Life stories
“We would wash bed linen at our homes – and these were whole bags of it”: how…
As a shelter volunteer at the St. John Paul II Catholic Church in Lviv, Ms. Bronislava has heard dozens, maybe hundreds of stories. Stories of homes being gone, of leaving everything behind, of worry about those who stayed.
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The cats were the first to fall behind, and the dogs held on longer. I look…
Her town was wiped out by Russian aggressors. The only thing left of Mariinka are the foundations of houses and memories. Yuliia keeps these memories in her heart. They are her fragile talisman and amulet.
read moreWhen my son says: "Mom, you are the queen!" I forget everything. How…
Svetlana’s hometown in Ukraine is unrecognizable today. In Rubizhnye in the Luhansk region, barely a house remains, and in the former cozy courtyards and playgrounds you see only graves. Svetlana experienced both incredible happiness and…
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“We are alright now, but in our thoughts, we are back home.” Agnia Bohun from…
On February 24, 2022, Agnia Bohun woke up at dawn in her Kharkiv home to explosions. The air was roaring and houses were collapsing. Not far away, high-rise buildings were turning into charred skeletons. “We packed emergency suitcases and…
read moreMy passport is all I could get, says 80-year-old Polina from Mariupol
Ms. Polina, 80, still remembers the scents and sounds that filled her home in Mariupol. The clock ticking, the creaking of the floor in the room, and the hissing of the kettle in the kitchen as she brewed her morning tea. She remembers the…
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Laughter Offers Free Medicine in War: The story of a family from Chuguyev
The city of Chuguiv, 20 km from Kharkiv, became a zone of intense shelling almost from the first day of the large-scale invasion.
read more"Olha, take our child, we have to get away from here. The Kadyrovites have…
After the liberation of Sloboda village in Chernihiv region from the invaders, seven-year-old Ivanko learned to smile again and planted a "tree for victory"
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To survive death
This story won`t have photos, except two of them – a portrait of a person who has experienced the horror, and the photo of this horror. This story doesn’t have an end, except the hope – that someday a normal life will return. This story…
read morePeople of the dungeon: A family from Kharkiv lived in a basement for 200 days
It is cool and drafty in the basement of this 16-story building on Northern Saltivka. Dusty communication pipes stretch along the walls, wires hang from the ceiling. It is hard to believe that people lived in these conditions for a long…
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"I've had a dream to help children with special needs. When we had a…
It is easy to get lost in Odesa courtyards - there are lots of similar doors. So Mrs. Valentyna's coming out to meet us and inviting us to the house. Here, in a rented apartment on the ground floor, she has been living with her husband,…
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That day, the church in our village burned down from shelling. Then it came to…
Late autumn in the village is the time to finally catch your breath. The vegetable gardens are done, the harvest is in safe storage, you can safely wait for winter.
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