I work in a regional hospital, in an operating room. COVID-19 was felt, they went to the hospital in protective suits and masks, in everything. Already at the end of 2021, they planned to go with the children to Kryvyi Rih. We have a relative there. We last went to her in 2018. There are careers, we really liked them there. When hostilities ended in Kolychivka, she invited us there. As long as we thought, they got worse there now than we do.

News was read on Telegram channels, watched TV. It's just that no one could believe that this could happen. Although the war was already going on in the east of Ukraine.

I was on a shift on February 23rd [2022]. We work in the agency for changes: a day at work, three days at home. My first day when I left my vacation was February 23.

I remember that we had planned operations, and then in the evening it so happened that an ambulance brought patients one by one. We only went to rest without twenty-two nights, as we know that we will get up at 6 in the morning to prepare the operating room for scheduled operations. They dozed off a little, maybe 30 minutes, another doctor comes to us and says that the war has started. They immediately said that everyone who was on the shift remains in their cities. No one goes home, they didn't know what the situation was.

Mother and girls stayed at home. At that time, the younger one was 7 years old, and the older one was 9. I started to worry myself. I think: "Well, that's if they leave here, and mom, children are at home". It was only because the man came home from the shift in the morning that he became a little calmer.

Somewhere after 9 o'clock, when the doctors' five-minute session ended, they said that while the situation was stable, those who were on duty could go home. After three days he returns to work.

I went outside, went through Remzavod. I felt so scared, people are panicking, there are queues everywhere. Mom called to buy at least some bread. Wherever I go, it's the turn. We were called that the minibus to Ivanivka no longer runs. It was lucky that an acquaintance called and asked where you could buy food for dogs, some cereal to stock up on. I say that we have such a stall in the village, you can there. That's how she took me to Kolychivka.

On the first day of February 24, we collected warm things and water, as we said everything in the news. On the 24th-25th, we didn't hear anything particularly like that here. Already later, probably on the 26th, there were explosions here.

In the first days, we and our neighbors opposite were thinking about where to hide. Their cellar is also small, but there were a lot of people there. We have a house here through the yard, no one lives there. We know there is a cellar there. They came, sat down in that cellar, we were probably a man 11.

When they were shooting somewhere nearby from the evening, and that cellar is old. We have seen that the fittings are filled with a thin layer of concrete, there are no doors. They sat there for two nights, but it was very cold. Then, after all, my mother says: "Our cellar is good, deep, just under the shed. And I was afraid that if anything, if the barn was knocked down, we would not get out of the cellar". We took up ourselves, gathered, came to our cellar.

In the morning, my husband and I started wearing some stitches, chairs, foam plastic, and they made beds for the children. Water was applied, canned, potatoes were boiled in uniforms. My mother and I took two chairs there. They found an old heater, took an extension cord and lowered it, it was already a little warmer. At 9-10 o'clock in the evening, they gathered and went down to the cellar, sat there until 5 in the morning. We were at home until March 8. On the 5th, we stayed in the cellar for almost a whole day.

On March 6, they came to the house to prepare a snack, make tea in a thermos, and warm up a little in the house. Already at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, a very large shelling began. We couldn't leave the house until we got somewhere in the meadow that there was smoke. Then we had 15 minutes to go down to the cellar, and my mother walks very badly. Everything walked in the cellar. Children were covered with clothes. When we got out, we had all the slate hanging in our shed. There were ceilings in the house, the hallway window was lying in the house. In the morning, the first thing they did was to clog the windows. We didn't have time to kill it, shelling began again. It's just our happiness that the neighbors' son-in-law came and took us and them to school in the basement.

When we were going to the school basement, we took only clothes and documents with us. They thought that they had returned home in the evening. On March 8, those who had lost their houses, those from the central street where the fighting was going on, came there.

It was very cold at school. Then they made such a platform from the beds where we slept. The carriages were in the basement, so we put them on the beds.

There were two such men who agreed to go to Chernihiv for bread. We had people in the village who gave dairy products. My husband and I took us down the street where the old women were. Dogs, cats, and neighborhood chickens were also fed on their street.

My girls are used to washing and washing every evening. At home, when there was time, it was a little quieter on the street, and we still had a light, first of all, we will wash them. They also tried to wash them at school. We rarely let children out. It was sunshine, the children came out for a while, and we saw how dirty they are with our face, hands, clothes. It was as if they were washing... We were also lucky that the teacher Nataliya Petrivna Sashina lived not far from the school. When it was quiet outside, children were taken to her bathroom to wash. Her husband put water in a bucket, heated it, and we agreed on how long to come. Then I could wash a little there.

Later they found out that we still have gas at home. While we went around all the yards, fed chickens and dogs, the water heated up. I'm in the bathroom ‒ to wash quickly. Mom didn't go home. There was a room in the school basement, no one lived there. So we were already heating the water, and in that room she was helped to wipe her body.

Now my mother bought an autoclave and began to make a strategic reserve. We started making canned fish, and then we had weft stews in the fall. Now they also started buying rice, buckwheat, pearl barley and are constantly stocking themselves. It was difficult. Firstly, while they took root in school, secondly, it was difficult to prepare food.

Somehow we were going to go home early at about 6 in the morning. One soldier came to our school, gathered all the people, and says that the Russian troops have left, so that everyone can return to their homes if anyone has one. It was April 1. People did not leave for a long time because they were afraid. We were already at home on April 2.

We do not build plans. Maybe you think something somewhere, but you are afraid to speak out loud. You don't know what it will be here. If something happens again, my mother, as always, says that she will not go anywhere. I will not leave my job. When she arrived, she listened to her colleagues, how difficult it was for them. When so many wounded were brought in, it was such that they operated without light at the lanterns.

You know, a little, as you can tell, my conscience gnawed at the fact that I was not with them at that moment, that I could not reach Chernihiv. People did it around the clock. They took their children (there is a good bomb shelter there), they were in bomb shelters, and the medics worked.

So we are not going anywhere far. I will work with the children in the hospital, and my mother and husband will look after the household.

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