A little over a week ago, the life of all Ukrainians changed radically. Because of the Russian occupiers, the daily routine depends on air raid sirens announcing potential attacks: people have learned to live in the basements and shelters, sleeping in turns and eating once a day. No one reads or watches anything except the news feed. The quality of people's communication has grown to unprecedented heights – people have become, if not a family, then at least each other's best friends. Apostrophe interviewed people in Kyiv about how they survived the first week of occupation horrors and how they maintained their faith in victory.
Oksana is from Donetsk. In 2014, she and her young son moved to Kyiv because, according to her, she did not want to "live in Russia."
"I'm Ukrainian, and I don't need this "Russian world." Because of Putin, I have already left home in Donetsk. I want to live in Ukraine, and I don't need any Russia here," the woman told Apostrophe.
In Kyiv, Oksana settled down, rented an office and began to provide cosmetologist services, her son grew up, and the woman found her happiness. Her life was perfect: favorite job, success, weekends in nature, and vacations at sea. On February 24, Oksana felt the déjà vu: the "Russian world" caught up with her for the second time with explosions and shelling. This time in Kyiv.
"We woke up to the sounds of the explosion, and realized that we are f***ed," says Oksana. "At first, we didn't know what to do, we stayed at home, read the news. Then we started hiding. We have a basement in our house, that's where we went with all the things, sat there for two days, but then we decided to flee Kyiv because it's impossible to stand it for so long. We believe in our guys, glory to Ukraine!"
It was scary to leave Kyiv - Victory Avenue had already been broken and blocked. She had to go by the bypass roads.
"We were stopped at the checkpoints by the guys from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they asked if everything was fine with us, wished us a happy road. We thanked them," recalls the woman.
Unlike Oksana, Olexander, a native of Gorlivka, stayed in Kyiv. He is a taxi driver, and one of the few who was working in the first days in order to transport citizens through empty streets of the capital.
"People have to go, bur transport doesn't work. Many young people go to the station, women with children as well. My wife is worried, of course. She says to stay at home," Olexander shares with Apostrophe.
Olexander says that he decided to stay in Kyiv in principle.
"After all, I ran away from bullets once. This time, I don’t want to. I’ve had enough, otherwise, it turns out that Putin constantly harassing me out of my house. Ukraine is my home, and I have every right to it. We live in Obolon, and we constantly hear explosions. At such moments, we hide in the bathroom, hug, and it becomes easier for us," the man shares.
The taxi driver remembers with bitter irony how he complained about traffic jams on the streets of Kyiv. And now it's empty - drive as you want.
"Now the traffic jams are formed with tanks," Olexander says ironically. "And now I dream of those traffic jams and past life."
Iryna says she doesn't go to the shelter. Firstly, it's far away, and secondly, there are too many people there.
"We have a basement in our house, but everyone doesn't fit there, because the house is very big - 25 floors," says Iryna. "My husband and I live on the 10th. Hiding in the bathroom, once we went down to the first floor. We stood there for about 15 minutes and went back."
The woman says she didn't believe until the last moment that Putin would attack Ukraine.
"I have a friend who left a week before the attack. We laughed at him, and he told us: We'll talk in a month. We thought he was an ordinary alarmer then, and now it's annoying to admit how wrong we were," says Iryna.
"February 24, 2022, will be remembered forever," 23-year-old Karina tells Apostrophe. "The day before I had a very busy day: after work I went for a walk with friends and came back home late. Somewhere closer to one o'clock in the morning, I was already going to bed, barely holding on my feet. And through the dream, I see a notification in the telegram - someone attacked someone and shot something already. I got sick, I literally threw up."
The girl says that the first thing she experienced was confusion.
"I didn't know what to do. Run or hide in the darkest corner of your apartment and not get out of there? My boyfriend and I decided to stay in Kyiv for the first day, to see what happens. I'll never forget the first night. I didn't sleep, I didn't let my mobile phone out of my hands. Suddenly, information came from somewhere that at 3 a.m. Kyiv would be attacked with air bombs, and we sat and waited for 3 a.m. to come. The next day, my boyfriend and I decided to leave, we packed our things - but we couldn't leave. We realized that it's better to stay in Kyiv, and now we spend most of our time in the shelter, near the subway station by my boyfriend's house. Sometimes, when the alarm is off, we run out to the store to get the necessary things home, or take a shower, " says Karina.
In the shelter, people mainly play games and flip through the news feed. They also communicate with other people, a lot of young people.
"There are a lot of children. I try to pay attention to them, calm them down, play games. The children are great, they also hold up, the older ones support the younger ones. A very touching story was when a girl about eight years old calmed her sister, who was four years old. The little one cried that she wanted to go home and that she was uncomfortable here. And I cried because of how that older girl hugged her and asked her to be patient that it would end soon, and they would return home," says Karina.
Kateryna is convinced that in these difficult moments she is needed here. Therefore, despite the opportunity to leave the city for Poland or Transcarpathia, she stayed at home.
"It's just a pity to leave the apartment, a bunch of pleasant memories and things, I have no idea how I'll go and leave it all here. Kyiv, my country needs me, and I need them. This is my house. We group with our neighbors, take turns going to the store, help with food for those who find it difficult to walk - the elderly and the disabled. It's a pity that such sacrifices are needed to unite people so tightly. But we believe in our defenders and that this horror is not for long," says Kateryna.
Faced with occupation horror, Ukrainians revealed their potential and became superheroes. There is a well-founded hope that it is this collective energy of love for your home and people that will become stronger than the occupier's desire to destroy our people.