In February 2022, during the first 10 days of the occupation, we did. not leave Bucha immediately, because… Because I didn’t think it would be like this. We sat in the basement, listening to the rockets fly overhead, trying to figure out where the explosion was-on Irpenskaya or on Shevchenko, the house was shaking. When it subsided, we went up to the toilet in the apartment. No – we went to the bucket. My son was then 13 years old, my daughter-6. My son already understood how to behave, and I told the little one: “Daughter, this is war. Now we have rules: if I don’t say anything, then do whatever you want. But if I say “lie down!” – you need to lie down immediately, in a second, without questions “why, where, and you can do it in 5 minutes”. She understood everything, she turned out to be a good girl, for all 10 days – not a single tear.
I read on my phone that in a neighboring village, in a house, Kadyrov’s men raped all the women. And I was struck by the possibility that they might come here and the children would see it. It wasn’t so scary that a rocket would come at us — it was fast, once – and that was it. Here’s what can happen… The next morning I tell my husband: that’s it, I can’t do it anymore, I have to leave. It was March 5, as it is now clear – the most terrible day for Bucha. First we went by car. At some point, they turned almost at random to the right from Vokzalnaya Street, onto a dirt road. Then it turned out that another 15 meters later there was a Russian checkpoint at this Railway station. The bus that was following us-there was a volunteer there, Zhanna, who was transporting people, two children and three women-was shot.
… We went to the bridge, everything is booby-trapped, Ukrainians are standing on the side of Irpen, we are shouting: “It’s us, it’s us, don’t shoot!”… As soon as we passed the checkpoint, some part from the tank broke through the gas tank. And from Irpen to Kiev we walked – the children, my husband, me, our dog. How many kilometers are there – 10? 15? My husband wanted to put us on a train, but the railway was bombed, and that train derailed. We went under fire, fell, sometimes in the mud, this is the beginning of spring, everything is melting. We came to Kiev – everything is calm and quiet there, and people shy away from us, we look like homeless people. It was a strange feeling: in Butch-pitch-black hell, and here as if normal life.
We spent the night in Kiev and boarded a train to western Ukraine. The train cars are packed, people are standing in the aisles. The guide insisted: I won’t let you go with the dog, I have velour seats here. Malaya threw her a tantrum: “It’s not a dog! This is my brother! I’m not going without him! ” For the first time, she burst into tears. I won back the dog, my husband went with him in the vestibule as a result. We spent a month and a half in the Khmelnitsky region. We accidentally found people who had a house in Kamyanets-Podilsky, and they took us in. I’ll never forget that kindness. The neighbors came, they didn’t even ask our names, they probably saw how hard it was for us in our eyes. They just put us bags with clothes, with groceries, with some things. When we said goodbye, we all cried. We still call some of them back. We returned to Bucha-thank God, the house is intact. They opened it, but they didn’t take anything. At first, I thought we could live here normally, as we used to. They couldn’t. All the same, fear, anxiety, panic – as if all this is a shadow behind you.
I was given the contacts ofPristanište, I wrote – it turned out that at that moment all the numbers were occupied. But I already understood intuitively what we need here, in Montenegro. We found a hotel in Becici, rented it for a week – and in the end I got a job there as a receptionist and maid, we lived there for almost six months. There were no complexes that I, a manager in my specialty, was washing rooms and scrubbing toilets. I, on the contrary, took it as a chance. And there was no resentment that there was no place for us in Pristanište either – I understood that we were not the only Ukrainians in the world who suffered from that war. When I read the announcement that the foundation is looking for volunteer guides for those children and women who come here from Sumy or Kharkiv to take a two-week break from the war, I thought I could help them.
I love history. I read a lot about Montenegro and Budva. I love walking – I’ve climbed all the interesting places myself, the mountains — it’s a delight in general, it takes my breath away there, just like when I was a child. Sharing all this with other people is a joy for me. And these people are just as tired, tormented by panic and fears, as I was myself. Even harder. At the beginning of the war, everyone was terrified, in shock, but they believed that it would soon end. Just a little more – and everything is as before. No one believes in anything right now. All in apathy, in a kind of stupor. Small children – they do not even know or remember what a peaceful life is. Only here, in Montenegro, it is seen again. And the adult women who come with them-they sometimes behave like teenagers. In March, they climb into the sea to swim, fool around, splash on each other. I understand them. It’s such a longing for happiness…
And one woman – we went to Mogren then, looked from the fortress at Budva and around-said to me: “God, Anya, thank you. I just now, right now, allowed myself to realize and feel all this beauty. Before that … well, how can I tell you… it seemed to me that my son was killed, and I came here at his expense, as it were. I’m here because he’s gone.” Then she burst into tears. It was a good thing she was crying – maybe she would cry a little, it would be a little easier.
My little one, she often complained in Ukraine: my heart hurts. We checked, of course, went to the doctors, but no one found anything. I knew it wasn’t her heart that was hurting, but her soul. Here, she didn’t think about it once. So her soul is recovering.
Interview recorded
