“People opened their hearts to us. It is priceless!”
Nadiia Zaichenko, a teacher at the Caritas-Spes Family Support Center in Zhytomyr, talks about the losses and pain caused by the war and the hope that gives you the strength to dream and live.
Nadiia has created a folder in her laptop called “My Paradise” and keeps photos of her native Bakhmut that she can find on the Internet. One day she accidentally came across a picture of the street leading to her house. Put it in the folder! Here's a photo of the playground where she used to walk with her four-year-old son. She wrote it down.... In April 2022, together with her husband and young son, Nadiia left the city where she was born and lived for 24 happy years.
“My husband and I had jobs, our son went to kindergarten. My husband worked at Artemsil, and I was an English teacher and choreographer. Dancing is my great passion... We were planning to buy a new apartment. On the day it all started, I thought: it's a good thing we didn't have time to buy it...”
And it all started at 5 a.m. on February 24, 2022, when Nadiia heard a strange, loud rumble. Was it an explosion? “I picked up the phone, read the news and realized it was the apocalypse,” she says, ”Fires, destroyed buildings... Confusion, fear. My parents lived in a private house, and we lived in a high-rise building. So my husband and I decided that if it was going to come, it would be better to have one floor than nine. And we moved to our parents' house. And February 24 was my dad's birthday. Later we joked through tears that we had never seen such fireworks on my father's birthday. In general, I remember those days as an endless nightmare...”
Nadiya says that even though she was in danger, she did not want to leave her hometown. The unknown was scary. And there was no organized evacuation from Bakhmut. “And then there was a heavy shelling of the city, during which my colleague, with whom I worked in the house of culture, lost his eyesight. It scared me a lot. I told my husband: no, this is the end for me. We have to leave! Oh... I don't know how much time should pass before I can talk about it calmly...”
They left on their own. “On April 4, we moved in a convoy of several cars. I was worried. I thought it would be worse. But it was scary inside. Emptiness and pain. Where to go, where to look for a safe place?”
At first, they stayed with friends in Oleksandria for a short time, then unsuccessfully sought shelter in Cherkasy. But eventually they ended up in Zhytomyr, where they have been living in a rented apartment ever since. Nadiya's parents also moved to Zhytomyr. “After a plane hit their house and damaged their summer kitchen, my parents were very scared. It was hard to leave the city. They also took two dogs with them. Thank God we are all here together now.
Mom and Dad are worried about their lost home. A house is a brick, I tell them. The main thing is that we are all alive».
Finding a job in the new city was not easy, Nadiya admits. “Often, when they heard that I was an IDP, unexpected problems appeared. Sometimes they would refuse without explaining the reason... And then, at a psychological training for internally displaced persons, Nadiya met a woman who was also internally displaced because of the war. They started a friendship. “And it was Olesia who advised me to try to submit my resume to the Family Support Center that had just opened. I can't tell you how happy I was when they confirmed that I would work here. I have turned to Caritas-Spes for support before, and I have always received it. I mean not only humanitarian aid for those who suffered from the war, but also a kind word and attention. And now I have the best team you can dream of.
They understand me and are sincerely interested in my work. And I am doing what I have always loved: working with children.
As it turned out, I needed this project as well – as a person who was at home and had not been able to realize my skills for a long time. This is a double support: I help and they help me. It means a lot.”
Nadiya's son Pavlo is seven years old. The little fidget is interested in everything he can. “He made my city out of plasticine, loves sports, and when he learns a poem by heart, he has to jump on one leg - he's very mobile,” Nadiia laughs. ”But the war and the fact that we left our city, of course, affected him. Sometimes he can cry and say, 'Mom, I have a toy left at home, I miss it so much... We'll buy new toys, don't be sad,' and I comfort him. Pavlyk has many friends, and as a mother, I am very happy about that.”
When asked what she dreams about, Nadiia says simply: that everything will finally get better. Both in our country and in the world. “I dream that guns will be banned everywhere in the world, so that no one can shoot anymore. I want everyone to go out and not be afraid that a missile or a drone might fly somewhere. No fear that your husband, son, or brother will go to war and may not return... For people to live their peaceful, normal lives.
A peaceful life will now a priori remain the biggest dream for every person, for every Ukrainian family.”
***
...Her Bakhmut is no more. The occupiers erased everything that was once a life.
“I have only two small albums with our family photos, which I threw into my suitcase at the last minute. We were leaving for a few months, we thought we would return...
When I feel sad, unbearably sad... I take the albums with our photos, which smell so much like my past life I sit in a quiet corner, close my eyes. And I imagine that I am sitting on my couch in our apartment in Bakhmut. I think I can smell the best smell of home in the world...”
The Zhytomyr Family Support Center operates within the framework of the Polish Aid program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. Caritas-Spes Ukraine has been implementing the project “Improving the quality of and access to psychological assistance for children and their families in Kharkiv, Odesa, Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia Family Support Centers in Ukraine” in cooperation with Caritas Poland since July 2024. At the Center, you can get support from a professional psychologist, a case manager's consultation, speech therapy, English classes, and various thematic workshops for children and adults.
The publication is the author's personal opinion and cannot be interpreted as the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.
Photo: Caritas-Spes and from the personal archive of Nadiya Zaichenko
