Olesia (39), Rastislav (9), Liza (8), Timofej (4)

March 20, 2022, Studienka. Day 24 of the war.

Olha is from Dnipro. From the same city that was called Yekaterinoslav in the times before the communist era and to which Potemkin wanted to move the capital from St. Petersburg. Today, the Russian army is bombing it.

"The war has not directly affected us yet, we have only experienced anti-aircraft sirens and frequent runs to shelters. Nevertheless, we decided to leave because we were scared, we were mainly worried about the children. My parents, my friends are at home. We left without knowing where we were going, we didn't know if it would be Romania, Poland, Slovakia, we just ran away. I only took the children, a few things to change, a backpack, documents and birth certificates with me." 

"We tried to get on the train for two days. The first day there were too many people at the train station, we waited there for about 5 hours and then we returned home for the night. The next day we waited there from 7 in the morning. We were finally able to board the train at one in the afternoon. First they told us that we were supposed to go to Uzhhorod, then to Lviv, it was constantly changing. We were taken by bus to Poland from Lviv, There we were accommodated and fed in a small village near the border. Then they told us that the next train would leave at 5 and that it would take us to a city which name I couldn't remember. There we were received by volunteers and taken to the coordination center. We waited for a long time, there were lots of people. Later they put us on a train to Warsaw, where we waited for another 6 hours at the station and from there we went to Bratislava. A friend was waiting for us at the train station there and she helped us to find accommodation. We stayed in a different place for the first three days. It was very cold there, and it was not a suitable place for children. Then they took us here to Petra, we've been here for a week now. I travelled alone with my 3 children and my husband's sister. She has a friend here, so that's how we got here. My husband died a month before the war started. If he was still alive, we would probably stay at home with him. He was 34 years old and suffered a stroke on January 26." 

"My eldest son Rostislav started attending school here, as did his sister Liza. The youngest one, Timofey, is in kindergarten. We also get assignments from teachers in Ukraine, so we study together. My children love animals, rabbits, hens and a dog which they can play with  here. They eat everything, but they prefer sweets. We cooked our Ukrainian borscht, buckwheat here. It's difficult to find a job here, the jobs they offer are for 10-12 hours a day, and my kids are back from school at 4. I worked at the depot as a trolleybus safety auditor at home. I taught new drivers. I also have a trolleybus driver's license, but it is not valid in Slovakia. I don't know what kind of work I will be doing here yet."