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The children said, "Mom, we don't want to die!" For the ninth year in a row, the war has been haunting the family of Svitlana and Yurii from Donetsk

The children said, "Mom, we don't want to die!" For the ninth year in a row, the war has been haunting the family of Svitlana and Yurii from Donetsk

When they are asked, "Did your home survive?", they immediately think: which home are we talking about? The one they were forced to leave in Donetsk in the summer of 2014? Or the home in Sloviansk, from which they fled to the sound of explosions in the spring of 2022? "We are twice displaced," Svitlana and Yurii say bitterly. And they dream of the day when they can return home. To their own, Ukrainian Donetsk.

The war did not break into their lives at dawn on February 24, 2022. The axis of their world shifted dramatically in the spring of 2014, when a "gang of Russians led by Girkin" entered their hometown. Hell became a reality. Fear and chaos spread through the streets like a poisonous reptile.

"We are believing Christians. Before the war, we were engaged in missionary activities, and since 1998 we have been serving," says Yurii. "I worked in a mine, and when I retired, my wife and I started our own business. We were engaged in trade, opened several shops, sold park sculptures, paintings, high-quality tableware, children's toys, industrial plastic film for greenhouses, and gradually became regional dealers of the Brovary plant that produced this film. We also had our own greenhouses and grew vegetables.  We started our business from scratch, having no idea how to run a business. But God gave us strength and abilities, and we worked hard. By 2010, we had reached a level where our weekly tithe was between $100 and $120. We could afford to buy a car, make modern repairs in the house, and every year we went abroad with our children on vacation. We were confident about our future. Until the Russians decided to "liberate" us.

They lived in the Petrovskyi district of Donetsk, which borders on Mariinka, a town that no longer exists after the tragic events of 2022... The family had two children growing up, and two more were taken in from the Mariinka orphanage. "This orphanage is not far from our home. I often visited it with my husband, bringing food and toys. We saw the trouble there... We knew that the children were deprived, that the help donated by philanthropists did not reach them." Svitlana thinks back to the days that changed their family's lives. She says that at first they invited the children for weekends and vacations. Their son Andrii was 11 at the time, and Angelina was a year and a half old. When they took in 17-year-old Oleksii and four years younger Viktoriia, their friends shrugged their shoulders, saying "Don’t you have enough of your own"? "But we wanted to share, it was a need of the soul," Svitlana admits, "We wanted to give the children a sense of home, good education, we wanted them to grow up to be sensitive people, we wanted to show them the world. Everyone had their own room. There was a lot of space in our house."

Lots of space, light and children's laughter. It was the happiest period of her life, says Svitlana. "It's a pity it didn't last long. Everything changed in 2014.

They saw with their own eyes that terrible "course of events". They saw Russians being brought in by bus from Rostov. These were criminals who participated in the beating of demonstrators - those who came out to protest and said that Donetsk is Ukraine.

The couple's shops were located in the city's central market. Yurii recalls how he constantly had conversations with supporters of the "independent republic" and argued the absurdity of this idea. Sometimes it almost came to fights. His good health helped him, Yurii says. He did not give up, he stood his ground. Unfortunately, the pro-Ukrainian sentiment in the city was not enough to turn the tide. And then, my interlocutor guesses he was "betrayed." When he arrived at work with his wife in the morning, suspicious people in uniform were already waiting for him outside the store. There were many of them around the city, all of the same appearance, with a distinct Moscow accent.

I had to escape through the back door. I never went back to work.

They are offended to hear accusations that you, Donetsk residents, are to blame, as you called for "Russian peace" and wanted to go to Russia. "No one wanted to go there," Yurii says, "Rostov is not far away: anyone who needed could go and get a job there. Although it was mostly them, the Russians, who came to us to work. Donetsk was a rich city, open and friendly. Like the rest of Ukraine. We lived at home and wanted to stay at home. And even when the fighting started in the city... we believed that Ukraine would soon liberate Donetsk. Our president was talking about it: a few weeks - and that's it. We were hoping and waiting."

And then the hellish July of 2014 began. The enemy artillery was pounding the sky mercilessly. It was unbearable, especially at night. A "wandering mortar" controlled by Russian mercenaries was moving through the city, spreading death. Russian television would immediately arrive on the scene and create the desired image that Donetsk was being shelled by Ukraine. But those who saw and knew how to analyze understood that the shelling was carried out by the enemy. "What started in Ukraine last year, at dawn on February 24, we experienced almost nine years ago," Svitlana echoes, "Bombs and planes... Everything was flying over us. We lived near the Donetsk airport. The sounds of those explosions still echo in my head. It was impossible to sleep. The children were crying, "Mom, we don't want to die..."  This was the last straw when we realized that it was time to run away, to save ourselves and our children."

The most necessary clothes, baby food, some food for us - we took the minimum, only what fit in the car. They were convinced to be leaving for a month. But it turned out to be for many years.

The trajectory of their escape from the war: Donetsk - Kharkiv - Zakotne village near Lyman - Sloviansk. In their painful memories, which cannot be blurred even with time, they see broken military equipment, killed people, torn bridges... A piece of the surviving bridge over the river, which their car passed through to get to the other side just along the edge. The cold winter of 2015, in a village in the Donetsk region, in a relative's house, where most of the rooms were not heated. Life in the newly liberated territory - near the Lyman river, among the streets mined by Russians. The constant fear that the children will come across explosives. The sounds of shelling coming from the war zone. "Bad uncles are shooting," said little Angelina. "No, my daughter, it's thunder," Yurii reassured her, "No, I know these are uncles shooting."  "That winter had no colors at all. Every day was black and white," Yurii recalls, "We never got warm, we slept in our clothes. The only thing that kept them warm was the thought that this terrible waking dream would end and their home would survive and wait for them. Everything they had invested - time, energy, and money - remained there, in the occupied territory.

They tried to establish a life in the new realities, in the status of temporarily displaced persons. The search for work was not always successful, but they took on any job. We did volunteer work, delivered aid to those who needed it most. The children grew up, years passed, the eldest son and daughter started to earn their own bread, and the war did not stop. Until it broke out in a new wave last year, in February. And they had to leave everything behind again.

...Ten-year-old Angelina loves dancing and music. Her favorite characters are Patron the dog and Bilka the cat. Her drawings show the sun, beautiful flowers and peaceful cities. And the home where they will definitely return, which they remember so much. Today they live in Cherkasy, in a small apartment of their good friends. Andrii is a student, and Angelina goes to school. It's hard to find a job: unemployment in the city has been a problem before, and even more so now. Sometimes, Yurii and Svitlana admit, they have to face discriminatory refusals from employers because of their age. But they do not give up. They are the kind of people who always try to see the silver lining. They are the ones who bring the light.

Svitlana and Yurii's family has been receiving monthly financial support as part of the Ukrainian-Polish project "Family to Family" since October last year. Caritas-Spes Ukraine implements this project in cooperation with and thanks to the support of Caritas Polska, and it is aimed at supporting Ukrainian families in financial need and affected by the consequences of the war in Ukraine.  

7 April 2023
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