Illustrated by Tanya Guschina
“We were driving down the streets that had turned into a graveyard of military equipment and vehicles. We took a turn in a different direction: there was an occupiers’ tank. Our car was shot at, and my dad did everything possible to save us. When our car hit something, I could tell that my Dad was still pressing the accelerator. Maybe he was already dead at this moment, his foot still pressing the gas. We were still alive. We had to get out,” says Ivanna Grabovlyak, 23. She lost her father during their evacuation from Hostomel. The rest of her loved ones barely survived.
Before the war, the girl lived together with her father, her stepmother Yulia and her stepsister Sasha in a private house. This was the place where the family hid from explosions: at first in the bathroom, later in a tiny cold cellar. “We brought all the blankets there and put on three sweaters each. My sister had bronchitis, her cough was terrible. On March 3, tanks broke the fence and were moving through the yard. Everything around us was on fire.”
The family decided to leave. “We took a neighbor with us. Dad was driving, Yulia was sitting beside him, I was in the back, my sister beside me, and the neighbor was behind my father.” Ivanna remembers the exact placement of everyone when the occupiers started shooting at the car as they were passing the next town, Bucha. This particular positioning saved the two sisters’ lives. Their father turned the car, putting its left side under fire. “I opened the door and started to run really fast. My sister was following me. Sasha was calling my name. When I turned I saw that there was something wrong with her arm. When I looked back, I saw that Yulia was running after us, then she fell. At that moment I thought that she was also killed. Then I saw the door to a cellar, I knocked and the people let us in.” Sasha and Ivanna entered first, then Yulia joined them: she was alive.
In this cellar, the nine year old Sasha fainted: she was wounded. A bullet hit the inner part of her arm above the elbow.
“On the road we were followed by a bloody trail. Someone was knocking on the cellar door, shouting: ‘Open up you, bitches!’ Then they fired two shots. We tried to stay as quiet as possible and they left.”
In this shelter there was a cell connection, so Ivanna asked for help on social media and called some people. “We were waiting, hoping so hard that someone would get us. Sasha was getting worse, her hand was getting dark and started to smell bad. It was good that some people there knew something about medicine. They cleaned the wound. My sister was hanging on, but she started hallucinating.”
Help wasn’t coming for two days: battles continued around them. Sasha’s family realized that she was one step away from death. The medic in the cellar bandaged her arm and convinced them it was necessary to carry the girl to the Bucha hospital under a white flag. There were no other options, no one could reach them, neither the territorial defense, nor an ambulance, nor the Red Cross.
“We were helped by an elderly man named Lyonya and a guy named Artem from the basement. The walk seemed endless. Explosions and gunshots were constant. It was like Russian roulette: you either survive or not. At the crossroad, they started shooting at our backs. I don’t think they missed, it felt like they were ‘playing’ with us.”
At the hospital they informed us that the girl’s arm had to be amputated. “They told us to go home. But we realized that home didn’t exist anymore”.
Ivanna found shelter across the street from the hospital. Her sister’s arm was amputated, the doctors tried to calm her down all night, and later her mom was allowed to stay with her. “I knew that they were safe, because wounded occupier troops were brought to that hospital. So they wouldn’t bomb it,” says Ivanna.
The people who let Ivanna in suggested leaving the town together when the town administration announced an evacuation. Ivanna hesitated, she didn’t want to leave Yulia and Sasha behind, but in the end she left. “I was praying the whole time. There were explosions, gunshots, tank troops coming towards us, checkpoints, incredible numbers of soldiers. They checked the cars, searched the trunks. When we reached the Zhytomyr Highway, we thought that we were saved, but the shooting started again. Something hit our car twice, leaving dents. Then a cell connection appeared and we saw Ukrainian checkpoints. Everything seemed so unreal!”
On the way to Lviv Ivanna was informed that Yulia and Sasha were evacuated. Thanks to the help of kind people and humanitarian funds, they are in Italy now. Sasha went through another surgery, now she is preparing for rehabilitation, and then she will get a prosthetic arm.
Only after ten days of being safe the emotions and awareness started to catch up with the girl. Ivanna knows that the occupiers are staying in Hostomel yards. “My home, my car are left there, I don’t know if they still exist. I still can’t comprehend that my father is not with us anymore. We couldn’t even find his body. He is a hero and I love him so much! He was our pillar of protection”.
Translated by Oksana Mekheda
