Galina (70)

March 14, 2022, Bratislava. Day 19 of the war.

At the age of 72 Galina's husband drove about 1,400 km by himself. It's been an agonizing journey. Both are retired. They built two homes in their lifetime. They had to leave both of them. The spring was coming, they were happy with their new home, happy about their children, happy that her husband survived a cancer. Up until the day when bombs began flying over their heads.

"I am fleeing the Russian world all the way from the Crimea. We had a house there that we had to leave. Our children and friends helped us to purchase a small house in Kiev, and now I am running away from the Russians again. We are both over 70 and we have to flee to the sounds of the Russian bombs. My paralyzed sister lives in Cherson, my 76 year old aunt hides in the dark, without water, without anything in Mariupol. Mariupol is destroyed, they even bombed the maternity hospital, where I gave birth to my only daughter. We were living fine in Ukraine, I don't know why anyone decided we were not." 

"We came to Slovakia yesterday, on March 13. Our friends helped us after we left Kiev. We stayed for the night, we could wash ourselves, we had something to eat. Then my husband and I got into the car and drove to the Slovak border. The journey lasted for about 3 days. It is about 530 km from Kiev to western Ukraine. There were checkpoints, anti-tank barriers at every step of the way. We drove for another 200 km to the border, and then for another 700 km to come here. Everything is already destroyed there, where we used to live. We heard the first explosions at 5 o'clock in the morning of February 24 as we lived near the airport. My sister who's living in Kherson called me to say that they were also being bombed. I tried to calm her down and told her that the situation was the same in Kiev, and I told her that it would definitely end soon. She asked me how she should calm down if she's hiding in the basement with her children?"

"I just want to say one thing. Do everything you can so that you don't have to see what we have seen. So that that monster doesn't come to Europe too. We all have relatives in Russia, and they have relatives in Ukraine. We've coexisted together for centuries, why did this have to happen? What's the reason? I am pure Russian. We learned Russian as well as Ukrainian at school and we lived together all our lives. Why do they suddenly think we were not doing well? We used to live in Crimea, the Russians were coming there on vacation, it was cheap for them. It was good for them and it was good for us. And now? Why did they do it? They're killing us. We did live peacefully. And now our whole family is here, in Slovakia. We have left everything in there, our houses, apartments. We have only managed to take a cat with us. We like peace, we won't hurt a bird, not even a mouse, why are they doing this to us?" 

"We wanted to stay at home because we had everything there. We would heat with wood in case there was no electricity. I jumped into the car wearing what I was wearing, just my jacket and slippers, and left when the bombs started falling dawn close to our house. Good thing we had a car. We thought it would be something short-lived, and only then did we understand that there was a war. My husband and I were telling each other that if a bomb was to hit us, at least we would die together." 

"I went out of the house to get the cat, and at that moment I saw a rocket flying over our house. I've never seen anything like that in my life. I remembered what my mom used to be telling us about the war. Two houses are already destroyed where we live, on our street. We lived so well, and now, when we're old, they decided to show us what life is like. We thought we would enjoy our retirement. I have finished a painting on February 23. I hung it to dry. I planted flowers in front of our house. My husband recently won his fight with a cancer. Everything was OK. And then the Russians came. Thank you Putin for destroying us! He hates Ukrainians so badly that he wants to kill us all. He says very ugly things about us. My soul screams when I hear all the lies about our people. The Russians are so confused that they would not believe in what is happening even if you show them how the rockets are falling on our heads. They'll just say - your people are bombing your country, we've come to your rescue. Rescue from what? Who are they protecting us from? We have lived all our lives peacefully and now they are destroying us. Well, they won't succeed!"