfather. First, pick up the wedding bouquet for the bride - will they do it or not? - and then find a car parked on the main street of the city.
The third important fact - will we get to the registry office or not? The wedding car is in place, all that remains is to call a taxi for the arriving guests. Slightly unstable mobile communications and uncertain activity of taxi dispatchers - and everyone is ready to go. Forward!
It was something!!! In the central part of the city, Luhansk residents standing and walking expressed joy and shared the emerging family happiness: they waved their arms, shouted joyfully, honked their horns - and everyone understood that they had lost the habit of rejoicing from feelings of anxiety. Imagine the picture: all the cars are honking in Oboronnaya! Everyone at the wedding party had a pleasant and fun time. And this cannot be expressed in words, it can be expressed with emotions: wow!!! class! great!!!amazing!
It was a fabulous day, despite the gunshots and shells flying through the restaurant.
Then there was a wedding in the Temple of Tenderness, after that there was a magical night at the Slavyansky Hotel in the basement room together with representatives of the OSCE, then the Kiev train, which accommodated passengers of two trains in one direction at once, the terribly panicked leaving Luhansk residents at the station - at the stupa epilepsy among those departing right on the street, elderly women running with wheelchairs, screaming young mothers looking for their husbands, lack of mobile communications among passengers, terrible heat and depressing looks from those who remain in the city either forever or hoping to leave someday. And in a week, passenger trains will stop traveling in all directions...
The girl Skazka and the guy Bean will forever remember their wedding adventures. Let's hope that they will strengthen their relationship and that what is happening in life will teach them to appreciate every moment and not waste it on trifles. And their marriage became even stronger in China, when Fairy Tale cried for a whole month and a half, each time sitting down at the dinner table, at her loved ones and imagining that they did not see bread and were dying of hunger. But everything worked out well - they remained alive, despite the terrible mortar shelling in the city both day and night. And they won’t learn about how mom and dad hid at night from mortar attacks, lived for several days without bread, stood in line for food, carried water cylinders under fire... God forbid they experience this. God save everyone from war.
ALEXANDRA
I have one more heart...
Summer is the time for vacations, fun, sea, beaches. It's time when the heart begins to beat faster, when it seems that you can conquer the whole world and all problems fade into the background. BUT, unfortunately, this summer was a little different...
It all started as usual: students passed the exam, schoolchildren enjoyed the last bell and made plans for the summer holidays. I was finishing my fourth year at university, preparing for exams and for the most important event in the life of every woman... At the end of the summer I was supposed to get married and become a mother... But this joyful period of my life was overshadowed by one “small” nuance... The war began.
War... A word that has absorbed the bitterness, pain and tears of thousands of people of different generations. My grandfather, a WWII veteran, pilot, squadron commander, every May 9 told stories related to the Great Patriotic War, remembered his friends... And he cried, cried so bitterly that for a long time it was impossible to calm him down. And every time I thanked God and the people who died so that we could live, that I would never see this. How wrong I was...
June 2 is a day in history that forever erased the smile from the face of our wonderful, so friendly and dear Lugansk. It was this day that became the reporting point... The meridian from which they began to count not days and weeks, but human lives. Never in my life have I seen so many reports on Channel One dedicated to our little Motherland. But as it turned out, this was just the beginning...
Our dad decided that it was stupid to have a wedding in such conditions - he could not take responsibility for a new family. Hastily declaring that this was not his war, he left for St. Petersburg. And my unborn daughter and I were left...
August 3rd. It was from this day that shelling of the city began, which took the lives of thousands of people who simply came out for bread and water. The day when the fight for survival began. On that day, I realized that I had to survive, because another heart was beating inside me. There lived a little person inside me who should see the sun and smile at his mother, giving hope for a better, for a happy future... A future that will definitely exist!
It was scary... The corridor became the most visited place in our apartment. It felt like it would never end. Whistles, explosions, volleys - these are the melodies of my summer. Walking near the entrance is my entertainment. One of these walks almost ended in tragedy.
One incomparably quiet day, my mother, my neighbors (who, by the way, we became friends with during the war) went out for a so-called walk. About 10 minutes later we heard a loud roar. My first thought was: “This is it... The end.” I ran into the entrance and touched my stomach. The child kicked so hard that only thanks to this I realized that we were still alive. It’s just that the military decided to send a little “hello” to their comrades using the Grad. After that I didn’t go outside at all. The fear that overwhelmed me did not even allow me to go out onto the balcony, just look out the window... I spent the remaining three weeks at home, praying for my mother, who went out to buy groceries; for friends about whom I knew nothing, since there was no connection; for my baby, who had to endure this madness...
August 31st is the most important day in my life. On this day my little one decided to be born. The whole house accompanied me to the maternity hospital. In the ambulance, I uttered only one phrase: “Guys, just let me get there... Give me at least ten minutes and you can continue your “games.”
Everything worked out well... We arrived and at 13.32 a little girl was born... My daughter - Alexandra. As soon as she screamed, I made a wish: “For everything to end.” And you won’t believe it, as soon as we were discharged, the shelling began to subside. On September 16 the light was given. And my mother and I, like little children, burst into tears of happiness. A connection appeared and I finally heard such familiar voices that were imbued with love, tenderness and faith in the best. Faith that we will not only talk, but also hug and cry into each other’s vests. The only question that remained unanswered: “How do you live there, our “Kyiv defenders”?
Everything changed thanks to this war: views on life, values, destinies. Every time I wake up, I rejoice at the new day, I am glad that all my loved ones, wherever they are, have the opportunity to say to me: “Good morning!” My daughter is growing up, makes me smile and no longer think about the horrors of war...
FAITH
This is how we saw off my father...
“Father has died,” said the confused mother-in-law, appearing on our doorstep in the morning in a dressing gown and slippers. Thanks to the guy driving past his parents' house, who stopped the car when he saw a woman with a stick come out onto the road in despair, not knowing how to tell the children about the death of their father. There is no connection, there is no transport, and with sore legs she will not get anywhere further than the yard. Husband Dmitry quickly gets ready and they leave.
My father died, having planned a bunch of things for tomorrow, he just fell asleep and didn’t wake up in the morning. The terrible words sank into the cotton wool of consciousness. I wander around the house in confusion. After some time, the meaning of the words spoken dawns on me. I light a candle and accompany the person on his final journey with “Songs of King David.”
The sweaty husband returns, having walked half the city on foot, although a passing ambulance helped shorten part of the journey. The police issued a certificate and threw up their hands: “More on yourselves.” The situation changes every day: today the funeral home is open, and tomorrow the hearse with the procession is shot - and there is no one else to bury.
Having bicycles makes life easier: I go to the nearest hospital, and Dmitry goes to Grigory for help. I drive up to Hospital No. 9 and see the head ambulance doctor, Natalya Ivanovna, running out. Looking at me sympathetically, she tells me in detail where to go and what to do in our situation, despite the roaring ambulance engine, ready to comb the broken streets again.
From five in the morning – quick preparations. My husband and Gregory go to the morgue, I, having stopped at the church and ordered all the necessary services, head to my mother-in-law to help wash and change my father. Entering the yard, I find her sitting on a bench, lost and sad. Having gone up to the apartment, we begin preparations. Before we had time to finish, a pale image with dark, sunken eyes appeared in the black opening of the open door.
“Morg,” the image said quietly, “where is the dead man?” Documentation.
- Don't you have them?
The husband took them to the 1st city morgue in the morning, but did not have time to return yet. The hearse driver clarified the situation a little, saying that every morning he is given addresses where the dead need to be picked up, and information can come from the police and hospital, as well as from ordinary citizens. At the moment, the situation in the city is such that their car is the only one and there is no guarantee of returning to this address today. But there is always a way out: I write a note with the passport details of the deceased. There is no one to carry the body out (my mother-in-law with a cane and my height of one and a half meters). We go out into the street in search of help. We were lucky: random passers-by (a middle-aged man and a young guy) carefully carried off the lifeless body of my father-in-law on a white sheet...
Having escorted the car, in which there were three more dead, not counting the father, we go up to the empty room. I put my father-in-law’s things in a bag: a suit, a white shirt... We never had time to change him.
– Funeral agency “Kronos”, where is the deceased? – a loud voice sounded in the hallway.
- They've already taken him. If only Nikolai Vladimirovich knew how popular he is today, I thought sadly.
- Who? – the interlocutor asked in amazement.
“1st morgue,” I briefly described the morning events. - Write a note to your husband that you went to bury your father! We still have a lot of challenges, we have no time to wait. And it’s quiet for now...
- And what about me? – the mother-in-law responded in a fallen voice.
- We take only one, more people - more victims. And if shelling starts, she will be faster.
I grab the bag with my things and climb into the high cabin of the hearse.
On the way to the morgue, the city bursts into the cabin with a deafening emptiness with black holes of broken windows, gaping wall failures, broken bus stops, twisted billboards and a serpentine of dangling broken wires. Trenches have been dug along the sides of the road leading towards the airport. At Ostaya Mogila, Father Peter spent a long time assembling a wooden church, log by log, and now some of the logs that had not yet had time to lie on the walls were used to build dugouts. Human life is more valuable... And we will rebuild the temple, so as not to lose faith...
We enter the territory of the 1st hospital. I’m starting to worry: I have no documents or certificates on hand. The only thing I know is that my husband paid Kronos for everything he needed. Noticing my anxiety, the guys left me at the car, saying that they would do everything themselves. While waiting for the result, I witnessed a touching scene: a man passing by was shaking hands with the guys from Kronos for a long time and warmly. The driver explained that his mother had been buried the other day and showed a hole in the hood sealed with colored tape.
At this time, a coffin was taken out of the morgue doors, in which Nikolai Vladimirovich, formally dressed, lay... But there is no time for sentimentality - we are leaving this difficult place, filled with the smell of decay. I was grateful to the morgue workers: despite the workload and terrible conditions (lack of water and light), they did everything as I had planned to do myself.
On the way, I am instructed on what to do in case of shelling: “If they start shooting in the cemetery, immediately jump into the grave. Don't be afraid. It’s better to take a living person out of the grave than to put it next to someone who was brought.” I try to say that all my husband’s relatives are buried on Kosiora, but the answer is: “On the Gas Pipeline. It’s calmer there today.”
I drove the whole way holding a small paper icon of the Mother of God... I mentally regret that I never fully learned the prayer “Alive in Help...”. I turn the icon over and it is printed on the reverse side. I read the rest of the way. We arrive calmly.
Near the cemetery we pass the departing hearse of the funeral agency "Khoron". My escorts joke: “If Khoron is here, we guarantee there will be no shelling!” I go to pay for digging a grave, and it turns out that I am 300 hryvnia short. The worker waved his hand. Let's go choose...
The hot sun floods the scorched steppe. The old cemetery is hidden in the shadow of a small planting. The new one, already quite large, is located along a dirt road. Almost all the graves are fresh, not even from this year, but from the last few months. An open place, slightly elevated. The city is hidden behind the greenery of trees, and on the other side there are blue distances. I like this place, I think my father would like it too. He spent a long time on a geological exploration expedition in the subpolar Urals and talked a lot about it. This is certainly not the north, but everything is better than the city cemetery on Kosiora.
Having chosen a ready-made hole, I wonder whether it is possible to leave room for a second grave. They reassure me - they allocate space for two graves at once. As soon as the coffin was removed from the car, all the diggers, and there were many of them, left their work. Someone was smoking, leaning on a shovel, someone sat down on the clay dumps just to rest. Maybe it was a coincidence, but it seemed to me that this was a tribute to someone else’s grief.
Standing on the edge of the grave, I could not shake the feeling that my father-in-law was standing nearby and watching how lumps of dry clay, hitting the lid of the coffin, buried the body, tired out by illnesses. It even seems to me that he would joke about what was happening...
All nature seems to say: “Rest in peace.” The absence of a funeral procession, sobs over the coffin, the bustle of black mourning clothes and ribbons on plastic wreaths, made this transition not a farewell to the last journey, an end, a point, but a birth into a new life. Nature accepted the body and released the soul, free from the worries and conventions of this world.
We returned home quickly. In the courtyard of the house, an orphaned mother-in-law was sitting on a bench, surrounded by remaining neighbors. A sad husband was also waiting for me, having just arrived with a tombstone cross, which he had personally carved for his father, screwed to the frame of his bicycle. Kronos has run out of crosses due to the “influx of clients”...
It was a hot afternoon, but it was quiet. We, accustomed to cannonade and mortar attacks, were already alarmed by half a day of silence. The funeral ceremony was performed by a young priest who rented an apartment on the first floor of his father’s house, and his wife baked bread and prepared a funeral dinner, for which we no longer had the strength or time. This is how we saw off our father... But he remained alive for us forever. A cheerful and kind, loving and beloved father...
OLGA
And I'm already a widow...
I am 29 years old - and I am already a widow... My story is very sad and terribly painful for me. The death of a loved one reawakens the feeling we had when we first experienced separation and loss.
It was not for nothing that I started with such a statement. It all started in May 2014, when people living in the city of Lugansk realized that they had come to kill them. My family is no exception. My husband panicked because he was so afraid of losing me and our son. On June 22, my son and I are leaving for Crimea to escape the bombings, my husband remains at home, promising to settle matters and come to us in a couple of days. My son and I reach Crimea safely, but we can’t get over the fear of shots and howling sirens.
A week passes, the fear gradually recedes, and we calm down. We are waiting for our dad to arrive, but when I talk to my husband again on the phone, I find out that my husband and the father of my child has gone into the militia to defend his native land. I start to panic, I don’t know what to do: I start either threatening him that I’m going to see him immediately, or begging him to come to us. I'm filled with fear...
This period of waiting and fear for those close to me was unbearable. After all, not only my husband, but also my parents remained there. Every morning I called home and frantically waited for them to answer that everything was fine with them, they were alive and well. It was the third week of my stay in Crimea. My husband kept in touch less and less often - I couldn’t find a place for myself, I kept thinking about how to get him out of there. At the same time, I understood that if he decided so, nothing and no one could stop him. There was practically no communication.
On July 11, I got up early, miraculously called my parents, everything was fine with them. I was never able to contact my husband; I waited all day for a call from him. 15.00. The long-awaited call came, but they were calling from an unknown number, I picked up the phone - it was him, he said that everything was fine, that he would call back soon so that I wouldn’t worry. I calmed down a little, my son and I went to the sea. When we came home in the evening, I was worried again, called my husband again, but there was still no connection with him... Oddly enough, I slept well that night, hoping that he would definitely call me tomorrow. There was still no contact with him in the morning. Then I called my parents. Mom answered the phone - and the first thing I heard was: “Oh, my daughter...” I immediately understood everything, and then everything was like a fog...
I could no longer be in the place where this terrible news found me. I decide to go to Odessa, try to somehow distract myself, look for a job. But everything is useless... My parents come to us on the last train, we are together again.
It's already mid-August. As they say, “It’s good to be away, but it’s better to be at home.” Yes, it’s better at home, but there’s war at home... We decide to slowly move closer to home. All this time we continuously followed the news in anticipation that the war would end. And then they announce a truce. That's it, we're going home. Yes, home, yes, we waited!
I am simultaneously overwhelmed with a feeling of joy and fear - I could not attend my husband’s funeral. I’ll come home and he’ll be gone... I didn’t believe in it and didn’t understand. I had to return home through the Russian Federation. And now I understand that I am already approaching home, already very close. It was approximately 20.00. We get home, my parents get out of the car, and I, unable to find a place for myself, get behind the wheel and drive to the cemetery...
After spending the night with my parents, early in the morning I go to my place. And this is my home. The house I left for three endless months. Everything in it is the same as before: the same furniture, the same walls, but emptiness... HIM is not there and will never be there again...
YULIYA
Life will put everything in its place...
This is a story not about how war destroys lives, and not about how much family and friends suffered, and not even about how “they found each other under bomb explosions,” but simply about how life and terrible events put everything in its place. And it doesn’t matter if you think that you will live a happy, long life with one and only such dear person. The war will show WHO IS WORTH WHAT. And indeed, this is exactly what happened in my life.
I left Lugansk at the beginning of June, just on my birthday. My parents and the guy who proposed to me in February insisted on this. Until the last moment, I brushed it off, saying that everything was fine, there weren’t that many military on the streets and no explosions were heard. But still, the family won. I was glad to see my parents, to spend more time with my loved one, but still something constantly haunted me...
Sitting at home and helping with housework, I constantly called friends who remained in the city. “How are you there? Does it bounce a lot? Any news? – these questions have become commonplace when talking on the phone with dear people who remained in surrounded Lugansk. Although it was scary, and my heart was rushing to where the explosions were heard, I remained in my small homeland. Thus, my “sitting out” lasted for three whole months!
It would seem that I should be happy: I am at home, next to my parents, far from explosions and danger. But the soul is not in the right place! How I wanted to go to my truly native city - Lugansk, to at least somehow help the people who remained to defend their native walls. But it’s a pity for the parents - they will worry, worry, but they already have enough from life. But that's a completely different story.
At that time, my boyfriend’s mother had been suffering from cancer for a year, but none of the doctors could indicate the source of the disease. Therefore, on June 31, my fiance (let’s call him A.), like a loving son, hastened to take his mother out of the possible combat zone to the Belgorod region. I wanted to follow my significant other in a week to overcome all this together, but when I learned that they would force me to take refugee status, I paused the moving process a little. Firstly, I couldn’t leave my parents for three whole years. And secondly, she could not leave behind close friends who were left under mortar fire and warlike Lugansk.
If only I knew then what it would cost me! A. accused me of betrayal, of thinking only about myself. Constant accusations, mistrust on the part of my loved one, daily “pseudo news” on Ukrainian channels and self-flagellation for two months brought me to the point where I practically stopped eating, slept poorly and was ready to do anything just to leave Ukraine and live with my boyfriend. a prudent man. “But he told me that this would happen... he warned me... It’s me, stupid, who can’t calculate or think about anything.” And I just listened to my heart...
And so, on the first of September, I went to the Belgorod region, to “enemy” territory, in order to morally and with all my might support my loved one. I will not describe everything that I had to endure over the next month and a half. I’ll just say one thing: I’ve never felt so hard and in pain. I heard about cancer, but I didn’t think that I would have to face it. That feeling when every second you need to be prepared that a person will die.
For a month and a half, A.’s mother was dying in my arms. Cooking, bathing, washing, an injection, support, eating, a pill, an injection again... Then it was worse: hallucinations, sleepless nights, moaning, hospice and the smell of rotting flesh that follows you wherever you go. During this time, the guy’s mother became dear and close to me, but she never became my mother-in-law...
October 8, 9 am - my mother called me and said that my grandfather had died that night. “There’s a funeral at lunchtime,” I hear at the other end of the receiver and intuitively feel how I’m slowly sliding down the wall to the floor.
October 10, 11 o'clock at night - I dozed off a little, but suddenly woke up and saw that my mother had opened her eyes (she had not opened them for 4 days). My instinct told me: “Well, that’s all.” For a whole hour I talked to her and calmed her down, listening to her intermittent breathing. A look into nowhere and only one tear from powerlessness and fear. “Don’t be afraid, I’m close, I’m here,” I repeated until her heart stopped. “23.50,” the nurse stated the time of death...
And then everything just started to fall apart. Pain, lies, betrayal, alcohol, antidepressants... And, in the end, everything ended up in its place: the guy, as planned, remained in Russia, and I, as planned, returned to my hometown of Lugansk to defend the native walls of the university.
During this time, a lot has changed: human values changed their polarity, aspirations changed their vector, priorities were revised. During this time, I also changed: difficulties did not break me, but on the contrary made me stronger. Now I know for sure that I am in the right place and will not move until my hometown and my home university rise like a phoenix from the ashes! I am sure that right now, through troubles and trials, life puts everyone in their place, because each of us has our own role, destined by fate. And no matter how hard it is, we will cope and win, just like back in 45!
VICTORIA
We lived in Novosvetlovka...
War...There is so much pain in this word. Previously, I could not even imagine that such a cruel time would find us. Just a year ago everything was fine: I lived carefree, studied, helped my parents, nursed my younger sister... And then June came. In Stanitsa, tanks and armored personnel carriers rumbled, shots from heavy weapons were heard louder and louder... The father reassured: “It’s very far, daughter, everything will be fine!” We lived in Novosvetlovka...
But one night my mother, sister, and I were horrified... It was something very scary, the windows were shaking from the explosions. It was 11 o’clock at night... Dad called us, the sounds of a siren were heard on the phone - mass panic began in Lugansk... The next day, my sister and I were sitting at home, my mother ran in all in tears with the words: “Dad’s work was hit by a shell, he’s running home.” . A month before, we decided to collect all the essentials, as if we felt trouble... An hour later, my father ran into the house, holding a shell fragment in his trembling hands. We didn’t have time to leave that day. The next day, July 7, at one o'clock in the afternoon, dad took my mother, sister and me to Lugansk.
I cannot convey the feeling I experienced when I took my things, walked through my rooms, remembering the smell of my home... We left. Leaving the village, I remembered every corner of it, then entire houses and streets, a church with a still bright golden dome. We were waiting for the bus to arrive in the direction of Lugansk-Novopskov so we could go to our relatives. The bus arrived... A crowd of people rushed to bring in their bags. The driver ordered strangers to get off - the bus was leaving... Dad touched the window with his hand and whispered: “Everything will be fine, I’ll pick you up in a week...” I cried during the entire 6-hour drive, I couldn’t come to terms with the thought that war would soon overtake us...
Having arrived to visit my relatives, I was still mentally at home; every day we called my dad and grandfather. Until August 4th. On this day, the lights were turned off throughout the village and communications suddenly disappeared. For more than two weeks we had no news of my father. During the war, no more than 200 people remained in Novosvetlovka... All the rest left. I couldn't find a place for myself.
Two weeks later the landline phone rang. It was dad calling... We could only hear fragments of words, but we heard clearly: “The National Guard burst into our door, there are fierce battles in the village...” I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t understand what was happening and blamed myself for not persuading dad to go with us.
I will always remember August 13th. Every evening the news showed the entrance to my village: instead of the sign “Novosvetlovka”, there was the inscription “Zone”. They showed the corpses of buried people, burnt children alive, whose bodies were covered with earth... I was horrified by what I saw, I couldn’t believe that this happened here... I learned more and more information from social networks, looked at a lot of photographs and comments.
On August 28, a friend called me and said: “Your daddy is alive, he is trying to leave Novosvetlovka.” Mom and I were looking forward to his arrival, and then this long-awaited moment came: dad came in limping, his legs were swollen from quickly jumping into the basement. We attacked him. Our conversations lasted all night, he told the whole terrible truth and constantly repeated: “The village no longer exists.”
I listened to recordings from my father’s phone many times, where explosions of hail and other weapons were recorded, but I still did not want to believe that my village no longer existed... In Novosvetlovka, about 200 houses burned down and were hit by shells, and the same number were completely destroyed. We were forced to live in Starobelsk for more than a month, and on September 23 we went home.
The journey home lasted more than 5 hours. We drove into some painfully familiar place, I asked my dad: “Where are we now?” Dad was silent for a long time, and then said: “We’re already home.” Something broke in my soul: about 8 houses were completely destroyed, the dome of the church was no longer the same as before, it was completely black; our summer dance floor was destroyed... I saw my native House of Culture, where I studied for 10 years. He was all black. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. The most exciting moment is when I drive up to the house where my family walls are, everything is so irreplaceable. But I was greeted by only ruins... I couldn’t believe my eyes!
A week later is my birthday. Dad decided to take me to the cultural center. It’s difficult to convey the state of mind when I saw our half-burnt costumes in the dance hall. It was very painful for me to realize that this would no longer happen, there would be no dancing, there would be no noise and joyful meetings with friends before rehearsals, there would be no holiday concerts, there would be no past life...
On the day of arrival, I decided to walk around the entire village with my younger sister. She was silent the whole way, but when we approached the broken garden, Lera began to cry and said: “Where will I play with the children? Did your uncles bomb everything?” Everything turned upside down inside me. It would seem that a 3-year-old child can understand?! She understands a lot and experiences it in her own way.
After returning home, I rethought a lot, truly learned to appreciate EVERYTHING: my mother’s tender hugs, the cheerful laughter of children playing in the yard, the neighbor’s smile, the bright sun, flowers in the field and life. I hope and believe that we will all definitely return to our past peaceful life, restore our burned village and live even BETTER!!!…
FAITH
Mom's shadow
I slept well for the first night in a long time. The last months were filled with torn, heavy dreams: haunted by labyrinths of dark streets, dirty gloomy corridors with water squelching underfoot (like in Tarkovsky’s films), rooms with tightly drawn curtains. And today for the first time I went to the window, pulled the curtain and a view of a sun-drenched beach with green palm trees, blue sky, sea with a light breeze and white-white sand opened up in front of me. I woke up with the confidence that this was not just a dream, but a signal of a turning point in events for the better.
It's been almost a month now that I haven't heard anything about my mother. We are here - and she is in the Red Ray and there is no connection... I think about her, waking up and falling asleep. How did she live this night, this day?
The morning is sunny but cold. As I greet a new day, as usual, I think about my mother. For almost a month and a half we don’t know anything about each other. Only the morning and evening rule serves as our spiritual connection. But today an unusual feeling of joyful excitement does not leave me even at Sunday service. While confession is going on, I make my way to the door to take a breath of cool autumn air. Lyubov Petrovna stops me and leads me to a bench near the wall. I walked up and froze... Mom’s shadow was sitting there. Thin, exhausted, but happy. We spent the rest of the service hugging each other tightly and sobbing.
On the way home, my mother confusedly told how the Ukrainian army entered the village. Having chosen convenient places, they installed heavy guns and fired at Krasny Luch and Anthracite. First of all, they bombed all the factories, mines, everything that could still work.
There was such a spirit of anger and hatred in the air that it was impossible to be on the street, in the yard or in the house. Mom went to live in the basement... The roar of the guns paralyzed the dog and mom carried her in her arms to her shelter. So they lived for almost a month with two cats and a sick dog on one loaf of bread, baked by her the day before, and the supplies that were in the basement. In rare quiet hours, she went outside, lifting the unfortunate dog to get some fresh air.
When the militias chased away the “liberators,” things became calmer. The dog was the first to come to his senses, stood on his feet and began to guard the yard with special zeal.
I really wanted to stop my mother from leaving. But they were already calmer; the territory of the Antratsitovsky and Krasnoluchsky districts was already completely under the control of the militias. There is a water well in the yard, the light has already been repaired. After talking for just a couple of hours, with my heart torn to pieces, I saw my mother off to the bus. In the evening, after circling around a bit, I managed to make a call. Just two words that mom got home safely and I’m calm. Writing down the events of this day, I wonder if this is a dream. Thank God for everything!
MARIA
Along your favorite Dalevskaya Alley...
I could write about my beloved city of Lugansk, which was bombed before my eyes, about the fates of until recently happy people who also collapsed before my eyes.
But I want to talk about the chair. Yes, you were right, it’s about the chair. I want to warn you right away: do not waste your time, do not read further if the war has not touched your soul. You are unlikely to understand what I am writing about.
That morning, I was desperate to take a walk along my favorite Dalevskaya Alley. These were the first days of autumn. That very time when the gentle rays of the sun, falling on the ground, warm everything around, but at the same time it is not hot at all and even a slight freshness is felt. Morning. This morning is probably the most wonderful! Why? Yes, because at night the city seemed to be sleeping. I slept quietly, calmly and woke up not from gunshots, but somehow on my own. Such morning dawns had happened before, each time this silence was only a lull before new trials. And still, every time we hoped and believed that this was the end of the war. There will be no more shelling or air raids, and the city will finally live its normal life...
Yes, the war left its mark on my favorite alley, but this made it even more expensive and nicer, despite its still unpresentable appearance.
The branches of an old tall poplar, wounded by shrapnel, bent over a path strewn with leaves and broken glass, located next door to a school and a cartridge factory. Of course, I was sad to look at this picture, but suddenly I saw something that made me forget about all thoughts and move forward faster. In the distance, from behind the linden branches, a wrought-iron chair could be seen. Previously, I had only seen forged furniture in Kyiv and in one of the central parks of our city, but I could not even think that something similar would appear on my favorite alley. But where does it come from? All payments have been suspended in the city, and suddenly such a gift... This is, of course, great, but now is not the best time for gifts. I came very close to the chair, and all my thoughts stopped abruptly - I realized that it was not a forged chair at all, but a charred chair, probably from a security agency located across the street from the alley... There were some silent thoughts in my head - it would seem that this not the saddest picture that I have seen recently, and it seems that the history of this chair is not at all difficult to imagine, but for some reason in my memory, against the background of broken windows, shelled fences, destroyed walls, the picture with a charred chair and a pile of ash underneath.
At the end of September it became noticeably colder - the city was engulfed in disaster for several days. Hurricane wind coupled with rain... Morning. The street calmed down a little, the downpour gave way to light rain. Usually people don’t like this kind of weather - wet, cold, gray, sad... But I don’t see any reason to be sad at all - this is real autumn. An umbrella will save you from rain and wind, your favorite coat will save you from the cold, and a bright scarf, handbag or just a yellowed leaf will add color to the autumn palette that seems boring at first glance. Therefore, for me, the autumn rain is not at all a reason to refuse walks. It’s been almost quiet in our city for three weeks now, only sometimes machine gun fire and single shots can be heard, but compared to what it was before, it’s quiet now. The city has noticeably livened up - there are many more cars on the streets, in some places there are even traffic lights, shops are opening, goods are being updated, there are a lot of people everywhere... I again walk along my favorite alley. The tree that was hit by the shell was cut down and removed. True, branches are again scattered on the paths, but these are more likely the consequences not of shelling, but of strong winds.
There is much less glass on the paths than there used to be. My gaze involuntarily searches for that very chair that is so firmly etched in my memory. But, alas, he is not here. Was this the figment of my tired, tired imagination? And it’s true: who and why needed to take the charred chair out into the alley? I had almost convinced myself that there was no chair, and even the photo I took on my phone seemed like a fiction to me. But suddenly my eye was caught by a bright spot on the road next to the alley. It was a red rag, as if warning drivers: “be careful, funnel!” And this rag was tied to... what do you think? - to that same charred chair. I smiled involuntarily. Why did I suddenly feel so happy? The answer came when the alley was left behind, and I was already walking along one of my favorite streets in the old part of the city. Until quite recently, there were practically no people here, and the only things that stood out were shards of glass on the road, broken shop windows, a destroyed restaurant and a damaged museum. Due to the leaves and fallen chestnuts, it seems that there are fewer craters in the asphalt. The buildings are still destroyed, but there are noticeably more people on the street.
Unfortunately, seeing a smiling face is now a rarity. People are tired, exhausted, confused. Probably everyone here was touched by the war. She brought problems and inconvenience to everyone, changed plans, and left her bitter imprint. But, despite this “imprint”, life must go on! The war “burned” us, changed us, but we remained unbroken and unconquered, and even if it is impossible to return to our old life, we need to look for ourselves, like a burnt chair on Dalevskaya Alley, but, under no circumstances, not give up and not stop!
DIANA
“There is my home!”
I never thought about whether I loved my city - there was simply no need for that... I wandered the streets, not paying much attention to their architecture... I rested in the parks, not noticing the numerous sculptures and monuments... I left Lugansk for a while summer holidays, admired the beauty of resort towns, enjoyed the climate of the southern latitudes and envied the “residents there” for their opportunity to enjoy such luxury all the time...
Somehow fate gave me the chance to live in another country - developed, successful, rich... In another city - big, clean, well-groomed... For three years I tried to understand a foreign culture, tried to respect other people's traditions, was forced to speak a foreign language... I often I didn’t understand my interlocutors, and it was difficult for them to understand me... And all because I was a stranger to them, and they were a stranger to me... I realized that it was the status of “stranger” that gave rise to numerous complexes in me and prevented me from being happy. There was only one consolation: at any moment I could return home, to my people, because every time I left my homeland, I did it of my own free will, of my own free will, not forever, for a while...
But one day I was forced to leave my hometown. And what scared me most was that this time - forever!!! The reason for this was the war - unexpected, absurd, terrible...
And now I am safe... physically, but at the same time I was haunted by questions: “Where is it worse: in my own basement under the endless roar of Grads and Smerchs or under someone else’s peaceful sky?”, “Where is it calmer: in an endless queue for drinking water under your own entrance or in a crowd of unemployed people at the labor exchange of someone else’s regional center?”
There, “safe”, we became a serious problem for them... They were reluctant to rent out housing to us, having seen the registration in our passport... For the same reason, employers “politely” refused us... They were always irritated by our Donbass accent, and now they cannot forgive us for the war , for which, in their opinion, we are to blame...
We don't argue. Can not. We have no right! Because we are there, with them! We are deprived of the most valuable thing we had, we are deprived of our foundation - our Motherland! And so we became somehow “absurd”, “wrong”, “defective”: we didn’t hear something, we didn’t understand someone, we took a wrong turn, we didn’t find the right street - we’re not locals!
We cannot be outraged by the impolite treatment of us - “the refugees were not given a word”! And we can’t get sick! They are annoyed by our complaints. They treat us reluctantly. And we don’t get treatment—medicines don’t take us! And it's not about the climate. We need something different: we could breathe our own air and feel better!
We went there in the summer in shorts and flip-flops, somehow collecting the most necessary things under fire... And already the leaves were yellow, and the puddles were freezing at night...
They should have seen how we cried over the things that arrived in crumpled parcels from our homeland! In our new, “saved from war” life, we unpack them with shaking hands and bury our faces in them... Our things smell like home! It is difficult for them to understand what it means to smell the aroma of a past that does not exist...
There is no past... But there is a FUTURE!!! That's why I'm returning to my hometown, no matter what! I am surprised by the question asked at one of the many checkpoints: “By what route are you going to Lugansk?” And I proudly answer: “That’s my home!”
And here they are – our native streets! Here they are, houses and high-rise buildings, wounded, tormented, but not conquered! And “A Man with a Torch”, and Voroshilov on a horse... And Shevchenko, and Lenin, who were able to find a common language with each other and get along well in the central squares in the very heart of the city... And no one threw them off their pedestals, tortured or mutilated them !!!
Here they are, my dear fellow countrymen! Workers! Patriots! They bake bread, teach children, save the wounded, mine coal... They have no time to “jump” - there are more important things to do: we need to restore the city, our city - Lugansk!
INSTEAD OF THE AFTERWORK
(from returnees)
VLAD
"Hohlocracy" in Kiev
Ochlocracy is a form of distorted democracy, subject to the wishes of the crowd.
After reflecting on my experience for a long time, I decided that I was not going to write about the horrors of war - a lot has already been said about this. For fans of explosions, action and blood, please stop reading now and look it up on the Internet. I have prepared another horror story for you, much more interesting. The horror story that gave birth to this war and continues to this day. The essence of the story is not in bullets flying in our direction, tanks, MLRS or other military delights. Much more terrible than this is the ugly consciousness of those who call for a fight against the “separatists” and participate in personal armchair troops, infecting people with the epidemic of “jumping from the Maidan” and spitting poison at everyone who disagrees with them.
My stay in the capital city of Kyiv lasted almost six months. During this time I managed to see and hear enough. There’s a lot that still doesn’t fit into my head. During these six months, I dared to make a full-fledged diagnosis, which I gave to many of my new and old acquaintances based on the symptoms that indicate those who are infected.
Each guest remembers the city differently, but for me this point on the map has since had its own associations: the ubiquitous “yellow-black” colors, in which almost everything is repainted: from fences and walls to curbs and railings. They seemed to cover everything with an ugly veil, and after a couple of months of my visit they caused a severe attack of epilepsy. I often came across the famous chants: “Glory to Ukraine - glory to the heroes!”, “Ukraine above all”, “Glory to the nation - death to the enemies”, written on every “zhovto-blakit” fence, intended for those with an IQ lower than that very “swidom” the plinth to which their personality has fallen. I also saw the cleaning on the Maidan, after which for another month the remnants of the “national year” jumpers wandered around Khreshchatyk in search of alms, spreading patriotism through incense. It seems that they have become accustomed to reaching out for handouts ever since the distribution of buns from Victoria Nuland, which became a habit and became the only way for their miserable existence. All of them are simply obsessed with “Ukrainian fashion” and certainly try to flaunt it. Stalls with ribbons, passport covers, flags and other “very necessary” utensils are on every corner.
At times, it began to seem as if the Cossack forelocks had sprouted and taken root in the brain, passing through the nervous system, simultaneously degenerating self-esteem and causing a craving for irresistible aggression. So, during the Lugansk Zarya match, I saw several ex-friends infected with the same disease, called “hochlocracy”. Their endless “Whoever doesn’t gallop, he’s a Muscovite,” jumps, screams merged into one stream and caused seismic activity in my subconscious, leading to pure shock. But the culmination of everything was a song from ultra fans. I will not write the text, since censorship and moral convictions do not allow it. By the middle of the match, I had a desire to run away and not look at this crowd of people stricken with the “yellow-blakite” disease. Time passed, the crowd rejoiced, and I sat on the podium, feeling horror and pity, realizing that it was no longer possible to help them.
While in Kyiv, I studied at an elite Russian-language gymnasium, which is one of the 5 best in the capital, and is located near the Russian embassy. The word “gymnasium” brings to mind images of well-mannered schoolchildren participating in Olympiads and various competitions, intelligent teachers teaching the younger generations kindness and friendship. This image was quite suitable for my educational institution. However, all these qualities were crossed out for me by general hatred and anger. Here's one incident I'd rather forget. War is terrible not only because people die in it, but also because the human element in people dies. A striking example is a physical education teacher who, as it turned out, retrained as a specialist in geopolitical issues and received a bunch of scientific degrees in higher educational institutions, simultaneously mastering history and all branches of law. During the lesson, some unknown stupidity made me argue with him. In return, I received a weekly dose of bile and aggression addressed to the residents of Donbass. After talking with him for 10 minutes, I realized that the case of “hochlocracy” is very serious. And one day my classmate, a “separatist” like me, briefly told me: “Be silent, or they’ll just kill you.” And I had to listen to her advice. From then on, I felt like a real intelligence officer on a mission. One awkward word or, God forbid, an argument could cost me at least an “arrow” after class, and at most a more serious showdown.
“All war propaganda, all the screams, lies and hatred, always come from people who will not go to this war.” These words belong to George Orwell, the writer who gave the world the concept of the Cold War. If he had guessed then, he would be right. I knew many “patriots” who, after saying “As soon as the war starts, I will be the first to go kill the damned separatists!” fled from their hometown. Now all these people feel very good in Kharkov, Kyiv, Dnepropetrovsk and in the north of our Lugansk region...
But this is only for the better, my friends! Let them not pollute the air and scream and jump somewhere far away from here. They are foreign to me. “Svidomite nationalists” are a real disease that spreads throughout the world by airborne droplets, which later turns into real metastases. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know a cure for this. But to me they all seem small and pitiful with souls mutilated through crooked broken mirrors, now lying somewhere under the “yellow-black” plinth.
During these painfully long months spent in the “yellow-black wonderland”, stricken by the “hochlocracy” in Kiev, I realized a lot, masks fell away and new, previously unseen horizons opened up. This time has made it clear enough... Many are perplexed when they learn that I have returned to the “ATO” zone, they ask many questions, like: “Banana republic, what will you do next? This is the second Abkhazia, they shoot there, it’s dangerous there!” To be honest, I'm already tired of them and don't even pay attention. But when asked what I will do, I answer with a slight smile and the words: “Study, live, do good!”
PAUL
Winter 2014: news release on the Rossiya 24 channel. We heard that a group of protesters had gathered on the Maidan, wanting to overthrow the government and join the EU. Then no one could even think about what would happen in the near future.
At the end of May we were graduating and were busy planning our summer time, not knowing what would happen later. I remember this day very clearly: on the second of June we stood on the threshold of the school and were talking, it was at that moment that a military plane flew over us... This day was the first in a series of terrible events that happened in my city: the death of Russian journalists, the bombing of the Regional State Administration, the beginning massive shelling of the city. It was after this that we parted ways. True, I also managed to catch the shelling. Our area was shelled the most, so we moved to the city center and lived on the top floor of a multi-story building. From there, every evening I saw how the city was shelled: pockets of fire and clouds of smoke rose from different points in the area. When the shelling subsided, I turned on the TV and watched the Ukrainian news, which said that the separatists were shelling their own houses every hour and killing their own civilians.
This is how aggression arose in the hearts of my former fellow citizens, who allowed themselves to be programmed into hatred and hostility towards Donbass. In the first couple of days, I was surprised, angry, wanted justice... We were surprised at everything that was happening in Ukraine: what the new government was doing, people who, like zombies, absorbed everything they were told. My former friends told me: “I will come and shoot you, separatist, and your entourage; your Lugansk will obey us; Lugansk is Ukraine.” It was funny to me, they reminded me of small dogs yapping at a huge hibernating bear, while everything that was happening was waking him up step by step. Later we began to take it for granted - a riot in a madhouse and nothing more.
So I spent a week and went to Moscow, and then to Crimea, living there for about two months. Dad and grandfather stayed in Lugansk to guard the house. Every news from my city was very exciting; dad only got in touch late at night for a few minutes and from a certain place. It also happened that there were no calls from him for about two weeks, and at that time the city was shelled very heavily. We were very afraid, but we hoped that everything was okay with our relatives. Later they reported that everything was fine, that there were simply problems with communication...
Living in different cities of Russia, I saw the attitude towards our situation. People were very responsive. Donbass aid points were deployed throughout Moscow, all people sympathized and treated this situation with understanding. Crimea, which had many of its own problems, provided all possible assistance. Let's put it this way: in all the cities I visited, I saw responsive and reasonable people who understood what was happening and who was to blame.
Living far from home, every day I wanted to go back more and more, especially since my relatives remained there. Dad came to see us several times, when he left again, we wanted to go home even more, we could no longer and did not want to stay in a foreign land! Our dear and sweet home was much more desirable, no matter what. But according to dad, it was still too early to return, we had to wait... Time passed very slowly. No matter what a foreign city is, it cannot replace your native one. Although many things lifted the mood: various marches took place in honor of the reunification of Crimea with Russia, rallies in support of Donbass...
And now that long-awaited day has come: we are standing at the Kerch crossing, with several hundred kilometers left to go home. We crossed the border and I saw my native land, my native views, and at the same time the first destroyed house, blown up tanks, and a burnt out car. The atmosphere of the ball was frightening, to put it mildly, but I was in my homeland, so I accepted it all. I’m at home, I’m in my hometown, in my home – this is the main thing! And I hope that I will never leave him for such a long time again.
When we entered the city, my feelings were mixed: I was filled with joy, but I was amazed at the destruction I saw; the city was cut up. But this was scary only at first. After all, everything is in our power. The main thing is to believe in this - and we will rebuild and restore our city. Now this is our common duty.
EVGENIA
How can you fall in love, my Kiev...
Once upon a time, quite recently, I loved him. She loved like a child sincerely and without expectation of reciprocity. She loved the picturesque slopes of the Dnieper with the golden shine of the domes of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, its quiet streets and cozy cafes, alluring with the smell of coffee and the good-natured smiles of young waitresses, she loved the monumental buildings of Khreshchatyk, striking in their power and strength, and well-groomed parks, buried in flowers, and the Motherland -mother, majestically towering over the hero city as a symbol of its indestructibility.
It made me feel comfortable, homely, warm and cozy. But my love, living in every corner of my heart and, as it seemed to me, doomed to eternity, was cut short and suddenly shattered into smithereens... All that remained was the pain that tirelessly pursued me and intensified with every second, with every minute, with every hour of my stay in it, a city that once seemed to me the best in the world.
Kyiv became chillingly cold and alien in the summer of 2014. In the midst of the war. A couple of days after arriving from the already wounded and deserted Lugansk, I met an old friend of mine, an intelligent young woman with an academic rank and degree, who, in response to my story about the horrors of the war experienced and hundreds of dead Ukrainian soldiers and civilians (then, according to the official version of the riverine officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, their there were only a few) declared, smiling: “Singingly, for the sake of the purification of the nation, such sacrifices are required...”. The words hit the temple like a hammer and froze with a silent question: “Where does such cynicism and inhumanity come from?”
And there was also a young man on the tram who was animatedly discussing the situation in the Donbass with the conductor, a blonde woman with a dirty, shabby manicure. “Well, well, Putin, having taken Crimea from us, now wants to take back Donbass,” the right-wing patriot declared with knowledge of the matter. “The people there are absolutely worthless (Russian), and THE EARTH IS SORRY.” I don’t know what was written on my face when I turned around and looked straight at this nonentity of a man, but he fell silent abruptly. And I also wanted to see this “champion of national interests” somewhere on the front line in combat boots and a helmet, and not with a bottle of beer in his hands, but with a machine gun, and not with the sound of tram wheels, but with the roar of artillery guns. And then ask: “Do you really only feel sorry for the land now?”
And there was a holiday. Real Ukrainian Independence Day. Kyiv was drowned in the yellow and blue decoration of flags, buildings, fences, pillars and even curbs. And for some reason, no one was embarrassed that the townspeople and guests of the capital stood with their feet on the colors of the symbol of the state! The embroidered shirts on the jubilant children, their parents, gray-haired old men and very young teenagers were striking in their number and variety of colors and designs. And how amazing the wreaths looked - symbols of girlish innocence - on the freshly painted heads of aging Kiev women! Children dancing and singing at improvised concert venues, couples of lovers walking along Maidan and Khreshchatyk, curious tourists - everyone around them radiated general joy and happiness!
And at the same time, just 824 kilometers from the festive action, in Lugansk, for several days without water and light, hiding in basements from artillery shelling, children and old people continued to survive, soldiers of the militia and the Armed Forces of Ukraine died. AND Kyiv CELEBRATED INDEPENDENCE DAY!
I walked along one of the Kyiv squares, sadly looked at the people passing by me and did not understand HOW CAN THEY HAVE FUN AND REJOICE when grief, death, war are nearby?! And suddenly a gentle and incredibly touching melody of the anthem of Kyiv poured out of the speaker:
Sleep in a tired place
Peaceful, good sleep.
Gene vogni, yak nasto,
Bloomed over the Dnieper.
Vechoriv oxamity,
Mov schasya pribiy...
How can you not love
Kiev my!
How soulful these lines sounded not so long ago, and how unnatural and cynical they seemed in August 14th. The “peaceful sleep” of Kyiv, the “velvet” of its evenings, was dissonant with the deathly silence of deserted Lugansk, which was regularly permeated by explosions and the roar of artillery installations. The question involuntarily arose: why in a country that positions itself as “UNITED COUNTRY”, hundreds of people die, among them PROTECTIONLESS ELDERLY PEOPLE AND CHILDREN, while at the same time the other, PEACEFUL part of Ukraine is having a carefree and fun time? Why did thousands of Kiev residents bring water, hot tea, food and warm clothes to the damned Maidan, filled half of Universitetskaya Street with funeral candles in memory of the “sacred victims” of the “Heavenly Hundred”, and none of them thought of at least trying to convey to the civilians of Donbass water or bread, and hold their favorite “fun” - a funeral ceremony - in memory of the dead peaceful “separatists” of Lugansk and Donetsk? Why did the mothers and wives of Ukrainian army soldiers outside the walls of the Ministry of Defense shout: “Give our children bulletproof vests and armor,” and not a single woman asked to stop this ridiculous fratricidal war? Why did prosperous, largely successful people become soulless and cruel?
I couldn't find the answer. But I realized one thing for myself: there is no more Kyiv, there is no Ukraine, broad, welcoming, kind and people, which I loved so tenderly and devotedly. Probably everything was lost on the long, thorny path to Europe.
But Lugansk remained, which became closer and dearer to me this summer. What remains is the house into which people close to me have invested their strength and soul for years, who experienced grief together with their city and did not lose heart. I decided to return there, to the exhausted and suffering city, which was already being called a “ghost”, “the second Pripyat”, because now it is more right for me to be here than in the well-fed, peaceful pro-European Kyiv.
How will I ever be able to love you again, my Kiev?
IRINA
“The road home begins from the Izvarino checkpoint...”
A journalist from one of the Russian channels greeted us with this famous phrase when we were returning home with a large crowd to Lugansk... Everyone who stood on the border these days left at the beginning of summer to the sounds of the first bombings and watched what was happening from the side: from Internet, TV and telephone messages from acquaintances, direct eyewitnesses of those terrible events. Whether we were traitors, cowards, refugees or simply cowardly, it is now difficult to say; everyone determined their status for themselves. Has it been easy for us all this time? Of course, it was incomparably easier for us than for those who remained in besieged Lugansk, but was it easy in the constantly oppressive unknown?
I left after fighters moved into the school next to my mother’s house (they brought in heavy equipment, took aim at night, set up trip wires in the gardens). Like many, we went to Crimea, on vacation, to wait, it turned out - for 3 endless months.
The peculiarities of national compassion appeared already at the station: endless crowds of people - there are no tickets, but along the chain it is transmitted: “They are taking everyone!” (train directors help everyone leave on the third berths of Soviet reserved seats at 450 UAH per seat (with a cost of 90 UAH)). But everyone is grateful for the sympathy, especially the 5th carriage - women and children who miraculously escaped from besieged Slavyansk. One of them, with three grimy, hungry children, apologetically says that she spent all the time in the basement under the bombings, she only has 600 hryvnia with her, the conductor nods sympathetically, taking the money, “nothing, we’ll take everyone!”
A new experience was passing through Ukrainian customs at the entrance to Crimea: in 40 degree heat with the windows closed (they simply do not open due to old age) and the doors were checked for 4 hours. By some miracle, a young ice cream seller broke into the carriage, from whom the customs officer began to demand a travel ticket, to which she sympathetically said: “Then check everyone’s tickets!”
Crimea also presents a rather strange sight: the previous owners have already left, and the new ones have not yet returned: the empty eyes of numerous Ukrainian ATMs, Ukrainian products at triple the price in rubles, abandoned boarding houses with the remains of furniture - Ukrainian service at Russian prices! The crowd by the sea is just as funny: from “Svidomo” wealthy Donetsk residents waiting for the victory of the national guard in the now Russian Crimea, to girls in red miniskirts selling discounts on housing for “refugees from Slavyansk.”
It so happened that all the vacationers in our yard are my friends from Lugansk: me and my mother, my colleague with her son, daughter-in-law and two young children, her brother with his wife and child, their parents, who left Lugansk on the last train. At first, our meeting is perceived as a summer vacation, but with the development of events in Lugansk, everything changes dramatically. Every morning begins with a summary of battles, attempts to call relatives and friends, find out how they are, and support them. Paradoxical situations often arise: sitting on the beach, you miraculously get through to your friends, and in response you hear: “everything is fine with us, but there is no light, water and... here they are shooting from Grads again, don’t worry, everything is fine, we ran to the basement...” . It’s a strange feeling: they are in the basement and everything is fine, but I’m on the beach and I’m hysterical!
From the moment the connection was lost, it became even worse: every morning begins with searching for news on the Internet and discussing them together with the whole yard. To somehow distract yourself, you hit yourself on the cheeks: you need to go to the sea! The sea is like going to work, it’s terrible... In the evening there’s no escape either. Neither a common feast, nor walks along the night shore, nor the melancholy Ukrainian songs of aunts just like us, sung on the beach along with alcoholic drinks, warm us up.
All this time you are trying to decide who you are: a citizen of Ukraine, which no longer exists, a cowardly refugee, a cowardly temporary migrant? Are these events the collapse of your entire previous life or a unique chance, new opportunities? The strangest thing is that neither you nor your friends in misfortune can understand this, cannot decide on their new status, or become at least some kind of internal account. We stick to one mental phrase: “We’ll wait, it will happen somehow,” but every day we understand that waiting and hoping is a sure way to go crazy.
Before the war, I dreamed of living by the sea. Well, maybe this is a chance to start a different life? It seems that the “transition period” in Crimea is a lot of new opportunities. I'm trying to look for a job in my specialty. The results are zero. You can’t complete your service or teach: “there’s no citizenship, and there’s nowhere to put ‘our own people’, everyone is undergoing re-certification (yes, as if they were going to be launched into space); you can still get married fictitiously...” No, thank you, this is completely disgusting... Yes, the new Crimea is a lot of new opportunities, perhaps, but not for people like us, who have fallen out of the scope of the old life. Everyone is stuck in the same unfortunate status – internal and external. Summer is ending, something needs to be decided.
The news is still only TV and the Internet. On the website “Our City - Lugansk VKontakte” a video about the town brings me to tears... But there is other news: on Sunday shells hit our university: the new assembly hall, library, dormitory, parade ground... For the first time I felt that it was very close, real , it became somehow scary that everything had changed, I didn’t think that I would miss Lugansk so much. But hopes remain hopes...
Another week ends, and the cart is still there. I hope that the next week will determine something and clarify the situation, but for now I’m learning the basics of gardening, pruning roses, and trying to take care of my nervous system. The feeling that I am in an ambush... It’s sad, I want certainty. To reassure my mother, I went to the migration office: they said, think about how to process you. It’s easy to say, I’ve been thinking since May - I can’t make up my mind... Today again everyone said “we are for peace,” but they still shoot as they shoot. But I still can’t decide how to live further... It’s already cool at sea, I go every other time. I try my best to dive for those who have left, but the sea is restless, angry, as if it’s tired of me. I hope to try to get home in a week, and then I’ll give the cry to the others to come back. The forced holidays are still ongoing. Soon everything will end in one direction, then we’ll start raking it up.
Finally, news from work: certified employees will report to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Severodonetsk on Monday-Tuesday for further service. And whoever doesn’t show up is nobody’s fault. It’s strange, but after 18 years of service, I don’t see myself among them, it turns out that they don’t see me either.
But all this will happen later: the road along the burned-out Novosvetlovka, and my broken apartment with a burnt-out refrigerator that was not divided during the divorce, and a dismissal report written in the grass on the heating main along with the same colleagues with all ranks and regalia... And now I’m standing on At the Izvarino checkpoint, and ahead is the flag of the LPR and cheerful bearded guys checking Lugansk registration in Ukrainian passports.
I don’t want to decide anything anymore, how it will be is how it will be. I am returning to “LuganDonia,” as former Minister of Internal Affairs Lutsenko put it, because for me, like for many, it is more honest to live here than in the current “pro-European” Ukraine, because we had a unique chance in the middle of our lives to start all over again, having finally decided on his status as a resident of the “New Country”. And like for many, for me this “road home begins from the Izvarino checkpoint...”.
INSTEAD OF THE AFTERWORK
TATYANA
Once again I was convinced that history goes in a spiral, including the story of my life. In the early 90s, the country (USSR) began to fall apart. After a period of relative personal well-being (I am a young associate professor, deputy dean, with a good salary, I allow myself to travel abroad, even to social countries on youth vouchers), I found myself below the plinth. Dad wanders around hospitals, mom is bedridden (serious problems with her legs have begun), I have no money and am always hungry. I started selling what I could to the second-hand shop and worked part-time where I could. It seems to have raked out. I moved to another university and became financially stronger. I again began to allow myself to travel abroad (further away, to Turkey and Greece), pamper myself with various delicacies, go to a fairly expensive salon for a haircut, a massage, and drink Italian and Spanish wines. And, for you, we’ve arrived!
Again the country is falling apart, again the mother is lying down (this time absolutely motionless), again there is no money. New factors have just been added, both pros and cons. Cons: no work; a very uncertain political outlook (up to the resumption of civil war); age + twenty years; there are no old friends nearby who could help. But there are also advantages: I already have experience of surviving in a similar situation, so I stocked up on food supplies; I have enough clothes and shoes for several years to come; In principle, I have a pension that may be paid; I have a grown-up niece and new friends. But, most importantly, I have faith that the situation will normalize! Some kind of irrational feeling that everything will settle down. Of course, I don’t hope for French wines and a trip to Spain yet, but I believe that I will have both a job and a normal life. You just need to believe, and everything will be so!!!
In May, before the war, I managed to visit Cyprus. During one of the excursions we went to the Turkish part of the island. We were shown the city of Famagusta. Before the occupation it was a famous resort. After the north of the island was captured by the Turks, the Greeks left the city. No one lives there, the houses stand with broken windows, and in some places destroyed. Famagusta became a dead city... In August, during particularly heavy shelling of Lugansk, when I went out with Jem for a walk and walked along the absolutely deserted Soviet and Oboronnaya streets, I remembered this expression - “dead city”. I was scared that Lugansk could turn into the Ukrainian Famagusta...
I'll stop writing these notes. A lot of new worries have appeared, although some old ones have disappeared. But free time has become even less. And I got the feeling that I wouldn’t say anything fundamentally new to those who would read these lines. The main thing is that I see that Lugansk is alive! Wounded, tortured, he still did not become Famagusta. And let them say that it will not be reborn, that there is nothing to do here, you need to leave here. I decided for myself: this is my city! I'll stop writing these notes. They were about the war, the war is over, I really hope it’s over forever...
DIARIES OF "SEPARATISTS"
Lugansk 2016
UDC 821.161.1-94 BBK 84(2Ros=Rus)ya43 D-54
Diaries of “separatists” / edited by. ed. Zh.V. Marfina, I.G. Skibs: in two languages (Russian, English). – Lugansk: “Alma Mater”, 2016. – 280 p.
The book contains memories of residents of the city of Lugansk about the military events of the summer of 2014. It reflects real events, real feelings and destinies of people who experienced a common misfortune in Lugansk and beyond.
© Team of authors, 2016
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