Illustrated by Tanya Guschina
“Yesterday I took off my tights for the first time in 12 days. I thought I would have to tear them off with the meat, much like I had to tear many things out of my heart in recent days. But the body is so compressed that, surprisingly, nothing sticks to it now. Not even blood. We spent 10 days under siege without light, heat, water, communication or access to news. We were two kilometers from Makariv, in Kyiv Region. It was one of the most hellish places in Ukraine. Yesterday we lost it and just walked out across the field under bombardment by Grad (multiple rocket launchers),” said Oksana Tunyk (36) after escaping from the occupation in the Kyiv Oblast with her family.
Before the war, Oksana Tunyk worked as a creative producer, inventing formats for television and movies. When the war broke out, Oksana and her family left the city of Bucha to visit her husband’s parents in the Makariv district. They were convinced that it would be completely safe there.
“Later, all roads out were blocked. Russian vehicles drove in, shelling began. From our shelter, we heard a column drive past, and it took two hours. That repeated three times. During the siege, I learned that if you so much as looked at a tank column, one tank would turn around and shoot you. That happened to the three neighbors on our street. I learned that if you tried to evacuate your children past the Russian troops, you would turn into minced meat. This happened to the family from the neighboring village.”
Shelling began at 5 am, so they would wake up early. Oksana says that it was very cold, but the fireplace was lit only in the morning: it was an additional source of light at night.
“We needed to heat the water, wash the dishes, cook food, bath our child every two or three days. When the shelling was farther away, we tried to play with our son. We read a lot, played games. We found a radio and tried to listen to the news. But most of the time was spent in the basement: the three-year-old son ran in a circle among the adults who made “barriers”, and the boy passed through them by saying the password: “Glory to Ukraine.” He would draw on the tablet for a few minutes, and we looked at the candle. We counted the shots.”
Oksana and her family are in the Khmelnytsky oblast now. She is exhausted. She says she is not afraid of losing her job or her house, but she is afraid of not being able to rebuild it all.
“I dream of returning home as soon as possible, even if there is nothing left but the foundation. I want to gather the whole family around the table and hug those I can’t hug right now. “
