“When I realized I wouldn’t be able to take them with me, I carried them down to the basement. I just prayed over them. I didn’t even cry. Everything happened very quickly. We drove around town and loaded helpless 80-year-old grandmothers into the van. I couldn’t watch it. Our town was turned into a fire and collapsed houses. The tears didn’t start flowing until we got to safety.” he talks and stirs the fries in the oil. I encourage her that she and her son made the right decision. Who knows if they would be able to evacuate them from the city today, when the city has turned into a so-called kill zone – an area where nothing escapes the attention of attacking swarms of drones.
Drones outside the window
“You remember my kitchen, don’t you?” he says hastily. As if not! I helped her with coffee when we came to Natalija’s place as guests. She stares into space and begins to describe how she saw a low-flying drone from behind the stove outside the window. She got a better look – the drone had a large artillery shell attached to it.
“Such a bomb,” he shows the dimensions of the grenade with his hands. “Once we were bombarded for seven days straight! We hid in the cellar. I couldn’t even run out for a few minutes to sprinkle pigeon and feed the dogs.”
“You were worried about the pigeons?” I shake my head and enjoy the sandwiches.
“I’m still worried about them today! How are they living there? I’m afraid they died from the cold. You feed the animals, you grow flowers so you don’t go crazy there. God forbid you experience something like that. We’re running out of food. Shops aren’t working. No bread. We had some supplies. Grits and potatoes. We weren’t starving, but we were scared. Not every person can stand such stress. In the city there are only a few dozen people left to live. Some of them – you probably understand what they are,” he points out, running between the stove and the refrigerator.
“Are they really waiting for the Russians? Do they understand that they may not live to see it at all?” again I do not hide my surprise.
“I don’t understand it. I never would have thought how great human stupidity could be. When I left, she thought to herself: At last you are ‘free’ from me! Besides, I myself don’t like the word ‘shit’ (the one who is waiting, in this case for Russia, editor’s note). I also sat until the last moment. Maybe someone thought I was waiting too.”
Natalija stirs the fries with a spatula, and when she notes that they are ready, the apartment lights up sharply. We pass from fear to Huron laughter. They finally turned on the electricity. Natalija Mykolajivna immediately starts running around the apartment looking for a charger. Every minute with electricity is precious during the several-hour blackouts caused by the Russian attacks. Light steam rises from the hot delicacy above the kitchen table. She bought the plates and cutlery after they moved into the apartment. In charity, the family packed quilts, bed linen and towels, from which Nataliya Mykolajivna made a pillow during her first night in Kharkiv.
She couldn’t stop thinking that all this was left in her apartment.
“As they say: we came into the world naked and we leave it naked,” she sighs, urging me to taste the pickled vegetables she bought at the local bazaar.
“All my life I had two or three jobs. I saved every penny. I never asked anyone for help. The most important thing for me was that the children graduated. Everything was left in Lyman. An apartment, a cottage with a garden, a garage, a car. We lost everything. One bomb, the second, the fifth, the tenth. I stopped counting. All our windows were blown out. Can you imagine? They ground everything. All my preserves were left at home, too jams. Maybe the locals will find them,” she hopes that at least someone will benefit from her delicacies. Her friends also helped her when she found refuge in Kharkiv. She describes how they called her to ask what she needed.
“The first night in this apartment? We spread out the divans. I immediately fell into the duvets. I was completely exhausted. The next day I started cleaning. I told myself that there are people who are worse off. We have hot water. After arriving, we went shopping – the basics were dishes and groceries. At first I didn’t even know what and how to cook. I’m not used to cooking in other people’s pots. My work colleagues sent me packages with potatoes, cabbage, carrots. I was ashamed to ask for the address! The most important thing is that we have a place to wash and nothing else to eat,” she says.
I look around again – at the windowless apartment. For the resettled family, it is a temporary housing solution that they can afford to pay for now.
First aid to neighbors
Natalija Mykolajivna finally admits that things may not have gone well in Lyman.
“At the end of November, I was still on Masliakovka. I went there on a bicycle. Not a soul anywhere. Only drones. I went to look at the cabin one last time and cry. When I returned, Serjoža absolved me of why I was taking such a risk,” she says, acknowledging that her son Serhij was right – it was extremely dangerous to move around the city.
She herself knows how. Serhij, who found himself in the vicinity of the drone attack, did not avoid injury. Shrapnel injured his neck and thighs. Even yesterday, she noticed that Serjoža’s hand was swollen – one of the fragments that remained in the body made itself known. Although she describes the injury of her son, who was taken away from Lyman by ambulance after the attack, as the biggest shock of her life, she adds in one breath that she witnessed other, similarly dramatic events.
Coincidentally, she was also in the kitchen. Suddenly she heard someone shouting her son’s name. He just left for work. The frightened mother ran out into the street, thinking that her son was injured again. Instead, she saw the sight of a neighbor lying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood, his arm torn off, and he was losing consciousness.
“My head is spinning. I’m calling the ambulance. The woman on the other end is driving me nuts. Then a soldier appears and takes my mobile phone. He loads it properly. In short, we call the first aid. The soldier wraps a belt around the wounded man. Suddenly I see two more local people sitting on a bench in front of the entrance. Also our boys. Blood is flowing from them, their legs were completely battered. It turned out that they were in a car that the drone hit. I didn’t know where to jump. I don’t know how I managed it. I’m terribly afraid of blood,” she describes.
Drone attacks on civilians were not unique in Lyman. Natalia’s neighbor has been in the hospital for two months after the Russians threw a grenade at the car she was riding in. The blast crushed her collarbone and shoulder blade. Her husband lost his toes. Natalia Mykolajivna was infuriated by the cynicism of the Russian soldiers. After all, they have to see what and who they are trying on their tablets! What did a grandfather or a woman who went to a neighboring town for bread do to someone?
“How we had a nice life in Lyman. And I thought we lived poorly. I always wanted us to be better off. Only now do I realize that we had everything. I came home from work, I went to the lake with my friends to swim. We had a great group. We met all the time. We sledded in the winter, went for mushrooms in the summer. Today our forest does not exist. It is burned, bombed out. The Sahara is covered with anti-drone nets, which are entangled in them,” sighs Natalija Mykolajivna.
The muffled sound of a siren penetrates the apartment from behind the boarded-up window.
“Twilight has fallen, the litanies are beginning,” says Natalija and once again tempts me with fries, pancakes and hot coffee.
