In 2021, we went to the Kherson region to rest in Lazurne. I haven't been to the sea for a long time, my mother was sick and I couldn't leave her for the last 10 years. After her death in 2020, I went to Lazurne to see my daughter's friends to relax. My parents studied in Kherson, got married there. I could have been born there, but I was born in Chernihiv Oblast, where they were sent after the institute. There were places in Kherson that I wanted to see. There were plans to visit Askania Nova. And this was planned to be done in 2022.

Plans were to leave work after his birthday and freelance. I could describe the product, advertise it. Sometimes they gave me a job, and I earned a little from it. I thought that this would be enough in retirement.

On February 23, Tanya, my daughter from Chernihiv, came to see me (I have one child in Chernihiv and one in Kyiv). She arrived, and I ask: "Why did you come in the middle of the week?" She says: "You know, they say that there will be a war. Came to see you".

In the evening, Tanya arrived, and at half past six in the morning, the Kyiv daughter was already calling. She lives on the road to Vyshhorod. They have already been bombed and fired upon. She said that the war had begun. We confused with Tanya, because her daughter and husband stayed in Chernihiv, and she is here. They ran to the track, but no longer had cars. Some one car was driving and they took it away. Explosions were heard, and she just got into the car, drove away. Then she realized that she didn't even hug her.

The day before, the children gave me a smartphone for the new year, which they wanted to give as a birthday present. They say that why he will lie idle. It's good what they gave me. My daughter united us in a threesome chat. And all the days that were under fire, we corresponded. They sent photos.

Three days after the shelling, everyone said goodbye to me. And I couldn't eat at all for the first two Sundays. I went out here to the yard, and there I could hear how the turn went to Chernihiv, and I knew that it was all falling on my granddaughter's head.

 Only in the morning from six to seven o'clock it was quiet in Chernihiv. It was 45 minutes when all the girls from the entrance and my daughter ran to their apartments and cooked food, washed, went to the toilet, littered. Then the water disappeared, and then the light. Then this basement saved them, because it kept warm there for a long time. My daughter did not write everything. Sometimes in correspondence it jumps that everyone has already started dehydrating in recent days, there was no water. And as a witness, I was on the phone of all this.

There was constant contact with my daughter in Kyiv. As the light went out in Chernihiv, there was no communication at all from Sunday or ten days, we were very worried about ‒ what's there, how is there.

Somewhere on the third day, our troops and tanks entered. Hostilities began. They shot especially at night. Like everyone else, I was afraid that they were shooting. As soon as they start shooting, I will sit on the alarming suitcase that was standing in the corridor.

I spent the night in this corridor. All the doors were closed, but they would not have been saved. If it gave well, the door would fly out. But that was the two-wall rule, and my daughter taught it. She explained how to behave. I took out the mattress, put it there. The curfew seems to have started at eight [evening]. In general, at eight o'clock she ruled everything out, went to bed there and slept. Well, she slept dressed.

Somehow I behave like this in such stressful situations, if someone is nervous around me, then I can't stand it well. I'd better be alone.

You know, I was constantly listening to Khlyvnyuk on the phone. This is his song with Pinkfloid. And now I can't listen to her because I'm crying. We had bad internet then. I read the news. Well, she mostly corresponded with children. Communication with children, because this is the most expensive thing in my life, ‒ my children. They were very difficult for me.

It so happened that she paid the communal services just in time, and the salary had to come somewhere in the 20s. I had only 800 hryvnias. And when the war started, she left, bought what she could with this 800 hryvnias. And the salary did not come. Imagine, I'm penniless. My relatives helped. Who could as much as he could. She lived on it.

I didn't want to eat at all. I just stuffed food because I knew what was needed. I lost a lot of weight during that period. Then, as soon as she undressed, and my relatives gasped ‒, everything was talking to me.

I was not afraid at first. I go outside, and it whistled something here, I ask: "Well, what is it whistling?". One of the boys goes, says, "How 'what'? Hail!" And they are here and there, here and there, like that. Then she was already afraid, and she was well afraid. And I hear, I think that now it will fly away, and the house is tall.

In the evening at eight o'clock, the curfew was supposed to begin. I was already in the corridor. A mattress was placed. I corresponded with my daughter. She says, "We're going to have dinner". Well, good. She already lay down and turned off even the light. It was five minutes before the curfew began.

I couldn't see those bullets. They said such fireballs were flying. I just heard it start to fall. Such was the sound of a tank driving on the roof. Iron screeching. This wall was coming at me. I stood in the doorway and thought: "Well, that's it".

It swung behind the garage in the garden, then there was one in the yard. Then she grabbed my grapes there. One bomb hit the pole directly and cut it off. That's how the house stands, and these bombs hit nearby. They hit, there was a roar, a gnash. 

After two minutes, I stood and thought whether I would run out, how the silence began, or not. I was already going to the exit. If you jumped out of the house, you wouldn't be talking to me now. And then these rolling pins began to fly. The windows began to fall, and I stopped. Then everything went quiet.

I still stayed, I don't know how many minutes. Jumped out. That's where she started running. She was very scared. She was deaf in this ear for two days. She ran into the cellar and twisted her leg. She wasn't very dressed, and she sat like that until morning. It was cold. When she got out, everything was in the smoke. That pillar was on fire, right here to my left of the house. Then I heard some voices.

I didn't understand that I was walking after that shelling and I had a frozen smile on my face. It turned out to be a day later only when I went to ask that the store withdraw my money to pay for patching the windows in the house.

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