Anya is 34 years old. Before the war, she was a manager of a popular restaurant in Kyiv. Now she organizes work in volunteer kitchens using the facilities of a restaurant.
No professional chefs work next to her, but neighbors who have decided to help.
‘I have just texted in the chat of our house, where we usually solve household issues: we can open the kitchen and cook food for the military and hospitals. I did not expect so many people to answer the call. It turns out that a lot of people want to help the city; they just don’t know how to. To be honest, before the war I did not even recognize most of my neighbors, and in the last two days we all became friends,’ says Anya.
She recalls the first moments of the war: ‘I was like everyone else. I never imagined in my life that one day someone would wake me up in the middle of the night and say that the war had started.’
She and her husband had not found their bearings and had not left Kyiv in the first few hours. And then, after they weighed the pros and cons, they decided to stay for the closest people that were there: a sister who gave birth to a child 10 days ago and an old grandmother who is 90 years old.
‘There is nothing heroic in our decision to stay. We just knew perfectly well that if we leave, no one will take care of our relatives. And it’s worse for us not to be with them, not to be able to help than to wake up and fall asleep to the sounds of explosions and sirens.’
Anya says that now she feels mostly desperate and helpless but volunteering helps to cope with it, at least a bit.
Every day is like a ‘marmot day’. The whole family sleeps in the hallway, putting their shoes outside the door to run out faster in case of a strike. They wake up, eat, and work in the kitchen. In the evening, at home, they turn all the lights off, and for the first time in a day, they read the news rejoicing in small victories and feeling proud of the army. They pray.
After the war, Anya dreams of working a little less and spending more time with her family: ‘This war has shown that you can lose everything in a moment. It turned out that before there were so many priceless things: the opportunity to hug those who you love at any time, there was so much light and joy. But I was always worried about some work issues and didn’t even realize how much happiness there is in every moment when there is no war. ’
