War. Stories from Ukraine

Ukrainians tell stories about their life during the war

“I woke up and that’s good, everyone in my family is safe and sound and that’s good, too”, Stanislav Sierhieiev, 36, Kharkiv

by | 26 March 2022 | Kharkiv, War. Stories from Ukraine

Illustrated by Liubov Miau

Stanislav Sierhieyev, 36, left Kharkiv on the eighth day of the war with his mother, wife and eight-year-old daughter. On the 27th day of the war, they left Ukraine. This brief story is about how each person and each family experiences this war in their own way, finds their own fragility and strength.

We talked in a Telegram audio call when the family was already physically in Warsaw, but mentally they still stayed in Kharkiv. Stas told me how on February 24 at about five in the morning he woke up from what sounded like thunder. Through the blinds he saw flares of missiles in the sky, “like fiery rain.” He switched on the TV. It was broadcasted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had begun.

In an instant, the fear came. The fear that the war had begun, that things would never be the same, and that you could lose everything: your home, your country, your life. But there was another thought right next to that: this is a residential area, they will not fire at houses. There is no military infrastructure here, he thought, just people living their lives.

It was Northern Saltivka (part of the Saltivka Neighborhood) with 400,000 inhabitants. The north of Kharkiv, one of the areas that were attacked first and have been affected the most. But Google Maps will preserve its pre-war image. There is a stream in Stanislav’s street. Such springs are often the only spot where people in the city can get water under shelling.

On the fourth day of the war, his father died. He had the last stage of cancer. Stas remembers the feeling of hopelessness. “I made sure that he was dead, took the child out of the flat and started calling the ambulance and the police. They weren’t picking up.” Kharkiv was being shelled, so the family could not take the body out for another full day. That’s how they lived: his dead father stayed in the room, and the family hid from the shelling and slept in the hallway or the bathroom.

In the beginning, he told his daughter that it was a fireworks display, but then he spoke frankly: “This is a war, evil people have come to capture us.” His daughter wondered: “Why did they come?” Then she was told that they had no idea, they did not understand why evil people do it. They did not go into details, so that the child did not develop hate.

Stas and his family did not intend to leave the city. In the early days, it seemed to them that they wouldn’t be affected and forced to run away from home. Stas even tried to work during shelling. He works remotely as a tester for an IT company. 

When the next door entrance was hit, he was in the apartment. “I heard a thud and shouted, ‘Mom, get out!’ I stood with my back to the window and mentally said goodbye to everyone. It’s like a second birthday for me.” His entrance was not affected, but the third and fourth were blown up.

“At this point, all your problems sink into the background. I woke up and that’s good, everyone in my family is safe and sound and that’s good, too. Our chats looked like this: ‘It’s banging,’ ‘I hear thuds.’ And then: ‘We have left,’ ‘Our entrance has been blown up.’”

The last straw was a dream. His daughter had a dream that a tank came to the playground and crushed her mother. “And I was standing alone and crying,” she said. Then Stas decided to leave Kharkiv.

On the day when his brother came to pick the family up by car, their house was being fired at. The metal door to the staircase was blocked, and neighbors tried to open it with hammers. A missile hit the gas pipe and a blaze broke out. They tied the broken car mirrors with hair bands to hold them together. That’s how they left the city: eight people and three dogs.

They lived in a village for two weeks, and then they returned to Kharkiv to take an evacuation train. “We arrived at the station, and as soon as the door opened, there was a siren. My wife hugged our daughter and stood there, waiting for the siren to die down. The child began to cry”.

The train was packed to the rafters, in the car there was an announcement: “Men travel standing up.” From the train window, Stas observed the ruins—the further west, the fewer there were. They arrived in Lviv in a day. And from Lviv, the company where he worked helped him move to Warsaw. For the first time in many days, the family slept without outerwear, and for the first time, perhaps in a month, they slept soundly.

Towards the end of his story, Stas said that there were more events in his life in the past month than in all the previous years. One thing he didn’t mention was that he was a wheelchair user.

Date of recording: March 26, 2022.

Translated by Yurii Vitiak

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