“I couldn’t even imagine leaving my own home. But at that time, I didn’t know a lot of things…”

My morning on February 24 began with a call from my friends. I was sleeping, while my family had been up since 5 am. My family wanted me to sleep longer because it was my day off. I heard my friend’s voice on the phone: “Katka, the war has started. Are you okay?”. I didn’t even realize what was happening. But I immediately heard explosions. My hometown of Kharkiv had been under fire since the morning. I did not believe until the last moment that this was possible.

Calls to friends and family, messages in common chats, echoing each other. I think we did this every 10 minutes, because it is extremely important to know and understand that your loved ones are fine, to hear their own voice in the phone.

We didn’t know what to expect next. I hoped that a few days would be over and that I would go back to work on Monday. But it didn’t happen that way. Many people were leaving the city. We realized that we were staying. I couldn’t even imagine leaving my own home. But at that time I didn’t know a lot of things. I didn’t know that my family and I would have to hide in a cold basement next to home-canned food and potatoes. In the few seconds that we ran there each time, I managed to tell all my friends that we were hiding in the basement because there was no connection at all.

I didn’t know that I would sleep in my jacket on the floor in the corridor, because the blast wave almost broke all our windows one evening. I did not know that going to bed would be very scary.

Why are you wearing a jacket? Because we didn’t know when we would have to run to the basement and how much time we would have, if any, because we had no electricity or heating for several days. It was very cold. And most importantly, I had to stay in touch and save my phone’s charge.

I had no idea that I would know what hailstones sounded like or how an enemy fighter jet was flying over the house. I didn’t realize that my city would be turned into ruins, that the things we are used to would become unattainable. But the worst thing is when your loved ones are far away from you, in the hellish Mariupol, and you don’t know what’s wrong with them and how they are. And all you can do is pray to God that everyone will stay alive. After a week of endless explosions, when it seemed that the ground was shaking under our feet, my family and I decided to leave the city with tears in our eyes. And although we are close to our native Kharkiv, our hearts ache. It hurts a lot. It hurts for our home. It hurts for a life that will never be the same again.

Kateryna, Kharkiv