Olena (48), Anastasia (14)

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

Mother and daughter hug each other intensely as they recall their escape. They do not want to describe the details, as it is very painful and difficult to talk about. Tears of helplessness fill both of their eyes, although they try to mentally encourage each other. They try to focus on their future and solve the problems they encounter every day. They have no financial reserves. Since they left Ukraine, they are not entitled to financial assistance from their home country. Their house burned down, and they have nowhere to return. They depend on the help of others. They have been living in an asylum center since their arrival in Slovakia. It is difficult to find privacy or a quiet moment for oneself there. I meet them there again a month after our first meeting. Until they manage to save at least a little money, they won't get any further. Free accommodation is no longer available, and cheap one is hard to find.

Mother: “We moved to the basement when the war started, there we spent practically all the time until March 18. In the last days of our stay there, the fighting and bombing were very intense, so we hardly went out. We finally understood that we had to run away. It took us 2 days to secure the car. Even if you order a ride, it happens that no one comes. The car took us to the neighboring town of Bakhmuda, from where we traveled with volunteers all the way to Uzhhorod. When we arrived in Slovakia, our phone rang during registration at the police. We were informed that our house had been hit and was on fire. Now we don't know if we have anywhere to go back at all.” 

"To give you an idea of ​​what our shelter looked like: we lived in an ordinary 5-story block of flats. Basements were not adapted to serve as a war shelter. There was no electricity or water. We ate only what didn't spoil and what we managed to buy on the first day: bread, potatoes, bacon, instant pasta soups. No one sent us any humanitarian aid, we only ate once a day. The whole city was without energy, without gas, without heat. When we ran out of candles, we made our own from oil and butter. When we ran out of supplies, we sat in the basement in silence and in dark. It was -14 degrees outside and 20 of us lived in such conditions all that time. We were only able to fit in there because a large part of the people had already moved out in 2014. We lived in the Luhansk region, so fighting was nothing new to us. The fighting continues, and the city is disappearing before our eyes.” 

"We were still able to go to our apartments to get the necessary things and feed the dog and cat during the first days. Later, the explosions were so frequent that we were afraid to go out. We had no phone or internet connection, so even if something exploded in the city, we didn't know what was going on or where the troops had moved. In the end, we managed to arrange a ride. The car was small, it could take only 4 people. The next day it came back for the others. Of course, this evacuation was not free. It cost us 1000 hryvnias, and they only took us to a neighboring town. We had to look for a place to sleep there. Fortunately, they accepted us in the church for a few days. It was a Protestant church, the local pastor and volunteers were delivering humanitarian aid around the area. There began our journey to Slovakia, which lasted 5 days. We traveled by minibuses, different trains, which at that time were no longer free, as the evacuation trains were cancelled. We received humanitarian help only at the railway stations, where we were given food, otherwise  theere was nothing. Our whole family is here, nobody stayed at home.” 

Daughter: “My friends left town a few days later. Now they are hiding all over Ukraine. Some are in the Dnipro (author's note: Dnepropetrovsk - formerly Yekaterinoslav - the communists renamed it because Catherine the Great didn't fit their propaganda, originally Potemkin wanted to move the capital from St. Petersburg there), but there are also raids. However, I don't have more information about them yet, because the internet doesn't really work there. Most of my friends stayed in Ukraine, few went abroad.” 

Mother: "I worked at home as a notary office clerk. I have already started looking for a job, but I understand that what I was doing at home will not be possible here. First, I'll probably manage to find a job in a warehouse. We have already written the resume and sent it out. They told us they would find something for us.” 

"We have friends in Russia, but they have a completely different view of war than we do. They believe what is said on television. We cannot agree with them on this. They think that what is happening has its justification and that it is right. Of course we do not agree with them. Why should it be right to kill people and destroy our homes? We don't argue with them. Time will tell who is right. They sit at home in the warmth of their apartments with full bellies, it doesn't affect them in any way. We lost everything. So where is the truth? It is difficult to think about our future. We had plans, but today I don't even have anything to give my daughter.” 

"We came here on March 28, we really hope it will get better (crying). Even the daughter cannot continue her studies. They told her she doesn't know the language. In order to continue her distance learning at home, she must have submitted an application, and this can only be done in Ukraine. We just have to sit and wait. Even the papers that we could use here have already been burned, since the school was hit almost at the beginning of the war. It would be easier in Ukraine, you come there, and they take you to another school, but here you have no confirmation for anyone, which class she finished, what her level of knowledge is. It's very complicated.” 

"We can only tell the world what we have seen. A destroyed city, and bodies lying in the streets as there was no time to collect and bury them. Only endless lists of missing civilians are being created. When we left, the city was divided into two parts. One was still unoccupied, and the other was already under the control of the Russians. Some people flee to the West, and others are taken to Russia. This is how entire families were separated and broken in our city."