Svitlana is a mother, an engineer, and a resident of the Kramatorsk city. After the beginning of Russian full-scale war against Ukraine, her life changed dramatically, as did the lives of many of us. Svitlana shares her experience of leaving Kramatorsk, living in Germany and returning to Ukraine.
Good afternoon. Please, tell us a little about your life before the full-scale invasion.
Before the full-scale invasion, I lived with my husband and two children in Kramatorsk. It’s my hometown, it’s where I was born and lived my whole life until this year. I worked as an engineer at a machine-building enterprise. We had a normal, stable life. That year, we had two graduations planned, the eldest daughter was graduating from school and the son graduated kindergarten. The daughter planned to enter the university in Kharkiv and the son was supposed to go to school, but it didn’t work out.
How did the war begin for you?
On February 24th we woke up to explosions: airstrikes were carried out on the Kramatorsk airfield. I jumped out of bed and realized that something very bad had happened. From that moment on, we didn’t know what to do. It was dangerous to go to work and I lost my job. The husband continued to work, but the amount of work was greatly reduced. After February 24th, life in the city changed a lot. Most shops and pharmacies were closed. Businesses and industry also almost stopped. A huge number of people were left without work, and therefore without the opportunity to feed their families. There was a mass evacuation from the city. We left at the end of March, the russians were already shelling Svitlodarsk (a town 80 kilometers from Kramatorsk) back then. At that time, the Russians captured cities one after another, and we were very afraid that our city might also be captured.
I left Kramatorsk with my two children and niece in March, but my husband, mother, and sister remained in the city. Of course, we were very worried about them, as the front line was getting closer and closer to our city. Kramatorsk was emptied – only 20 percent of its pre-war population remained in the city.
In addition to the curfew, which lasted from 6 pm to 8 am, a light masking regime was also introduced: after the sun went down, it was necessary to close the windows or turn off the lights. Also, there was no money in the ATMs, and in most shops that were still working, you couldn’t pay by card. So if you didn’t have cash, it was very difficult for you to buy anything. There was almost no food supply in the city, and therefore the shelves were quickly emptied. There were huge queues: for bread, salt, cereals. At that time, humanitarian aid had not yet arrived in the city.
Gas has been turned off in the city since April. Later, equipment from enterprises began to be taken out of the city. So, even if we decided to return to the city now, I wouldn’t have a job there, since most of the enterprises are not working. Now the city is constantly being shelled by the russians.
When did you decide to leave the city?
On March 15th, my colleague called me and said that our company was organizing the evacuation of employees and their families.
We lived on the eighth floor of a high-rise building, and the walls and windows of the building were shaking during shellings. On March 16th, we decided that it would be better for me and my children to go abroad in order to protect them. We left at around 3 pm on March 16th. We went to Lviv by evacuation train. When we arrived in Lviv, we breathed out a sigh of relief – the train did not come under fire. The volunteers welcomed us very warmly there: there were heating points, hot food, and we were put on buses to Warsaw. We crossed the border at night. I also remember the bus being so crowded that people were sitting on the floor, letting children sit on seats, or holding children in their arms. For example, I held the little one in my arms all the way from Lviv to Warsaw.
From Warsaw, we went to Bamberg, a city in Germany. The road from Kramatorsk to Bamberg took about three days. We arrived in Germany on March 19th at 3 am. For the first month and a half, my three children and I lived in a hotel. From May 1st, we lived in a hostel for two weeks. Somewhere in the middle of May, volunteers found us social housing where I, my children, my niece, and my colleague with her dog lived until December.
During the evacuation and the first weeks in Germany, I noticed that my youngest son began to go to the toilet very often and bruises began to appear under his eyes. His physical condition began to worsen. I asked the volunteers to make an appointment for my son to see a doctor. Turned out, he had type 1 diabetes due to the stress he had experienced. People with this disease need a special diet, as well as injections of the hormone insulin several times a day. At that moment, life changed dramatically again.
How did your children experience these events?
The children were very scared, especially during the shellings. While we were in Ukraine, we often went down to the basement or sat in the corridor, according to the rule of two walls. We put a sofa in the corridor and always stayed there during the air raid sirens. It was very difficult for the younger and the older to perceive what was happening, and both of them had shaking hands for a long time after the shellings. When we left, the children were not much calmer. The smaller one often cried because he was very afraid that his grandmother and father could be killed by a russian missile. I think the older one was also worried, but she didn’t show it.
When did your relatives leave Kramatorsk?
It was also a very scary day. On April 8th, my son and I were hospitalized in Germany. On April 8th, the russians shelled the railway station in Kramatorsk. About fifty people died then. Then we decided that our relatives needed to leave. On March 9th or 10th, my mother and husband left Kramatorsk and went to Cherkasy.
It is very dangerous in Kramatorsk now. Just a month ago, a rocket struck very close to our house. But I really want to go home. I really want it all to end and life to somehow normalize.
When did you return from Germany?
We decided that it would be easier for our family to be together than in different parts of the continent. It was very difficult to be so far apart, we missed each other, worried about each other. In December, I returned with my two children and my goddaughter to Cherkasy where my husband had previously moved from Kramatorsk.
We also couldn’t stay in Germany because of my son’s illness. He needs to see a doctor several times a year, and doctors in Germany often don’t speak English. In Cherkasy, my daughter entered the university majoring in “Construction and architecture” in order to rebuild our country in the future. For now, I mostly take care of my son’s health.
How did these events change you?
Life has changed a lot for everyone. For me, first of all, these changes are connected with my son’s illness. No one in our family had ever had such serious chronic diseases, and therefore my son’s illness was a shock to me at first. Of course, everyone has changed. They became sadder, the sparkle in their eyes disappeared. Of course, we still hope, but we also understand that life will no longer be as before. We understand that it is necessary to adapt to changes, to live on, but so far, it’s difficult.
My family and I really want to go home, but I understand that we may have to wait for a very long time to do it. I’m still worried that the russians might go on the offensive again, and we’ll have to go into the unknown once again. For now, we are in Cherkasy, and so far, everything is fine.
How do you see Ukraine after the war?
After the war, our country will recover and rebuild. People will also need to recover. Of course, our country will not be the same as before February 24th – after all, we all have changed, in some ways for the better, and in some ways for the worse. So the country will be different, as well. But I believe that everything will be fine.
Thank you for sharing your story. Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to heroes!
Translator: Zoriana Karpenko
