If you look, analyze the news that was in January and early February [2022], it was clear, of course, that it no longer smells good. If official representatives of other embassies of the countries left Kyiv, it was possible to suspect that there might be some kind of invasion, but no one had any idea how large-scale it would be.

I had train tickets for February 23. Friends, acquaintances of the military, who had the opportunity, warned that it was better to leave. After talking with the child at home, consulting with our son, we decided that we were staying. We do not go to Western Ukraine, especially abroad. Probably, my mother was shocked when she said that we decided not to go. She both stood and sat down.

There was a feeling that the walls were shaking in the house when the arrivals in the region began. I tried to talk to the child as much as possible. At that time he was still six years old. She explained that we will have certain problems and troubles, but we talked about it on February 23, a part that there may be some kind of failure in social life. She tried to explain the child on the understanding available to him.

We went to work together for a while, meaning he was here with me at the paramedic station [Alla works as a medic in the village of Vovchok]. Until a certain time, he was like a key antidepressant here, a small one that ran everywhere and entertained everyone.

I was just sure that everything would be fine, even when the 24th started in the morning. Still, I was so sure that a day or two and everything would be fine, a week at most. Some changes will pass, everything will be fine with us. I understood that it would not end in a week, when there were more than a dozen children under one year old per night.

Home life, domestic issues, everyday life, work, medicine, provision of food for military and civilians, provision of food for small children. Everything became somehow, so to speak, in one breath. At home, there was also a medical unit, food, and psychological relief with people.

Every day I was here at work, on the spot. Except for those days when it was necessary to take a person to hemodialysis, because he was already lying down. None of the men dared to go. I talked at home with my son: "Sanechok, you are staying with your grandmother today, you are going to work. I'm leaving, I really need to take the man out or he'll die".

It was March 2, it was a little not quite comfortable in Chernihiv, but we agreed with the doctor that we would bring the patient there and leave him. Then he and everyone go to Cherkasy for a safe stay.

Already at that time there were checkpoints, they checked the trunk on each trunk, opened the escort's documents, that I really needed to deliver this person. In our old age, they gave confirmation that I am a paramedic, that I need to deliver a patient.

At that time, I, my mother and my son lived together. Mother also works here as a librarian, so we were at work for a day, engaged in provisioning, food, organizational issues, and in the evening we just came home with a little one.

We had enough medicines for the first time. In principle, I already know who is sick in the village and who has what medicines. So I know that this specific drug exists, for example, in two people in the village. You call, you ask to be shared, if possible. In Chernihiv, we were able to load the trunk of the car with diapers, baby food and necessary medicines. 

I didn't allow myself, let's say, to fall apart, stick out and start feeling sorry for myself or something else. Because the decision of the 23rd has already been made, that we remain. If she made a decision, then there is nothing to back down, nothing to feel sorry for. There was such confidence that all this would be like a terrible dream and everything would be left behind.

We left every day. We needed to get bread to feed the local population, because at that time we already had about a thousand people. And plus there was a fairly large number of soldiers on food.

Came home tired in a day, you will fly. I didn't even always want to eat, just wash, lie down. The only thing that has changed in our country is that the child slept separately earlier. So I offered him: "Don't you want to go to my sofa? I'm so much calmer, I feel you're around". Especially since the arrivals began at 4-5 in the morning.

If I know that there are people there who have been without hot food for some time, without medical support, who defend us, and we will sit and say that I am a doctor, I am beautiful, I remain in the office? When we ran out of medicine, and I know that there I have at least 50 people with sore throat, with a cold, with bronchitis, then I have to work and look for it. You couldn't just stand aside and watch someone else protect us.

link to history