The day after Christmas, I went up and visited some friends north of Kyiv. We used to live in this area, so I knew some of these people pretty well. This is also an area that occupied for the first two months of the war and has had a really hard time recovering. We had some things that we wanted to take up so that life, literally, wouldn’t be quite so dark.
I had only heard how Bogdon’s parents were, and honestly they looked healthier than I expected them to look. Kolya’s house had been destroyed during the occupation, so I was curious to see how they were adjusting. And just a few days before, Anya’s mom had said that they went 3 days with no power, and her apartment was 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
These people lived through 2 months of Russian occupation. I didn’t really know where to start asking them about their experience. But each of them had something that they wanted to say without my prompting. Anya’s mom was very grateful for the food that we had been able to send to them via Bogdon. During the occupation, the Russian’s had shipped in food, but most of the people in her town had refused to eat it because to do that would mean that they would have to participate in Russia’s propaganda. But even still, when her grandson comes over, she is only able to make simple meals. It breaks her heart when he asks, “Grandma, can’t you make pelmeni and the other things you used to make?”
I knew that Kolya’s house had been destroyed. My understanding was that it was hit by an incendiary tank round. However, Kolya told me that he was pretty sure that it was a rocket, though he wasn’t 100% sure since the house completely burned down. They were all home that night, and heard the rockets being fired. They had a root cellar that you could access inside of the home, and so they started moving the family down below. While they were still getting everyone down, Kolya heard a very loud explosion, and he thought that the house had been hit. Then a deafening explosion hit. Kolya was positive that this one hit the house. He quickly changed plans and pulled his family out of the cellar and out of the house, where they watched it burn down.
After this, Kolya, his wife and four kids moved in with Kolya’s mom in the same town. But that was very stressful for his mom, and so they moved out into the home where our partners Vitalik and Lena used to be house parents. There are empty homes out there.
Being very close to the Belarussian border, but also being in a small village, they weren’t targets for the Russian forces, but they often saw shells and missiles going over head. They all remember the day when Russian forces fired rockets that flew what felt like just over the rooftops of their homes. Bogdon’s parents, who are their neighbors, also remember that day. They said that it felt like the rockets were flying between the houses.
When the Russian forces took over the area to the north of Kyiv, the people there lost power, they lost phone service and internet. A few weeks into the occupation, the Russian deigned to allow the grocery store to be open for an hour a day, though there wasn’t any fresh produce. Women had to go shopping as well, because the Russian soldiers would shoot at any male that was seen on the street. Anya’s mother lives in the same town as Kolya and when she was finally able to speak to Anya two months into the war, Anya’s mom talked about how hard the lack of information was. They didn’t know if all of Ukraine had been taken over, they didn’t know if any of their loved one were alive. They didn’t know if Russia had nuked the country and there was nothing left but their corner of the country. Their imaginations played some pretty wild games with them during that time of sitting and not knowing. The past few months, as Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s power infrastructure, we have bought as many emergency radios as we could, and the people in the Ivankiv area have been the most grateful to receive them simply because they know exactly what it is like to go for months with no news that you can trust. Everyone that I met in this area is at least nominally preparing for another occupation, and those radios are a lifeline for them.
But the Russian forces didn’t stay forever. Kolya and his family were still in their hometown when the Russian forces evacuated in April. They couldn’t believe it at first, and it still seems unreal. The night before, they had actually prayed as a family that God would just take the Russian forces away. The next morning, they woke up and there was no sign of the Russian forces. They were in shock, it felt like a dream and they were all convince that it was. They were going to wake up and the would still be in occupied territory. They asked around and people confirmed that the troops were gone. Then, some neighbors told them that people were gathering in the center of town because the Ukrainian army had showed up. Kolya said that he understood the words these people were saying, but he couldn’t understand what they were talking about. It simply wouldn’t register with his brain. He described going to the center to see for himself. He saw what people were talking about. Ukrainian soldiers had arrived, the Ukrainian flag was being flown. But even all these months later, his brain had a hard time accepting what had happened right in front of him.
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