Do you still remember having a peaceful life? What were you doing on February 23? What were you worried about? And what were you hoping for? Many were hoping for the best, some were planning a vacation, some were worried about work or studies, and some felt that everything around them made no sense. Now, looking back, you often think that all that was a long time ago and it was somewhat insignificant, although it caused a lot of trouble back then.
We invite you to meet Theodore, his mother, and their guinea pig. They lived an ordinary life in the city of Chernihiv. On the morning of February 24, Theodore woke up as if nothing had happened, to live another, as he said then, “senseless day.” And then his mother told him that the war broke out.
“We packed up our go-bag,” says Theodore, “and for the first days, we took turns sleeping in order to always be ready to leave. At night, single lights flashed on the horizon, and it was good to hear the roar of armored vehicles. In real life, a tank passing by a few blocks away sounds like it’s driving right by your ear. The sound of real shooting is also very different from a computer game…
When the explosions started, we went down to the cellar of our apartment building with our belongings and a guinea pig. Thank goodness our cellar was fortified as a bomb shelter, with massive iron doors and sewer pipes that could be remodeled for drinking water if needed. Many people gathered. Although some of the neighbors decided to stay home. Someone was afraid that they would be buried under the debris, someone tried to hide in the bathroom, and someone simply could not go down because of their disability.
Fortunately, there were many boards in the basement, from which the handymen made couches. Someone found a radio… The brave men organized forays for food and bought stuff with the money given by the residents of the cellar. In general, people became kinder to each other, united in the face of a terrible threat.
The bombing did not stop for almost the whole of March. Airplanes, missiles, barrel artillery, jet artillery, and mortars are all the charms of modern warfare. Previously, people killed each other with swords or bows, standing a few hundred meters away from each other. But now people are killing other people sitting at a distance of tens and hundreds of kilometers. Our Armed Forces constantly and successfully fought off planes, and once we received news that a grandfather with an ax almost chopped down a pilot of a downed enemy. Day after day these terrible sounds rang out. At some point, our artillery stationed not far from our building. The enemies tried with all their might to destroy them, and these days were the most terrible of the whole month. People have learned to distinguish by sound whether enemy’s shells are shot or ours.
When the CHP plant and power lines were bombed, we lost electricity and water, and it got very cold in the cellar. People had candles and a trickle of drinking water from a pipe. But it was impossible to warm up. People became exhausted and did not afraid anymore. Fewer and fewer neighbors sat in the cellar, some came only for the night, and some did not show up at all. And when the freezing hit, we also decided not to go down again. What will be will be!
Almost all the infrastructure in the city was bombed. But planes and rockets continued to regularly fly at us exactly on schedule — at 11 o’clock at night, and then at 5-6 in the morning as a rule.
When we spent the night in the cellar, I almost did not have any dreams. When we returned to the apartment, we began to have harsh, relatively realistic, absurd dreams about how Russian shells make even round holes in buildings, or how a nuclear bomb explodes near the city. I saw the events as if they were from the movies about the Second World War.
It was not possible to leave the city. We tried to leave the building to get on the volunteer bus, but every time the rescuers could not get to us. During the third attempt to leave the city, they reached the last surviving bridge – and at the same minute, it began to be bombed! We waved them goodbye and did not try to leave again. And without bridges, there was simply no way out.
The bombing died down, the planes disappeared, and just a few days after our failed escape, the news came on the radio that Russian troops were about to withdraw. At first, we didn’t believe it, but at the beginning of April, they really left Chernihiv. We ourselves, our apartment, our house – did not have any problems, and this is a real miracle, thank God! A week later, the light came back on, and then the water. They were on and off several times, but it was not very long. But we had to wait for the Internet to be fixed until May, but even without it, life continued. The main thing is that the guinea pig was alive and well, and it was not really afraid of the bombings – it just did not bother her!
My soul felt relief, and maybe it will sound strange, but our inner well-being was even better than before the war started. The feeling of depression, emptiness, and helplessness just went away. We began to go to church more often, communicate with people more, and started to leave our building more frequently (before I did this rarely). We haven’t felt a such lightness, probably, for several years. Paradox? Mental glitch? Maybe yes, maybe not.
For some time, everyone around survived thanks to humanitarian aid. The official programs were clumsy and inconvenient, so the main source of help became the churches where we went to get food. Sometimes we were helped with money, and this made it possible to hold out longer, but this did not happen often, and it was embarrassing to ask. “Hopelessness” is my mother’s favorite word for our life situation at that time. Therefore, after some hesitation, we decided to go to Rivne, where my mother once worked, especially because our mother’s friends promised to help us.
The beginning of the relocation was fun – the last two or three days we hastily gathered up the most necessary things, put them up on our backs, took the guinea pig in our arms again, and hurried to the train. As soon as we got on the train car – and it started to rain. We barely made it!
Soon we found ourselves in Zalissya. At first, everything was uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and even scary – because we had never lived in dormitories, but we quickly adapted. At least, you can live, work and not be afraid to die of hunger. And the guinea pig is also used to a new place, it regularly receives fresh grass. My mother found a job in a local kitchen, and I continue my studies. What awaits us in the future? After all, I’m not even trying to make predictions. But we have something that we haven’t had for many years – hope, and maybe even the same prospects.”
The war forced many of us to reevaluate the way we lived. Many people now make distinctions in their lives between February 24 and after. And now you understand that you can live without many things that were valuable to you before. You pray more often for those you love and set aside time to see them more often. Now you understand how important the church, people, and true faith and hope in God are. Because only this keeps us up and does not allow us to give in to discouragement.
