Olga (41)

June 26, 2022, Alzbetin Dvor. Day 122 of war.

I looked into her deep eyes as she told me her story. There was great sadness in them, but also hope for a better future. Her husband sat nearby, watching over the children playing in the playground. As we were saying goodbye, his phone rang. He was told that his father had died. I can't imagine the helplessness of knowing you are far away and will never see your father again. And you can't do anything. Because the war is raging at home. 

"I am originally from Kherson, a city near Odessa. The city was occupied from the first day of the war. I went to work for the first 3 days, but then it became impossible. Parents stayed at home. The children and I first hid in the basements, but then my brother, who has lived here for a long time, insisted that we come to him. It was not possible to leave the city for a long time. There was fighting everywhere in the area. When the situation calmed down for a few days, the Russians sent people who wanted to leave right back, saying that the Ukrainians were killing everyone there.” 

"We packed up, got in the car and drove out of town. The Russians were stationed there with their checkpoints. We were lucky. They told us they were letting 5 cars through and if we could get through the fields quickly, nothing should happen to us. They checked our car completely. They took our sunglasses, they probably needed them. They took all the food and alcohol from the family in front of us. It probably helped that there were no men in the car besides my son. And since he plays hockey, they had a lot to talk about. There were more such checkpoints and there were mostly citizens of Russia, but also of other nationalities such as Buryats and Chechens. After one such check, I got lost due to stress and had to turn back because I took a wrong turn. They were mean to me. They shouted that I was provoking them, that I must be smuggling something. I had to play blonde, which fortunately worked. Each inspection lasted approximately 20 minutes. My brother arranged with the volunteers for me to go in their convoy. He started a volunteer organization here, previously he had an IT company in Odessa, but he left it to volunteers. Travelling in a convoy helped me feel safer, and the soldiers treated us more kindly. We couldn't get out of the car because the surrounding fields were mined and there were anti-tank spikes everywhere. You have to drive around the occupied regions with white ribbons or flags attached to your car. Once you get to the territories controlled by Ukraine, you don't need them anymore, you exchange it for a blue one, which means you're a volunteer and can move faster.” 

"We arrived in Nikolayev, which was completely mined and covered with anti-tank spikes and tires. I didn't understand why there were tires everywhere, so I asked soldiers. They explained to me that if enemy tanks were coming, they would set them on fire and the smoke would disorient the tanks. Today, Nikolaev is a fully military town, the outskirts are destroyed, houses are missing roofs, you see broken walls and a soldier every few meters. There were no civilians left. After 12 hours we arrived in Odessa. In the evening, the sirens went off, but we didn't notice them at all, it wasn't an occupied city, so we felt safe.” 

"Before the war, I worked in a hospital. None of us could imagine that something like this could happen. We did not take the information about a possible attack seriously. When we practiced the evacuation in the hospital ward, we just laughed about it. The false sense of a positive relationship with Russia was too strong for us to accept the threat of a military attack. My friend who works at the police, advised me to prepare all the necessary documents. Although I thought I wouldn't need them, I did what she told me. She called me on February 24, at half past 5 in the morning to tell us to go to the basement immediately, because the war had started. We lived on the 11th floor, we could have been hit by a missile. I thought of going outside the city, where we have a garden and a cottage. Fortunately, we didn't. It is located right next to the airport which was bombed first. We moved in with my parents who lived on the 3rd floor, which is safer.” 

"We were going through difficult times. My father has a heart condition, and with each siren we had to carry him on a special stretcher to the basement and back upstairs. Every day, people ran up the stairs with children, cats and dogs under their arms, at the every sound of a siren. There were about 30 of us crammed in the basement. Many fled to the surrounding villages, but they were destroyed first and the town was somewhat safer. After a while, we didn't enjoy running somewhere all the time. I read in an Israeli newspaper that the safest thing to do during a raid is to stay as close as possible to the elevator shaft, and that's what we did. The situation was the hardest on February 27-28, when many people died and there were the most explosions. My classmate who fought also died. An acquaintance described to me how a rocket hit their house and members of her family were injured. Her cat died from the shock of the explosion.” 

"Quite a lot of people have disappeared, they are said to be in captivity. When the Russians got to our neighborhood, they came in 3 big vans marked with "Z". They went from apartment to apartment, broke down doors, checked everyone, it was terrible. The janitor and his family were captured, taken somewhere, and were gone for several days. They eventually returned but were destroyed. They were told to leave at least the occupied territory, if not all of Ukraine. They must have experienced terrible humiliation and psychological pressure because they immediately packed up and left. The occupiers gradually managed to get into local organizations as well. They were also at our hospital, where they immediately hung the Russian flag. I haven't been there since then because it wasn't safe. People tried to escape, my sister also went to Kyiv with her children. Normally, her journey would have taken about 5 hours, now it was 18 hours long drive on damaged county roads.” 

"We travelled through Nikolaev to Odessa, from there on through Moldova, Romania, Hungary, all the way to Slovakia. In the chaos, although I was preparing, I forgot to take my foreign passport. I had to travel only with my ID card, but luckily no one at the border had a problem with that. I came to Slovakia with my 3 children (13, 7 and 6 years old). I tried to explain to them what was happening, why we were leaving, they immediately understood. The older son was interested in what was happening, he was interested in knowing where what exploded, what type of weapon was being used, he looked at the vehicles the Russians were using. He took it very boyishly, he didn't even want to go to the shelter, he got used to it. When I talk to my sister on the phone, she tells me how they walk around the city with their children, and when the sirens sound, they don't rush anywhere. You get used to it! It's only now that I realize how terrible it is, that it's not normal. But once you're there, in time, you’ll forget to be afraid. The fact that we left and nothing happened to us was not a matter of course. The volunteers who helped us then returned to get more people. The Russians allegedly stopped one of the cars near Nikolayev, shot  it off, and took the man who was helping us somewhere. He and the other two volunteers have not been heard from since. He still had big plans, he wanted to help many. He was last seen on April 5. He was from a volunteer group that my brother helped to found.” 

"Today, Kherson is a fully occupied city, no one can get to Ukraine from it, only through Crimea and then further through Russia. When the Russian soldiers came to the city, they tried to keep the streets calm, they tried to resolve the skirmishes as quickly as possible and without weapons. They probably had orders to behave well in order to organize a referendum. They thought we would want to join Russia. But they miscalculated. Nobody believed them, didn't open the door when they knocked, that's why they broke it down. They didn't shoot people publicly, but from time to time someone disappeared and we didn't know where. At night, they shone  lights into our windows, probably to scare us.” 

"There were big problems with food. People waited for bread in long queues. Getting milk was a huge luxury. Pub owners started bringing milk in beer bottles, they had invented schemes to get food. It was all done to the sounds and flashes of distant explosions. Everyone was an expert in time and knew what was happening where, which village was on fire, what type of weapon was used. We had electricity and water. We were preparing for the worst, so I had bought a lot of candles and batteries for the lamps. My mother-in-law recently told me that the food situation is now better. Kherson is a very fertile region, so everyone has a lot of tomatoes, cucumbers and fruits in their garden, which they sell for a few cents. However, you can only pay online. If money appears in the ATM, there is a kilometer long queue. People wait all night at ATMs to catch the moment when they top up money. We practically went back to the 90s, when groups of people withdrew money from ATMs and asked for 10% fee. My parents sold a small house a year ago, so they still have some money. People have to rely on themselves. My colleagues from the psychiatric clinic have not seen their paychecks for 3 months. The only thing that saves them are gardens and good neighbors who help them. The whole system was crumbling in the city. The police has not been working since the first days of the war, people have started robbing shops, but many citizens are trying to prevent the spread of such habits. Many work illegally, simply trying to survive.” 

"My mother came to Slovakia at the beginning of the war. Her brother convinced her to get on the evacuation train and come to him. She lives in Petrzalka with small puppies that she took with her. They were only 3 days old when she left her home. Fortunately, my father did not live to see this horror. The in-laws are trying to survive in the conditions they currently have in Ukraine. My husband's father has major health problems. The most difficult thing is to get the medicine, without it he will not survive. There was only one doctor left in the entire hospital. He is at the end of his strength. My friends are scattered all over Europe, they went to Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, there are many of them in Poland. Men had to stay at home. It took my brother a while to talk me into leaving. My moods were constantly changing, I didn't want to leave, but I realized that it was necessary for the sake of the children. I didn't trust myself as a driver, but my brother told me that I would have a co-driver, and that calmed me down a bit. The driver was waiting for me by the car, but he told me that I had to go alone. I got scared and tried to talk him out of it. He explained to me that it could be dangerous for him to go with me because he is an ex-policeman and the occupiers had information on everyone from Kherson. They knew about everyone, they knew who worked in the police or who fought in Donbas. Today, these people cannot live in the place of their permanent residence, because the Russians are looking for them. They hide in cottages and other people's apartments.” 

"I was worried if I would be able to do it, but the situation forced me to concentrate, I drove like never before. I couldn’t see tanks nor soldiers. I don't know if the children understood what was happening, it was rather an adventure for them. What they experienced, left its mark on them. Even a month after we came here, they cringed at the sounds of a train or an airplane. When there was a storm, they were uneasy. My son's teacher, with whom I am in contact, tried to leave 5 times already, but the Russians always turned her back from the checkpoint. She told me that she no longer had the strength to try to leave. But I think she will want to leave when the school year starts because she won’t be able to adapt to the new Russian curriculum full of lies. There are ways to leave, mostly via Russia, but there the smuggling groups ask for €1,000 per person, whether it's an adult or a child. Of course, not everyone has that much money.” 

"People have been waiting for the liberation of the city for a long time. The evening explosions are a spark of hope for people that our soldiers are attacking the occupiers. Everyone tries to live normally, people even go fishing, but after 4 pm the streets are already deserted. That's when military operations begin.” 

"Slovakia is very close to me, many things here are similar to what we had at home, the system is also similar. However, the difference is in quality. When I enrolled my son in kindergarten, the doctor checked him. He noticed that he has health problems, he will have an operation next month. Nobody noticed in Ukraine, and I'm grateful for that. Children like it here. The older son rarely showed emotion at home. Here he is smiling, looking forward to school. They were on an excursion for 3 days and he came back very happy. He can also drive bicycle wherever he wants, because there are cycle paths. We didn't have anything like that at home, everything was just starting to develop and build. When we started the works, the Russians came. Here, where we live, there are many other Ukrainians with whom we help each other. Yesterday, a neighbor shouted at us "Glory to Ukraine!". I found out that he studied to be a pilot in Ukraine. The world is really small. I started working, with that came socializing. I felt better immediately. I'm thinking about staying here. My husband doesn't even want to hear about it. He believes that we can win, that we can build a beautiful city and a better future. He is very loyal to Ukraine and Kherson. The in-laws are waiting for us to come back, but no one knows when it will end. When I imagine how many weapons are in every house, how many mines are in every field, I don't know how long it will take to remove it. Everything will need to be fixed. The authorities in Ukraine help little. You are only entitled to help if your house is hit directly.” 

"When I saw refugees from Luhansk or Donbas in our city in the past, I didn't see it as something terrible. You will realize the whole horror only when it touches you directly. We were extremely lucky to come to Slovakia, everyone helps us here. My goddaughter also came here, now she works as a waitress in a hotel and is very satisfied. My nephew was a successful chess player in Ukraine, now he has his own chess class here. He is flying to Paris for the championship next week. He didn't have that many options at home. I try to look at everything positively, it helps me to deal with the situation.” 

"Today we are strangers to the family we have in Russia. My cousins told me that Putin is good, that we will be one country again, that the images on TV are from Donbass in 2014. I'm sorry that it had to happen just now, when things were starting to get better for us. On the other hand, I am happy that my children now see a completely different world and way of life. Here, everyone tries to live healthily, do sports, our youth often hang out on the streets with a cigarette and a bottle of vodka in hand. We live not far from Bratislava and we have everything here, especially peace.” 

"Why do I think this happened? I often think about it, but we are probably too small to understand it. Although it is possible that we were headed for this purge. There was too much aggression built up in the world and in people, and we needed to change. Grandma used to tell me that after World War II people were suddenly better, nicer, they helped each other, society changed completely. And the second possibility is that we are just one of the playing cards among the big global players. That it is behind our house where they clarify their attitudes and opinions. We are a country that has never been heavily militarized like, for example, Chechnya, that's why it's happening there. Last but not least, we are a strongly divided society. Many  people living in Kherson dreamed of reunification with Russia. They say that it was better during the USSR. They believed that together with Russia and Belarus, we would once again be the recognized and powerful state."