On the morning of February 24 at 5:30 am, my ex-husband transferred money to me, and another explosion thundered somewhere far away … I didn’t even understand what was happening, no one writes in the work chat this early … But there was a message from my boss: “We are not going to work today, collect the necessary things and documents and be ready to go down to the shelter …” My worrying grew with every second. I had not yet read the news. An explosion thundered somewhere near the airport again. I called my ex-husband and he told me that the war had begun. I could not believe it. How is the war? Why war? For what?

On February 24, the whole city of Kharkov woke up at 5 am. I decided to stay at home, because I didn’t fully believe that the Russian troops would start shooting at residential buildings, but already at 9 in the morning my sister, who lived on Saltovka, called me saying that this area was bombed from the very first day. She asked me if she could come to me, “of course, you don’t even need to ask,” I answered. Immediately, my ex-husband offered us his private house, where there is a cellar…

At first we stayed in the apartment for a couple of hours, and then the siren went off and we heard shelling from the “Grad”, so we got scared, quickly packed, took the children and went to a private house. In the morning I went to work to help, because people could not get to work, and when I returned to the house, my ex-husband, the father of my son, went to war. And so I, my sister and two small children and 3 cats stayed in a private house with a cellar.

The siren went off again. We went down to the cellar, the shelling began … We sat in the cellar for 3 hours, got really cold, then we decided that we needed to bring heaters, blankets, food, and water in there. It got silent, so we decided to get to the house. The next day and two more we were running back and forth to the cellar and to the house.

The children got cold and so did we as well. We read in the news that it is dangerous to hide in the cellar. When we were going back to the house from the cellar, someone knocked on the gate, I automatically answered: “Who is there?” – no one answered… I got scared and called an imaginary husband so that he supposedly would help me. From that moment on, my sister and I walked around with pepper spray. 

We didn’t go for groceries, we collected supplies from 3 houses and decided to save money and food, because it was dangerous to go grocery shopping, there were queues to shops and humanitarian centers, we were scared to get under fire while standing for food. The curfew is from 6:00 to 16:00, but I didn’t sleep for several nights. We walked and listened to the silence. If the door creaked or someone slammed the door, we were immediately frightened, as if something had arrived. The whole village turned off the light and after dark, there was such silence, even the dogs did not bark, and in the morning the village came to life again.

Alena’s son makes a birthday wish just 10 days before the war starts

Chaos at the trains station in Kharkow

We got up at 5 am and went to the station with my sister and 2 children. It was a whole process to get on the train.

First it was necessary to get to the building of the station itself, then to go through one door that led to the platform to the train, then to stand in a queue before getting into the car of the train.

It was packed with people at the station. Screams and tantrums, women were feeding newborns right in this queue. As soon as that one door opened, people began to break down and crush each other. To stop this madness, the soldiers even shot into the air, demanding us to remain calm.

We stood there from the early morning. My sister could not stand it and went back home, my son and I stayed.

At 21:15 we went out the door to the platform, but were still waiting for the train. It started to rain, and we stood for another 3 hours. At 0:16 am we got on the train and went somewhere. That was a sitting train. Where there were 3 seats, 5 people were sitting there holding children in their arms. People just stood all the way to Lviv.

We didn’t drink tea or eat for a long time. Someone shared  a sandwich with me that volunteers gave at the station. I gave it to my son, and promised that when we get there we’ll rest somewhere and eat.

But in Lviv we were immediately put on a bus and we went to the border of Poland and there we stood the whole evening, night and day. For me it was even worse than the war. I wanted to return home, but I was already too far. In line at the border too there was a crush. It was cold. If you went to the toilet, when you return you should get back to the end of the line. We didn’t drink tea and didn’t eat for a day. There was a volunteer tent there, but there was a big queue. There was also a gas station. We went with my son to eat and drink tea there, but there was no tea anymore, so I bought him coffee with milk.

In the evening of the next day we ended up in a camp in Poland.

There were a lot of people, men and women and children. It was a dangerous place. It looked like some kind of market. My son and I went to the doctor, as we got sick while we were standing for almost a day at the Polish border and they helped us. Then I met Daniela. She is a volunteer in this camp. I told her my story, and she helped us. She said we could stay in the camp, have a rest and tomorrow we would decide what to do.

At the border in Poland

From the left: Alena, Natasha from Norway & Alena’s son Sergei

I didn’t have a voice at all. I could only speak in a whisper. We were fed, given some clothes and we went to bed. From fatigue and stress I hugged the little one and fell asleep. Then I woke up and found that my son was not around. I can’t tell you what I felt during these 2 minutes of searching. My son got up and went to bed next to another woman. He was calm, but he began to wake up at night and just sit or walk. I was very worried, but I thought it would pass. Until the morning I did not let him go from me at all. Then other children came and they began to play and by lunchtime my son looked much better. After lunch, we met with Daniela. She said that we could go to Denmark to her friends, and we said okay.

In the evening at about 9 o’clock a van came for us and took us to a big bus. We got on the bus and drove for 22 hours. We drove, and I didn’t know where. But we arrived at a very good place. We were welcome there, we saw prepared rooms with flowers and sweets. We arrived at night, but we were already safe. I felt that we were in a safe place. And finally I took off my dirty clothes and went to take a shower. I cried because I could take a shower. The last time I took a shower was when I was still at home in Kharkov. Then we went to bed, and in the morning we met these wonderful people who gave us a roof over our heads, clothes and food. Laptops were brought to the children and bicycles were given to everyone. I admired the mercy of these people because they truly treated our misfortune with love.