I wrote in my diary that it is necessary to collect just in case I have to leave or do something, because something may be forgotten in a panic. I walked around the rooms and watched that I should not forget. Take documents, some important things. The notebook described that each room should be taken away. I collected some things. It was already February.

I couldn't sleep for a long time then. She went to bed around 4 in the morning. I was very worried. Around 7 o'clock, the child began to wake me up. She did not complete her homework and needed help. Then somewhere literally 10 minutes pass and she says: "Mom, we were told not to go to school". And I have puzzles.

She asked her husband to make various cereals, flour, and flakes. At least in a bag, so that there are cereals just in case. Because it is such ‒, it is not clear how much electricity will be, and how the situation will develop. 

Then she started collecting things specifically already. We arranged the basement. Well, not the basement, but we have a cellar in the house. The first night they went there with the children, but it was very damp. It was not calculated there for people. On the second day, it was strengthened. That is, more supports were placed there. Just in case, shovels and crowbars were brought. If it suddenly stops, so that somehow there is an opportunity to get out.

In principle, at the beginning it was possible to go to the village, go to my mother, to the neighbors. Through some coordinators, we prepared food for the boys, they took them to the dugout. The bread of hell was constantly still light and whole grain flour.

The first night was spent the night in the basement. The second night it was difficult for me to breathe there, I went up to the house in bed to sleep, but at night our artillery began to work so hard that it went there again to the basement. Then until the last one they left, they spent the night there.

We were in Kolychivka by the time I found out that I had captured [the Russians] Yagidne and Ivanivka. In fact, when she found out and taught history well. Unfortunately, my great-grandfather was repressed for having land and cultivating it. 

Great-grandfather also comes from Chernihiv region. The wife remained alive only because they had a very good relationship with the head of the village. When the great-grandfather came under the first executions, which were not even documented at all, the head of the village separated them retroactively. She did not become a kulak's wife (what an ugly word), but a former wife. Her family was also rich, but not as rich as her husband. The great-grandmother with her grandmother and two other children were sent to Siberia.

I had a pretty good understanding of what Russians are and how they come. There are certain categories of people who are still the first to be cleaned. When she found out in the morning, she categorically said that we were leaving. They already assembled the car in two hours and left.

Before that, they somehow collected their valuables, toys that they want to take. Everyone had a backpack, they could fill them with things that are valuable to them. I did not interfere, because these are their things, their memories. I had half of the car hammered by embroiderers. I took a couple more books. I need eyes about herbs, they are so rare and important. These are things that will not be restored. I understood that we can not return here. I said goodbye to the house, to everything that is here. It was probably easier not to cling mentally so as not to suffer later.

I still didn't understand where to go. The man did not want to leave at all. We actually left in raised tones. I was very lucky that an acquaintance from Chernihiv left that day. She drove a little earlier, about an hour, probably 4 before we left. There was a connection, she could coordinate our way. We spent the night near Kanev. We were sheltered there by completely strangers whom we saw for the first time.

They were in the Ivano-Frankivsk region as a result. Then my mother also came there. She actually survived the first shelling and morally could not stand it. We just had a lot of people here then. Because it's one thing – to think, the other – is to experience everything. 

When Chernihiv Oblast was liberated, my mother immediately came home. There was no light here even then, but she arrived. We came here at the end of July. We had a little winter crops sown and wanted to collect them so as not to disappear. They probably came with the children for two weeks.

When she returned to the village in September, a lot was restored here. But you know, when you go ‒ it's like some footage from apocalypse movies. You enter the village, it is all destroyed, weeds grow everywhere. There was no feeling of home, there was none at all, it then came back, a little later.

link to history