We stayed at our apartment till the last. We did not want to leave. We lived in the district of Saltovka which was heavily bombed, and on March 3 our house was hit. At first we went to hide to the basement, but it was terribly uncomfortable there, because it was not adapted as a bomb shelter. So later we sat in the apartment in the corridor – we were told that it was safer.

When the shelling started that day, we were in the kitchen preparing food. As always, when it started, we ran into the corridor, and this time we also ran there.

But this time the first floor of our house was hit (we live on the second). Everything flew terribly: glass, debris, sparks. We were not hurt, the cat was then dragged out from under the bath.

At that time there was still heating, but then both it and the light were turned off. It was -20°C in Kharkiv, that is, it would be unrealistic to live there, we would freeze. A few minutes after the rocket hit we grabbed the first things that came across, not even bags but “alarming” backpacks with documents, and left. On the street, we accidentally met volunteers who had just arrived at our house and asked them to take us somewhere, at least a little further from this area. They took us.

While we were leaving, the artillery reloading ended, and we were again covered in the car. It’s hard when a child screams… when the windows in the car fly, the car shakes, people nearby lie dead or injured. We, another woman, and a wounded man, whose arm was torn off, climbed into the volunteers’ car. Whom they could capture, they took – and went. They couldn’t help everyone…

We returned home three days later for things, because we didn’t take anything at all right away. Everything got worse there. Wires, poles, trees – everything is lying around, the houses are burned. At that time, the bombing continued, and it was very scary to go for things. We somehow grabbed some sneakers, pants, sweaters, and left. There are people who suffered terribly, whose relatives died, but we still got off lightly, we remained alive.

We didn’t think it was possible at all. Kharkiv is a peaceful city, there are civilians here. They didn’t think that cities could be bombed like this in the 21st century. Especially Kharkiv! It didn’t fit in my head. A lot of Kharkiv residents have relatives in Russia or friends, we are very intertwined.

I don’t understand at all what kind of Nazis are Russians talking about! For us the Nazis now came from Russia, they are worse than Hitler. Why are we Nazis? Because we have the Ukrainian language? And what should be the language in Ukraine? Actually it is a kind of idiotic. And now the “liberators” have “liberated” me from my home and peaceful life.

Our parents stayed on the other side of the city. They don’t want to leave. Of course, I want to pick them up. I am in touch all the time with my relatives, with my work colleagues who stayed there – who have elderly parents, who do not want to leave their husbands. In our house, dad says, people still live, many of them live in schools, in the subway, and they come home occasionally. But people in Kharkiv remain.

My husband is disabled, he has a spinal injury, he is on commission, so we were able to leave with him, otherwise I would not have gone anywhere. He works remotely, otherwise I don’t know where we would go. Nobody really needs us, and all this help is temporary.

We did not immediately leave Kharkiv – at first we lived with the volunteers who took us away. They said that they would not throw us out on the road, and took us to their home, where a large family had already gathered. There were parents from all sides, and sisters, and children, all in a row. We, as a group of 20 people, lived in a big house. When the planes came in, we slept, ate, and played Monopoly in the basement. There were also six cats, one chinchilla and someone had snails. Then a big Labrador arrived and sat in the garage.

We lived in such a friendly company for four days, and on March 8 we left by train through Kyiv to Lviv. I was very afraid and prayed that nothing would happen, because when my husband’s sister took away this child, there was some kind of hit at the railway station in Kyiv. There were 10 people in the compartment, we sat all night, but when one person got out in Poltava, it became expanse: we lay like a jack on the top shelf, periodically changed.

We came to Montenegro to visit friends. We traveled through Lviv, and while the documents were being processed for my husband, we lived with my sister in the Lviv region. There was a lot of refugees there, they lived in schools and kindergartens. Then we went to Slovakia and found out about Pristaniste via Facebook.