In general, I was born not in Ukraine, but in distant Tajikistan, in the city of Dushanbe. Until the age of 15, she lived there with her parents. My grandfather and grandmother were there. But in the 90s, we started a conflict.

In order to protect my sister and I, because I have a younger sister by 12 years, my mother took us away. My stepfather was a military pensioner. Mother also worked in the accounting department in the military unit and they had the opportunity to simply take us out of the republic by military planes.

When I came to Ukraine, I was 15, then in December I turned 16 and I was left a person without a passport. Therefore, for another five years, I had to prove that I was not just someone who came there, but also ran with a residence permit. 

I met a full-scale invasion here in Sloboda with three children. My husband, with whom we are divorced, but maintain relations, came to us from Ivanivka. At that time, all my children studied in Chernihiv, because the level of education there was more acceptable for me. I can't say I was bad here, but I had my own vision. And additional education at a music school. It coincided so purely logistically. There were plans to change jobs. Before that, I had planned a cosmetic repair. Here. It was accelerated for me.

And on the 24th? I watched these marathons there at night. Already tired of being nervous. I understood that if there was something, all I could do was stock up on water. I collected alarming handbags, alarming suitcases, and I just looked at the situation, watched, because I didn't really believe that it would all start.

On the 24th, my children got up, my mother is still sleeping there. They, protecting a sound sleep, left, boarded a bus and went to the city together with our fellow villagers. And then my friend calls me and says, "Lida, the war has begun". I call my children urgently and say: "Yes, wherever you are, stop the bus and return on foot. You shouldn't have gone far yet". They have already left the settlement.

As a clubwoman, I ran here to the starostat. We constantly monitored events on Suspilny, Telegram channels. They didn't know what to do. At that time, we still had a TV, there was a light and we were just terrified.

We have a warehouse where people brought everything possible. We were on duty here. Since I live very close by, it wasn't burdensome for me.

Of course, I didn't sleep the first night from the 24th to the 25th. She was scared, we saw some kind of rocket. She put the children to bed, and she herself was on chairs, the computer was turned on nearby and I constantly monitored the situation, tried to be at least somehow in line with the events. And then suddenly something flew by, jumped up and ran after the children, pulled them out of their beds, pulled these same backpacks, all this into the cellar. Today I understand that it was not equipped for our stay at all, although I put water supplies and candles there.

On the 3rd, the light was already gone. The first thing that certainly confused us was the contents of our refrigerators. Something had to be urgently extinguished, something just thrown away.

The meat they were able to eat was stewed. Somehow they saved the products like that. There was gas throughout the occupation and after that I decided that I would not regret it. We will settle somehow later. There was no more light and we tried to go to bed earlier. All phones and all laptops were discharged.

We were afraid to go out somewhere, because there was always some shelling there. Where we did not understand what was flying. Our volunteers have also finished their trips.

So, on the 5th, katsaps came to our village. And on the 6th, the shelling began, shells were lying along our homes along the fences. Almost all the glass just flew out from one side of the house.

Glass shards do the most damage. That's why we have a bath. It is without windows, without doors, a small room. We just sat down on the floor. There were supplies of water, some blankets, pillows. And there we waited. 

On the morning of the 6th, the children shout to me that they already see tanks on this street. I see that they are sitting there (Russian troops on tanks) with red armbands. She just drove the children into the bathroom again.

I hear such terrible screams. Something is coming, the gate has blown out for me, it is coming with some muzzle. I don't understand what it is, because I'm only afraid to look like it. And I see that they are going to my house, I immediately went to my childhood, when I saw films about fascists who simply shot houses with people who were there.

I know for sure that all canons are first followed by stormtroopers, clearing the territory, then followed by the next ones, they are already holding some intimidating events. This is what all invaders do. Then I see that they are not going to shoot at us, but they even hit the corner of our house.

And then they turn around and park under my house and climb out. And the frightened one did not even understand that my door was locked. They start shooting at her because there is no one, the door is closed. It is necessary to requisition, well, such a cool house.

They shoot at the castle, and my middle daughter Margarita (she has a very high voice) screamed so that everyone's heart just stopped. The bullet with which they shot me through the lock also pierced the pipe that supplied gas to the boiler. For me, it was such a point of reference that they had already seriously encroached on the economy, and now I will defend it.

First, since I am Russian-speaking, and you feel it now, I just started shouting that don't shoot, don't shoot at the children's house. We will open it ourselves. Moreover, I tried to add some team notes to my voice.

The children are standing there, I'm shutting down the gas, the door opened, three people flew in with machine guns. My children are standing in the corridor. I don't know what happened, but the occupiers were a little sorry. Without thinking about how I should act, I just read it somewhere on a subconscious level and started: yes, children aside, what did you want, what are you arranging for me here?

In general, she started running over them. They are me, like, we are checking now, looking for basements, where someone has sat down here. I say: "Yes, children, you go to the cellar. Tolik, you follow the children. You don't climb, don't break anything, I'll show you everything now".

The goal, in fact, I set out that I have to survive despite everything and save my relatives and those who will be nearby. Give as much strength as possible to this.

They drove us into the basement, drove our neighbors to us. This is an old grandfather, a grandmother over 80 years old. And their daughter and youngest son came to them. He was about 20 years old. And so we, in this hop company, stayed almost until the end of the occupation. There were nine of us, we lived in our house.

"Why didn't you hang children's clothes?", ‒ asked. I say: "If you think that I am aware of the case, what identification marks you have, what signal system you have, what children are here, what people are here, then we are absolutely civilians".

"A humanitarian will come soon", ‒ say. I say: "What humanitarian?" "Well, to your children", ‒ in response. "You know, ‒ is already angry, ‒ if you weren't here, then I worked two jobs and provided for my children perfectly. Don't you understand what lee is? What did you do that we can't find a piece of extra bread now?"

Well, in general, she drove as hard as she could. They replied that we were zombified. They said that they do not touch us at all, civilians, that they have the task exclusively to remove the evil government in Kyiv, to imprison normal people who understand what is good. And in general, they will be able not to let NATO in, because NATO — is evil.

Understanding all this, I did not enter into doom with them. She chose the tactics of Russian citizens. She said that I am not interested in politics, but I myself think: "Lord, what kind of..." Then they told me how to behave, that "both your fool and our fool, we are poor and unhappy, and you suffer, and we suffer, you did not have to support yourself here, but suddenly someone will be shot, and at home a child, and at home a wife".

While we were sitting in the cellar, they climbed my shed. We scattered fuel around the village for the Terrodefense so that the supplies would not be in one place. I think I can write off this stock so that I can smell the garden in case of anything. 

They screwed everything up, and my ex-husband, he has his own relationship with alcohol. And they climbed up and found some beer bottles. He says we had gunners in the shed…

I still have that Vidon, I'll tell you. The head is not a duty, a tied fee, it is not clear what is being stretched over me... Village and people. I say: "What are the guides?", but I think for myself, and God knows him. I have a shed open, maybe someone was.

"Tell me how you allocated?", ‒ ask. And those with automatic machines, business ones stand like this: "We found a beer bottle". "How much?", ‒ I ask again, and I think "Oh!, beer", ‒ Fresh?" "Well, yes, fresh", ‒ say. I look, mine is standing there smoking somewhere on the wing. 

I say: "Yes, come here! What conditions did I let you into the house on? What are you doing to me? Started drinking again? Yes, I you, yes, you...", ‒ in short, how she started plowing. I'm watching, my damn, and I'm already chewing on the cigarette. These lbs with machine guns, and they penetrated. It is known that they are constantly talked to like that. And they are like crabs on the wall. And I got up like that, hands on my sides. She herself is small, but vicious. In short, I think it was - it was not, but it smeared as much as possible.

We even had a story, a neighbor brought a radio and we even played partisans. When they left us, we were no longer touched, we took out the foster girls, they turned them on quietly. All we could do was catch Ukrainian radio. We, you know, we were very thirsty for information.

I had a mother on one side of the house and I was watching on the other side. We agreed that if someone goes to our yard and someone can hear the radio, we shout, "The teapot has already boiled! Let's go drink tea!" Well, somehow so.

At some point, of course, I was burning when we ran out of bread. And we cut. I had some flour, my neighbors. They baked bread there, divided it into such portioned pieces, distributed it according to meals.

I see that the children are hungry, they will not get enough of that piece of bread. They love bread in principle. They are dragging along for another piece, and the neighbor says: "Yes, next time you will take it, because we need to distribute it". And I have the same thing, I say: "Listen, maybe we are living for the last day. Maybe let them have enough". And here there was something very heavy shelling and our house burned down next to each other and after one. I was given a moral apliuch so that I would not even think about such a thing. We will all survive.

We were scared, we didn't understand what was happening. When Chernihiv was bombed so normally, then the bridge exploded and the plane was already flying, it was in the middle of the night, the ground was just walking like that, the house seemed, you know, to move and get into place.

And my heart hurt then. I haven't been able to give up the idea that I'm with my mother for a week, that she's gone. And it turns out that at that time my sister and my husband's brother, they were looking for us all over social networks, trying to find out whether we are alive, healthy, or even where we are.

And then, when our occupiers left and someone had a mobile phone left, my daughter had literally one percent of the charge there and I was able to see my sister's number. She recruited her, she says that everything is fine with her mother and takes care of her. I say, everything is fine with us too, everyone is alive.

link to history