Katerina (36), Sergij (12), Zenja (1 year and 2 mo.)

April 8, 2022, Zilina. Day 43 of the war.

They came with four children. Katerina seemed stronger to me. She was optimistic and tried her best to pass it on. And not just on her sister-in-law. She said the words "Glory to Ukraine!" with such conviction and enthusiasm that she could hardly be questioned. Katerina and everyone else I have met have a great desire for peace and an endless belief that they will return home soon."

“We live in a small town in the Dnepropetrovsk region. Fortunately, there was no street fighting going on in that part of the country yet. Only missiles flew over our heads, while our defenders tried to shoot them down. The missiles fell on our housing estate 3 times. Everything was shaking, the glass rattled, the doors and floors were moving." 

"We left Ukraine mainly because we were worried about our children. We read what was happening in Irpin or in other places, how they were treating children there. We wanted to save them from all this." 

"We left our jobs there, our husbands. We hope that this nightmare will end soon so that we can return home. We were very well received here, we calmed down immediately upon coming here, we are already smiling and we can exist more or less happily now." 

"We came here last night. We left the Dnepropetrovsk region on April 5, there were huge traffic jams everywhere. The journey took us about 2 days. You come to the train station with your hands full, you have small children with you, a baby carriage, and you have to run with all that to get on the train. We didn't sleep during the whole train journey because we had to hold the children in our arms, otherwise we wouldn't fit in there at all." 

"Only the two of us came here - me and my sister-in-law - and our children, we each have two kids. We are a family, our husbands are brothers. My friends have already come to Slovakia and they told us, that we should come to Slovakia too, that it is good and safe here. So we listened to them. We are safe here. We love our country and we trust our troops. We believe they will win this war! Glory to Ukraine! We believe that everyone will survive!"